The following is a question submitted by a reader to Federal Times columnist Reg Jones, a charter member of the senior executive service and the resident expert on federal employee retirement issues.
A Fed Times reader asks:
“Between the Postal Service and the VA hospital, I have 38 years of service. But I will wait until I am 62 years old to retire, possibly older.
I have over 2,300 hours of sick leave. Say if I retire with exactly one year (2,080 hours ) and 40 years of work, would that be 1% more for my pension? Does that bring my work years to 41 instead of 40?
Or if I keep the 2,300 (37.5 extra days), I am assuming that would raise my work an extra month and a week.”
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Reg’s response:
2,087 hours of unused sick leave would get you credit for one additional year of service and be used in the computation of your annuity.
Every (approximately) 174 additional hours would get you one more month of credit. Any hours that didn’t add up to one month would be discarded.
Got a question for the Federal Times expert? Send inquiries to: fedexperts@federaltimes.com
Reg Jones, a charter member of the senior executive service, is our resident expert on retirement and the federal government. From 1979 to '95, he served as an assistant director of the Office of Personnel Management handling recruiting and examining, white and blue collar pay, retirement, insurance and other issues. Opinions expressed are his own.
