Under the new law, FERS employees will receive a boost to their retirement annuity based on the amount of sick leave they have saved over the course of their federal careers. Like their counterparts in the Civil Service Retirement System, covered employees will have their accrued leave factored in their annuity calculation upon retirement.

Here’s how it works. Once an employee becomes eligible to retire, their accrued sick leave will be credited toward his/her years and months of service. For example, before the benefit was signed into law, if a federal employee worked for the federal government for 30 years, earning a high three of $70,000 and garnering 6 months of sick leave, his/her retirement annuity would be 1.0% x 30 x 70,000, or $21,000 per year.

With this new benefit included, the same employee would have their annuity calculated 1.0% x 30.5 x 70,000 or $21,350 for the year. That’s an extra $29.17 cents in his/her pocket every month upon retirement.

There is a catch, however, but only in the short term. Though the sick leave benefit will go into effect immediately, it will not do so in its fullest capacity. There will be a four-year phase in period during which retiring FERS employees will receive only half credit for their unused sick leave. Federal employees can expect to retire with the full benefit on or after January 1, 2014.

“We are very pleased that FERS employees will finally be given credit for their unused sick time,” said NFFE Legislative Director Randy Erwin. “Establishing this good government benefit has been a top priority for NFFE. Now our retirees are going to have a little more money in their pocket because they were dutiful in their service and rarely used sick time. They earned that benefit, and now they will get something for it.”

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Today, President Obama signed the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act. Included in the bill was a provision to repeal the controversial National Security Personnel System (NSPS). The bill also contained several small provisions impacting retirement benefits for the federal workforce.

The NSPS provisions in the bill dictate a repeal of the system, and a conversion of the over 200,000 covered employees back into existing pay systems by January 1, 2012. NSPS workers will be guaranteed the full annual GS pay adjustment over the transitional period.

Also included in the Defense Bill are provisions offering employees enrolled in the Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) credit for their unused sick leave upon retirement, and extending locality pay to workers stationed outside of the mainland United States – both critical NFFE priorities.

Full Story

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“The House quickly passed in a 307-97 vote the Senate’s version of H.R. 1256 on Friday — ending hopes that a conference committee between the two chambers could add federal workforce provisions that were stripped from the bill during legislative wrangling.

Unions including the National Federation of Federal Employees had urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to schedule a conference committee to add language from the House’s original version, which would have allowed workers in the Federal Employees Retirement System to count unused sick time toward their annuities.

Other provisions that didn’t make it into the final bill included measures to make it easier to rehire federal retirees part time; modified how the Civil Service Retirement System calculates annuity payments for employees who retire as part-time workers; and moved federal employees in Alaska, Hawaii and U.S. territories from cost-of-living adjustments into the locality pay system.”

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=42937&dcn=todaysnews

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