If you are enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program, your enrollment will continue for a maximum of 365 days while on LWOP. Image: miniartkur/Shutterstock.com
By: Reg JonesLeave without pay (LWOP) is a temporary absence from duty that you have the right to request.
While the approval of LWOP is a matter of supervisory discretion (unless limited by agency internal policy), just be aware that you have the absolute right to take it in certain situations.
For example, you can take 15 days per fiscal year for active or inactive duty training in the armed forces. And you can carry over a maximum of 15 days into the next fiscal year.
For civilian pay and benefits purposes, that time is treated as if you were still on the job.
If you are called to active duty in the armed forces for an extended period of time, you are entitled to be on LWOP as long as your official orders require you to be.
OPM’s regulations implementing the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Act (USERRA) state that “an employee performing service with the uniformed service must be permitted, upon request, to use any accrued annual leave, military leave, earned compensatory time off for travel, or accrued sick leave (consistent with the statutory and regulatory criteria for using sick leave), during such service.”
The regulations go on to say that leave may be used “intermittently with leave without pay while on active duty or active/inactive duty training.”
Importantly, when you return to your civilian job your agency can’t reassign you to a job other than the one you left. Further, you will be able to make a deposit to get credit for any period of service when you were on LWOP.
If you are enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program, your enrollment will continue for a maximum of 365 days while on LWOP. The government will continue to make its contributions to pay for your premiums and will advance money from your future earnings to cover your portion of the costs. You’ll have the option of paying that portion on a pay-as-you-go basis or have your agency deduct it from your pay when you return to work. And you can make a lump-sum payment if you want to.
With one difference, any coverage you have under the Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance (FEGLI) program will be treated the same way as your FEHB coverage. The difference is a really good one: you won’t be required to pay for that coverage.
Annual and sick leave
You won’t earn any annual or sick leave for a pay period in which you reach a total of 80 hours of LWOP. However, you will earn annual and sick leave during the following pay periods until you once more accumulate 80 hours of LWOP. If you are a part-time employee, the amount of leave you earn will be proportionately less.
Severance pay
Any time spent on LWOP is fully creditable for the 12-month continuous employment period needed to qualify for severance pay. However, when computing your actual severance payment, any time in a non-pay status that isn’t creditable for leave accrual will be excluded.
Thrift Savings Plan
Since investments in the Thrift Saving Plan can only be made from your salary, if you are on LWOP, you won’t be able to make your regular investments into your TSP account nor, if you are age 50 or older, will you be able to make any “catch up contributions.” If you have an existing loan, payments can be suspended for up to one year or, if you were called to active duty, until you are back on the job. In either case, interest on your loan will continue to accumulate. FYI: While on LWOP you won’t be able to take out a new loan.
Former head of retirement and insurance policy at the Office of Personnel Management, and longtime FEDweek contributor, Reg Jones is known throughout the federal workforce community as an authority on pay and benefits.
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