The memo calls the template “living document that will be improved and refined to address issues that arise” and adds that agencies have discretion to add their own policies. Image: Seregam/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffOPM has generally limited to 12 weeks the time an agency can put an employee on administrative leave for “workforce realignment purposes,” although that policy is not effective until calendar year 2026.
A memo on chcoc.gov sets that policy among several changes to guidance issued in the waning days of the Biden administration that gave agencies until September 13 to comply with final rules issued last December.
The setting of a 12-week limit—which is to apply “unless a higher threshold is jointly approved by OPM and the Office of Management and Budget”—follows criticism of the Trump administration’s deferred resignation program as going beyond the intended purposes of that form of paid time off from work, also called excused absence.
Administrative leave typically has been used for to cover short periods of absence—often only a matter of hours—that are considered in an agency’s interest, such as attendance at a professional meeting, to perform volunteer work related to the agency’s mission, and participation in agency-sponsored blood donation drives, health promotion and similar events. Under the deferred resignation program, some federal employees have been on paid leave since the initial government-wide offer in February, although others accepted agency-specific offers that were made later. Those periods will end September 30.
The template acknowledges that administrative typically is used “for not more than 1 workday. However, an incidence of administrative leave lasting more than 1 workday may be approved when determined to be appropriate” such as “to facilitate workforce restructuring and realignment initiatives.” That could include, for example, future deferred resignation offers and excusing an employee from work after receiving a RIF notice until being separated.
OPM did not address why it set 12 weeks as the general limit for those purposes.
In addition to that limit, other new policies in a template for agencies to use include:
- “generally prohibiting the use of administrative leave in situations in which sick leave is appropriate;
- “limiting the amount of administrative leave that may be granted for an early dismissal before a holiday to 2 hours, unless approved by an agency head; and
- “clarifying that while limited administrative leave may be granted for voting in certain circumstances, it may not be used to cover service by poll workers or poll observers in connection with elections.”
The latter overturns a Biden administration policy that expanded the use of time off for voting to also include work at polling places.
The memo calls the template “living document that will be improved and refined to address issues that arise” and adds that agencies have discretion to add their own policies.
It is the latest step in a process dating to a 2016 law formally establishing administrative leave, which previously had been an informal practice, and setting limits on its use. A focus of that law was to set limits on how long employees can be put on that leave pending an investigation into possible misconduct and pending finalization of disciplinary actions, following GAO findings of employees having been put in that status for many months or even more than a year.
That law also set standards for excusing employees from going to their worksites, or dismissing those already onsite, due to severe weather and other emergencies.
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