There’s nothing more infuriating than a know-it-all. Especially one who not only is wrong, but occupies a position in which it’s his or her job to know better. For example, someone from the Human Relations office (formerly known as a personnel specialist).
Case in point. One of them recently told an employee that while he would be able to get credit in his annuity computation for any sick leave balance he had to his credit when he transferred to FERS, he wouldn’t get credit in his FERS annuity computation for any sick leave he had earned after the transfer.
Where had this HR person been? While the law creating FERS had barred its retirees from receiving any credit for their unused sick leave, Public Law 111-84 changed all that. Now any FERS employee retiring after October 28, 2009, will receive half credit for it through December 31, 2013, and, after that, full credit.
It was déjà vu all over again. Once upon a time, no employee got credit for unused sick leave when he retired. Then at the request of Congress, OPM’s predecessor, the Civil Service Commission, did a study and learned that employees were burning off sick leave during their careers, ending with a five-alarm fire as they approached retirement. So the law was changed and sick leave use plummeted. Surprise!
You’d have thought the folks on the Hill who drafted the FERS Act would have been aware of that when they barred employees in the new system from getting credit for unused sick leave when they retired. Either they weren’t aware or they were simply in a money saving mood. Giving credit for unused sick leave costs money.
A subsequent study by the Congressional Research Service revealed the obvious. If an employee doesn’t get credit for sick leave when he retires, he has no reason to store it up. So once again, a "no-credit" law had to be overturned. Only this time it was phased in rather than implemented overnight.
