Office of Personnel Management (OPM) Acting Director Michael Rigas published guidance titled “Annual Leave and Other Paid Time Off” on June 18. The Memorandum “provides guidance for federal agencies on how annual leave and other paid time off balances and limitations continue to be applied during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) period.”

The memo notes that OPM does not have the authority to change statutory requirements regarding use it or lose annual leave, typically capped at 240 hours, that may be impacted as a result of Covid-19. However, OPM states it will issue regulations in the near future to streamline the leave restoration process. It says, “The regulations will deem the Covid-19 national emergency to be an exigency of the public business for the purpose of restoring forfeited annual leave. The regulations will provide that employees who would forfeit annual leave in excess of the maximum annual leave allowable carryover because of their essential work during the national emergency will have their excess annual leave deemed to have been scheduled in advance and subject to leave restoration.”

In addition to annual leave, the memo addresses compensatory time off for travel, compensatory time off for overtime, credit hours, and disabled veteran leave. 

Regrettably, OPM has no authority to extend the 12-month period in which to use disabled veteran leave, and there is no carryover option for that leave.  FMA conceived the idea and worked through the legislative process to create disabled veteran leave in 2015.

You can read the full memo by clicking on this link.

Contemporaneously, FMA continues to support legislation we reported on last month, the Federal Frontline Worker Leave Protection Act (H.R. 6733), as a legislative solution “to ensure that the essential federal employees who have been working to aid the government’s response to Covid-19 do not lose their annual leave due to an inability to take time off as a result of the crisis.” Introduced by Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA), H.R. 6733 has 14 cosponsors and has been referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.