Weekend Reading on Your Federal Benefits 43-18.jpg

(for the week of October 20th – October 26th)

You’re too busy during the week to keep up on all the news around your employee benefits and pay. My weekly summary of the most interesting and relevant news stories could help you and includes my comments and insights.

By the way, if you’ve read something about your employee benefits that you think is important or interesting, share it. And, let me know about news sources that you follow. Have a great weekend.

George Ray
Federal Benefits Online

In this week’s benefits news for Feds, you can read the long version of why some retirement dates are better than others, heed the warning that you don’t have much time left to use your annual leave, find out your options during a disability, and hear the story of a group of retired Law Enforcement Officers who are very unhappy. Let’s get started.

The ‘Best’ Retirement Dates in 2019

From Fedsmith.com

I believe this is the best explanations of how to choose the best date to retire that I’ve ever read. Whether you’re retiring in 2019 or sometime in the future, former Benefits Specialist Ehren Clovis digs deep into the ‘whys’ to really help you to understand all the ‘advice’ that you get from other sources that tell you the best dates but not the reason for those dates.

She begins with a suggestion that I always make—the best date to retire is the date that you choose to retire. Each individual is different and has different reasons for wanting to retire on a certain date. So you can retire on any day you choose—any day of the month, a Saturday, a holiday, yes, whenever you want. You don’t even have to be in the office (or at work) on your last day (and your agency can’t require you to be there).

So, you can retire any day you want, but you’ll probably want to retire on a day that will maximize your pension, get it paid to you as soon as possible, and allow you to keep (and get paid for) as much of your remaining annual leave as you can get. She breaks up her article in a ‘short version’ and a ‘long version’. If you really want some information that will be valuable in helping you make your retirement decision, spend a little extra time reading the long version. Then bookmark it. You’ll be glad you did.

Use or Lose: Leave Scheduling Deadline Coming Up

From Fedweek.com

Here’s something that you may not be thinking about right now but should. If you’ve accumulated an excessive amount of annual leave, you have a limited amount of time left in the leave year to ‘use it or lose it’. You may not think it’s excessive, but as you know you can carry over no more than 30 days of annual leave (exceptions allow certain employees to carry over more). Excess leave must be used up or it is forfeited.

The leave year ends on January 5th, 2019, but the last date for scheduling leave is November 24th. Because it can take time to get your request approved, you may want to begin thinking about it now, so you have time. If you can’t use it before it expires, and you’re a really nice person, you could also consider donating it to your agency’s leave-sharing program to help a co-worker who may have used up his leave for a health crisis or other emergency. That could be a nice Christmas present for someone in need.

What Happens When I Cannot Do My Job Even with a Reasonable Accommodation?

From Fedsmith.com

We hope that we’ll never be in a situation where we become disabled and unable to sufficiently rehabilitate to eventually get back to work, but unfortunately, it can happen. Federal employee attorney Eric Pines discusses your options in his post this week at Fedsmith.com.

If you become a qualified disabled employee, your agency is expected to accommodate you so that you are able to perform the functions of your job. If that can’t be done, the agency could offer you another vacant position for which you may be qualified and able to perform the functions of the job. If that isn’t available, and you’re no longer able to perform your job, your agency does have the legal right to terminate your employment.

Although that’s not good news, as Mr. Pine suggests, there is a ‘safety net’ available to you. Your pension program provides for a disability pension that for FERS-covered employees will provide 60% of your salary in the first year of disability, and 40% thereafter until you reach age 62. At that time, your pension switches to a retirement pension. It is re-calculated providing you with credit for the time that you are disabled. You’ll shave access to your Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB). But the most generous part of the rules allows you to get another job (in the private sector) making up to 80% of your Federal salary and still receive your disability pension. Although no one wants to experience a disability, it‘s good to know that your benefits provide assistance if you need it.

Federal Officers Association Asks OPM to Roll Back 2016 Annuity Change

From Govexec.com

Back in 2016, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) decided to change its interpretation of a rule that it had been following for over 30 years. It did it without consulting the people who would be affected by it—Federal Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs). More specifically, we should say officers who had been divorced.

Law enforcement officers have a mandatory retirement age of 57 (with some exceptions). Those who are covered under the FERS pension system (that is pretty much all of them) also begin receiving the FERS Special Retirement Supplement (SRS)-- many as early as age 50 after 20 years of LEO service. OPM didn’t previously grant a ‘marital share’ of the officer’s SRS to the former spouse even if there was a divorce decree that required a portion of the retired officer’s pension to be given up. In 2016, it began doing that and the retired, divorced officers pension checks went down. It never provided any notice of its new interpretation, and retroactively applied the decision to the already retired officer’s pension checks, causing them to owe money to the government. Yes, you can imagine how well that went over.

The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, which represents more than 27,000 Federal law enforcement professionals across 65 agencies blasted the OPM decision and last week sent a letter to the new acting director Margaret Weichert asking her to roll back this decision. OPM’s Inspector General (IG) also criticized the agency for its actions, but OPM disagreed with its IG and so far, has not been willing to reverse its decision. Let’s see what the new Acting Director thinks about this. Margaret, are you listening?

See you next week. Thanks!

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