TRANSCRIPT:

Josh: In this segment we’re going to talk about sick and annual leave. Let’s look at the difference between sick and annual leave.

Sick leave is going to be a paid absence from duty for personal medical needs, family care or bereavement, care of family members with serious health condition, or adoption-related purposes.

Annual leave is going to be approved paid time off for vacation, rest and relaxation, and personal business or emergencies.

Let’s take a look at how your sick leave is calculated. For full-time employees you’ll accrue four hours per pay period. For part-time employees you’ll have one hour per 20 hours in pay status. Some facts about your sick leave. It would take one year to accrue only 13 days of sick leave. Only 240 hours of sick leave may be advanced to the employee, and that’s under management approval. There is no limit on the amount of sick leave you can accumulate, and after January 1, 2014, employees can create 100% of their unused sick leave towards retirement.

Let’s take a look at how my annual leave is calculated. Annual leave is going to be based off of the years of service that you have. For full-time employees you’ll earn four hours per pay period off of your first and second years of service. For years of service three through 14, you’ll earn six hours per pay period, and after 15 years of service, you’ll accrue eight hours per pay period. For part-time employees you’re going to get one hour per 20 hours in pay status. Due to the annual leave cap, this is the “use it or lose it.” You’re only allowed to role over 30 days, and you can use annual leave for a sickness, but this is going to be up to the agency’s approval.

Why is this important to understand? Everyone has received an email asking you to donate leave or you’ve seen your co-worker have an accident and be taken off work and struggle. You accrue sick leave and annual leave very slowly and you can use it very fast. Here at United Benefits we offer a solution to that. One of the most important things that we do is we offer short-term disability. This is guaranteed issue. That means every federal employee that wants it gets it. This is built specifically for you guys. It covers accident and sickness on or off the job. It’s going to pay addition to any sick or annual leave. You’ll get this check on top of any sick leave or annual leave that you’re getting from your agency. Pre-existing conditions are covered after 12 months. It’s also going to cover maternity leave. And it’s a tax-free benefit that pays directly to you. If you would like to enroll in the short-term disability program that we offer, feel free to reach out to one of our reps. We’d me more than happy to help you with that.