OPM Issues Memo on Annual Leave and Other PTO Guidance
The Office of Personnel Management issued guidance on several elements of annual leave and other paid time off (PTO) last week in a memo from Acting Director Michael Rigas to agency heads. The memo clarifies and provides additional resources for employees on annual leave “use or lose” provisions impacted by COVID-19, restoration of annual leave, compensatory time off for travel, compensatory time off for overtime, credit hours, and disabled veteran leave.
The memo issued Thursday, June 18 announced the agency’s intent to issue new regulations in the “near future” that will streamline the leave restoration process for agencies that have employees with “use or lose” annual leave who are unable to use this leave because of work-related requirements during the COVID-19 national emergency.
The memo explains, “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. Agency heads will be required to identify any employees covered under this annual leave restoration authority and inform them in writing of this designation.”
As Rigas explains, this means agencies and employees will not face the administrative burden of scheduling, canceling, and restoring leave for employees “at a time when all available attention and energy should be focused on the national emergency.”
The memo breaks down the normal rules for annual leave and other PTO balances and how they may be applied and limited during COVID-19.
According to the memo, an employee’s decision to cancel annual leave or not schedule leave due to cancelled travel plans because of COVID-19 restrictions does not constitute an exigency of the public for the purposes of restoration of annual leave.
An agency may restore forfeited annual leave due to an exigency of public business or sickness of an employee only if the leave was scheduled in writing before the start of the third biweekly pay period prior to the end of the leave year.
The memo further provides guidance and relevant fact sheets on elements of compensatory time off for travel, compensatory time off for overtime, credit hours, and disabled veteran leave.