Does anyone understand federal Leave Without Pay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't work at the same agency as M and K but my Agency would not allow an employee to shorten her schedule by 10 hours of LWOP every week. First, under OPM regs, an employee cannot effectively work a parttime schedule and get full time benefits. Second, an employee cannot use leave provisions to fashion a new, permanent schedule when they have been hired on a set full time schedule. This is considered leave abuse. Third, LWOP is reserved for emergencies and situations of hardship. It is not for fashioning a new schedule of convenience.

Of course, if there were a situation such as disability accommodation, medical hardship of OP or family member, or some other compelling situation that would be considered. But simply asking to work 10 less hours would not be viable unless a request to go part-time with official part-time benefits were made.

OP here. I can appreciate this perspective, so thanks for posting. I don't want to do anything that would be considered leave abuse. I will say that my office will not reduce my caseload so I will still be responsible for the same amt of work as if I were working 80 hours.

Do you know what rationale there is for not allowing someone to have a non-LWOP set schedule of 70 hours? What is the benefit to the agency and to me to force me into choosing btwn 64 or 80 hours, if I'm willing to work more than 64 hours AND get the same amount of work done had I been 80 hours? I'm not trying to be argumentative- just trying to understand...

I think the rationale is that when you are hired for a full time position, you work full time and do 80 hours worth of work. Under the facts you provide, you are saying that you will work 70 hours and do the same amount of work you would have done in 80 hours. BUT....that means that you are underworking, because in reality, you could be working 80 hours and doing even more work.

It is leave abuse because leave in the federal government is designated as either sick or annual leave (aside from Family Friendly, FMLA, etc.). Sick leave is for actual illness, which this is not. Annual leave is for periodic vacations. LWOP, as stated previously, is for cases of hardship. Leave is not meant to be used to permanently alter a schedule unless it is a circumstance like periodic FMLA (the person is doing chemo once a week). This sounds like a matter of convenience for you. What does the government get out of it? LWOP is administratively a huge hassle.

[Anonymous]

I don't understand why you should be able to accrue any leave at all while taking LWOP?

Leave is a form of compensation. Why would they cut off some compensation but not another?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand why you should be able to accrue any leave at all while taking LWOP?

Leave is a form of compensation. Why would they cut off some compensation but not another?

You wouldn't accrue leave while being on LWOP. It's only for the hours you worked. OP and others, I really suggest that you always just work things out with your supervisor and just start submitting timesheets. Don't ever mention any changes to HR. They are inflexible, don't understand all the rules, and are generally a pain to deal with. I did what OP wants, but while working 32 hour weeks. Some weeks I did work 40 hours, and some I worked less than 32. It was much easier being full-time and using LWOP than having to get approval for overtime every time I needed to work more than 32 hours. This worked well for a year, and then HR found out about it and made a stink. I was ready to go back full-time at that point anyways, so it wasn't a big deal.

Anyways, better to ask forgiveness than permission, if your manager is willing to have HR stay out of it too.

[Anonymous]

LWOP is, by definition, NOT PAID. No one is getting paid for work they are not doing. No one is earning leave for time not worked. Doing this long term while working less than the minimum needed to earn full contribution to health care (less than 35 hours/week I believe) does raise unearned compensation questions. But working 35 hours/week (70 hours/pay period) and getting paid for that same amount of time is not "abuse" of anything and the federal government allows for this. Some HR departments do not understand it and freak out. No one is getting something for nothing here. Really.