Forum Index
»
Expectant and Postpartum Moms
How much leave can federal employee can use?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
|
I have GS-11 job in DC, and 17 weeks pregnant. I know that I can have 6-8 weeks maternity sick leaves(advance). After the maternity leave, can I have "leave without pay" up to 1 year? If you have any experience, let me know. I do need to be out of work at least a year... |
Anonymous
| How much LWP you are allowed is completely discretionary. Your department or supervisor can answer that question for you. You are allowed by law to have 12 weeks off (Family Medical Leave Act) either paid, unpaid (depending on your leave amounts), or advanced leave. |
Anonymous
| If you work in DC you can take 16 weeks of FMLA in a 24 month period. |
Anonymous
| I think the limit for use of sick leave is 6 weeks (to cover post-partum). That can be advanced provided that you will be able to earn that much by the end of the leave year (you're not supposed to carry a negative balance over). You can use as much annual/comp time as you have, subject to your agency's limits on maternity leave. As PPs noted, FMLA guarantees at least 12 weeks leave (16 in DC), but some agencies allow more. Mine allows 4 months (20 weeks), others allow 6 months, but again subject to the limits on sick leave and available annual leave. (Note, sometimes women can use more sick leave with a medical reason, e.g. postpartum or other complications). You should talk to your HR person for more specifics. |
Anonymous
|
I don't mean to hijack this thread but I have some related/follow up questions.
1. One reply said you can get up to 16 weeks in DC. Is that just if you live in DC? The training I took as a manager on leave issues (for federal employees), only said 12 weeks. 2. Can you only use FMLA (unpaid leave) with a doctor's note (when related to pregnancy)? For instance, if I have vaginal birth my OB will give me a note saying I need 6 weeks off work. But what if I want to take off 8 weeks - do I need a note from my dr. justifying those two extra weeks? To the OP: My notes indicate that all leave (except FMLA) is subject to supervisor approval which may require documention (i.e. doctor's note). You cannot be advanced more than 240 hours of sick leave - or 40 hours/year if leave balance is less than 80 hours. The general guidelines in my office are that you can't be advanced more sick leave that you can earn back by the end of the year. Thanks! |
Anonymous
I don't think DC employment law applies to federal employees, so I would not expect any fed would be legally entitled to 6 weeks. The "F" in FMLA stands for "family" so I expect you can use it to care for a newborn regardless of how long your doctor thinks you need for yourself, but the process you need to go through to get approved leave is probably going to vary from office to office. |
Anonymous
| oops-- make that "16" weeks, not 6 |
Anonymous
|
I am a fed employee - GS 11 - in DC and was told that I can take up to 16 weeks. Its my understanding that they are controlled by DC law, even though its a federal agency.
I also am pretty sure you can take your 16 weeks without a Dr's note, i.e., even if you have a vaginal delivery. The issue is covering it with sick leave, rather than annual leave. You may only be allowed to take as much sick leave as your birth requires - generally 6 weeks vaginal delivery - the rest of your leave must be annual leave. My office also told me that they cannot advance leave, I can use my leave and then take LWOP. I dont know if this differs from agency to agency. |
Anonymous
Poster #2 is correct in saying that DC employment law does not apply to Feds who are covered by Federal FMLA, and thus entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid leave, not 16. Vaginal delivery recovery is 6 weeks, so you can use up to 6 weeks of sick leave. C-section recovery means you can take up to 8 weeks sick leave - how much advanced leave you can take depens on your agency. Length of unpaid maternity leave varies from agency to agency. I have a friend who's taken off six months with each child. I had to fight for sixteen weeks - I was able to point to two women who had taken that much in recent years - otherwise, I would have been stuck with only 12 weeks. If you don't have enough leave to cover your absence, make sure to split your time off 1/2 LWOP and 1/2 Annual/sick leave. If you do this, you will continue to accrue vacation and sick leave, will not pay additional for your health benefits, and will get paid for holidays (just be sure to use A/L the day before and day after the holiday - not LWOP). Hope this helps! |
Anonymous
| I've always heard that you can use as much sick leave as you have as parental leave following the birth of a child. |
Anonymous
|
As far as how much sick leave you can take, I think it depends on your agency. My HR people told me that I would not be permitted to use more than 6 weeks of sick leave without documentation from a doctor that more leave was medically necessary, and that caring for a healthy infant is not a valid use of sick leave after the six week recuperative period has passed. But I think not every federal agency is as strict. If you don't have much leave accrued, you should check into whether your agency has a sick leave bank. The way it works is you donate one pay period's worth of annual leave to join. Then, if you have a medical problem that requires you to exhaust all of your leave, you can use up to six weeks of paid sick leave from the leave bank. The conditions are it has to be sick leave, and you have to have exhausted all sick and annual leave in order to qualify.
As for LWOP, my HR person told me that, if you supervisor approves, you can take up to a year of LWOP with the government continuing to pay its share of your health insurance (although you will be responsible for paying your share once it cannot be deducted from your paycheck). |
Anonymous
| I've done two maternity leaves with the fed govt. With both, I was allowed to use the standard 6 weeks of sick leave (both were vaginal deliveries); if I had c-sections, I could have used 8 weeks of sick leave. Then, I used a combination of LWOP and Annual leave for another two months. I used enough annual leave to have some money coming in, plus you need annual leave to "wrap around" federal holidays in order to get the holidays paid. Check with the human resources office and other women who have taken maternity leave in your specific division or office. I know at some federal agencies, women are able to use more than 6 weeks of sick leave if they work in a very small office and have sympathetic supervisors. Of course, I had been with the feds for more than 10 years, so I had a ton of sick leave built up. |
Anonymous
|
Here is the website with rules on leave: http://www.opm.gov/oca/leave/
There is a voluntary leave transfer program (link from above website) and there is no requirement to donate any of your future leave to join. I have applied for this. I know of several other coworkers that have received several weeks of donated leave for their maternity leave. Many long term feds have so much leave that they cannot use it all and will donate to people that they don't even know. |
Anonymous
|
poster 13:54 here - thanks for the clarification.
I expect to hardly have any accrued sick or annual leave available for my maternity leave. (Used it all up in my last pregnancy and was never able to build up much of a balance with having a child in daycare who often got sick.) So most of my maternity leave will be LWOP (FMLA). Later on I'll talk with my supervisor about how to get those two extra weeks off if I have a vaginal birth. The leave transfer program is great! Last time I got bunch of donated leave from my mom who is also a fed. And I got a totally random donation from someone I didn't know who had planned on donating the leave to a coworker but the coworker died. |
Anonymous
| Just be careful to stagger your LWOP as much as you can so that you don't end up taking a hit on your health benefits - |