Fedweek

A Senate committee has started an effort to address an issue that has held up implementation of several leave policy changes that were enacted in law in 2016 but for the most part are not yet in effect.

Those changes, attached to a defense spending bill for fiscal 2017, set new policies on the use of administrative leave—also commonly called excused absence—which is paid time off that agencies may grant at their discretion to employees without charge to any other form of leave. That followed hearings and reports showing that in some cases agencies had put employees in that status for months, and in a few cases years, during the disciplinary process.

The provisions created two new forms of leave, investigative leave and notice leave, for such situations and set limits on their use, while also setting policies on excusing employees from work due to severe weather and other emergencies, and for general purposes such as for agency-sponsored events. OPM later issued proposed regulations for all those situations, although only the weather/safety leave rules have been finalized, because the law as written would restrict paid leave available to employees returning from overseas assignments.

The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee last week added an amendment addressing what sponsors called the “unintended consequence” of that law while approving an unrelated bill (S-2169) dealing with a student hiring authority.