Under current rules you can convert any remaining CSRS sick leave into time served for retirement annuity purposes, but any remaining FERS sick leave is simply lost.
I donated about 1700 hours worth of sick leave to the people of the United States as an "extra tax" when I retired. (Gad do I despise ungrateful gift recipients).
that's precisely why I refer to sick leave as personal leave.
Because there is no incentive to conserve it in the government, since it is lost if you never use it.....you either use it or lose it....
Sick leave in the gumbit is like added annual leave days for lots and lots of people.
This depends on which part of the fed employs you. TVA, for example, does recognize unused sick time at retirement, though not in a 1:1 relationship used towards service time. But there is a benefit to NOT using sick time there. It's a useless benefit if you have a major illness and need to take the time off.
I lost over 250 days of accumulated sick time when I left the private sector 5 years ago. No compensation, no nothing.
There's a fair amount of variance between the various federal agencies.
Sick leave is time to be used in times of emergencies, not extra pay. No private sector employee I know is able to cash in sick leave upon retirement.
However, I do know a lot of government employees who are able to cash in their sick time for money. Almost all the Wisconsin state and local government employees get extra pay (and that is what it becomes -- pay for work never done) when they retire.
My experience with friends who work for the Feds is that they have good working conditions, low stress, and generous benefits. I don't begrudge good working conditions and good pay, but government employees need to recognize that they don't have it bad.
The private sector is becoming tougher and tougher, benefits are being cut, people are being laid off and raises are virtually nonexistent. Rising health care premiums are leading to reduced takehome pay.
If you work for the government, be thankful for the positives and don't try to make it into some awful form of indentured servitude.
Well in the private sector lots of us get no paid holidays, no paid leave, no sick days and absolutely no paid vacation days. That's what happens when you own the company and you are your own boss.
Every minute taken off from work is a dollar lost. Every day that sales are down means less takehome pay for all. The federal and all govt employees can't comprehend the insecurity that the average small business owner lives with day in and day out.
No paychecks save what can be scraped off the top. All new equipment, all building and operating cash loans are your responsibility and there's no one to hold your hand or tell you what to do next.
We pay crushing payroll, income and sales taxes for the privilege of not wallowing in the public trough as do the 30% of all US citizens who work for some form of government.
"I donated about 1700 hours worth of sick leave to the people of the United States as an "extra tax" when I retired. (Gad do I despise ungrateful gift recipients)."
You are ungrateful of the gift you received. A career insulated from the real world. What company outside of the fed gov't allows you to accumulate absurd amounts of "sick leave"?
You gripe about a gift that you were given, then claim that by giving it back you were making a sacrifice that was unappreciated.
I live in a DC suburb crawling with federales and observe their fairly comfortable lifestyle. Most are, admittedly, SES-types. Dad's always home by 6pm, has every holiday and weekend off, nice vacation when kids are off from school. Can't think of one family that hasn't been to Disney World .. not the French Riviera. It's not fat city but it's quite comfortable. And it's secure. They all get to retire fairly young and live on decent pensions. All live in nice houses, not mansions; drive nice cars, not Rolls Royces.
In the meanwhile, they have taken NO RISK. None, zip, nada. Life is an even keel. I can't imagine one of them starting a company, even one that provides the same service they are salaried for with the government .. too risky.
Try comparing, say, the accountant who spends 30 years in the employ of Uncle Sam vs. the guy who goes out and starts his own accounting firm. I would venture a guess that the latter will work till the day he dies, even if he's been wildly successful after years of not having drawn a pay check for months at a time, much less having had a day off .. but that success, if it comes, is the payoff for his risk.
These are the choices made by people's personality types. You're either a corporate-type and take the safer, more secure big company or government job, or you're an entrepreneurial type who will venture out on your own and risk losing everything.
Not out here in the oil patch.
Sick leave? Well, if you are sick, leave!
If you want to get paid, you work.