|
Purpose
To allow employees who have exhausted all their earned leave to use leave donated by others when the employee will suffer a loss of income because of a medical emergency. The program can help to ease the emotional and financial burdens felt by an employee who is seriously ill or has a family member with a medical emergency and who has exhausted all of his or her annual and sick leave. The program allows coworkers to voluntarily transfer some of their annual leave to the qualifying employee.
Description
An employee may donate annual leave directly to another Federal employee who has a personal or family medical emergency and who has exhausted his or her available paid leave. Each agency must administer a voluntary leave transfer program for its employees. There is no limit on the amount of donated annual leave a leave recipient may receive from the leave donor(s). However, any unused donated leave must be returned to the leave donor(s) when the medical emergency ends.
Leave Recipient
A potential leave recipient's employing agency must determine that a full-time employee's absence from duty without available paid leave because of the medical emergency is (or is expected to be) at least 24 hours. For part-time employees or employees on uncommon tours of duty, the period of absence without paid leave is prorated. An employee may receive donated annual leave when he or she becomes an approved leave recipient.
Limitations on Leave Donations
In any leave year, an employee may donate not more than one-half of the amount of annual leave he or she would accrue during a leave year. For employees with "use or lose" annual leave, the employee may donate the lesser of one-half of the annual leave he or she would accrue in a leave year or the number of hours remaining in the leave year for which the employee is scheduled to work and receive pay.
Set-Aside Accounts
While using donated leave, a leave recipient can accrue no more than 40 hours of annual leave and 40 hours of sick leave in "set-aside accounts." The leave in the "set-aside accounts" will be transferred to the employee's regular leave accounts when the medical emergency ends or if the employee exhausts all donated leave.
Appropriate Use
Transferred leave should be used for the purposes of the medical emergency. It can be (1) used as though the individual had earned the leave, and/or (2) retroactively substituted for LWOP or advanced Sick or Annual Leave. Employees covered by 5 USC Chapter 63, Subchapter I. Leave cannot be donated to an individual's supervisor.
Accumulation
There is no maximum accumulation of donated leave and no restrictions on the amount that may be carried forward from one leave year to the next.
Application to Become a Recipient
The employee or someone acting on behalf of the employee submits a request to the servicing Personnel Office. Such a request shall identify the name, position title and grade or pay level of the potential leave recipient, the reasons transferred leave is needed, the anticipated duration of the medical emergency and if it is a recurring one, the approximate frequency of the medical emergency. Additionally, the agency may require the employee to submit certification from one or more physicians, or other appropriate experts, with respect to the medical emergency. In making a determination as to whether a medical emergency is likely to result in a substantial loss of income, an agency shall not consider factors other than whether the absence from duty without available paid leave is (or is expected to be) at least 24 hours. The Personnel Office reviews the application and, if approved, forwards the request to the Payroll Office for processing.
Termination of Medical Emergency
The emergency is terminated when: the recipient's employment is terminated; when the employee notifies the agency that the emergency is over; when the agency notifies the employee that s/he is no longer affected by a medical emergency; or, OPM approves the employee's disability retirement.
It is the agency's responsibility to monitor the status of the medical emergency affecting the leave recipient to ensure that he or she continues to be affected. After the emergency ends, any unused transferred annual leave remaining must be restored to the leave donors.
Recordkeeping
The Personnel Office maintains records on the number of recipients, amounts of leave, the grade and pay level of the donors and recipients, the number returned to work, retired, etc.
|
