Section menu. LWOP, or leave without pay, may be used instead of paid leave for various purposes with supervisory approval. Extended periods of leave without pay may affect health and retirement benefits, future pay adjustments, and leave accrual, however. LWOP can be used regardless of whether the employee has sick or annual leave remaining, but those who accumulate more than 80 hours will have their annual and sick leave balances reduced by the amount they would have earned during the pay period when the hour mark was crossed.
Health and life insurance coverage continue, subject to specific cutoff requirements in both programs when an employee has accumulated a year of LWOP status. Agencies must provide employees entering leave without pay status, or whose pay is insufficient to cover their Federal Employees Health Benefits premium payments, with written notice of their opportunity to continue their FEHB coverage.
Employees who want to continue their enrollment must sign a form agreeing to pay their premiums directly to their agency on a current basis, or to incur a debt to be withheld from their future salary. Reservists returning to active duty should refer to SOP Aa. The authorization of LWOP is a matter of administrative discretion.
Eligibility for LWOP is not dependent on a specific length of service and may be authorized whether or not the employee has an annual leave credit.
An employee on LWOP remains in an active appointment and subject to government standards of conduct. Such an employee may not be offered or accept a contract with the U.
Government either directly or indirectly for government services, coinciding in time with an appointment. See 3 FAH-1 H for further information and procedures. Various employee entitlements are affected by LWOP status, including the accrual of annual and sick leave. For example, when a full-time employee with an hour biweekly tour of duty accumulates a total of 80 hours of nonpay status either in one pay period, or over the course of several pay periods , the employee will not earn annual and sick leave in a pay period.
If the employee again accumulates 80 hours of nonpay status, the employee will again not earn leave in the pay period in which that new hour total is reached. An employee may request LWOP to be absent from work for any reason including for purposes related to pregnancy, childbirth, adoption, or foster care , or to bond with or care for a child. LWOP may be granted for periods of 30 calendar days or less for any reasonable purpose. An employee may be separated if required to be absent for more than 1 year unless there is cause to expect recovery and return within a reasonable time after the end of 1 year in LWOP status.
The separation of an employee after 1 year of continued absence with or without pay does not prevent an eligible employee from filing an application for retirement also see Injury in line of duty. Supervisors must advise employees of their right to file an application for FECA benefits as a result of illness or injury that is suffered in the line of duty. In traumatic injury cases, an employee is entitled to a maximum of 45 calendar days of continuation of pay COP without charge to leave if written notice of injury is filed within 30 days of injury.
The period during which 45 days of COP may be claimed must begin within 90 days of the occurrence of the injury but may end after 90 days from the occurrence.
If, after returning to work subsequent to an apparent recovery from a traumatic injury, an employee is again absent from work as a result of the original traumatic injury, the employee may use any remaining COP time left up to the 45—day limit. However, the remaining COP time must be used within 90 days of the date the employee first returns to work following the initial traumatic injury.
An employee may choose sick or annual leave in lieu of COP; however, this leave may be retroactively converted to COP provided a request is made within 1 year of the date the leave was used or the date of the claim approval, whichever is later.
Before being placed on LWOP, an employee may choose to use annual or sick leave until it is exhausted. Leave is earned during that part of a pay period in which the employee is in pay status. On favorable adjudication of a claim by OWCP, current employees may be permitted to buy back the leave that they used while awaiting adjudication see If the injury is a traumatic injury, only leave used after the end of the 45—day COP period may be bought back. OWCP does not restrict the amount of leave hours an employee may buy back.
However, Postal Service regulations do not permit employees to carry—over into the next leave year more than the allowable maximum number of hours of annual leave see When an employee buys back annual leave in the previous year in an amount that exceeds the applicable maximum carry—over, such excess will be automatically forfeited.
For every 80 hours of leave bought back and changed to LWOP, both annual and sick leave must be adjusted by the amount earned in a pay period. Family care see Military duty for scheduled drills or for periods of training.
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