Restored Leave for Fiscal Year 1995 To: "DC - All District Chiefs", "B - Branch Chiefs and Offices" cc: "A - Division Chief and Staff", "AO - All Administrative Officers", "Lois A Dabaie, Secretary, Reston, VA" , "Dennis J Sulam, Staff Hydrologist, Reston, VA" , "Sandra E Mitrani, Secretary, Reston, VA" , "Alice C Dilandro, Secretary (S), Reston, VA" Subject: Restored Leave for Fiscal Year 1995 Date: Wed, 06 Mar 1996 09:22:18 -0500 From: "Catherine L Hill, ACH/Operations, Reston, VA" In Reply Refer To: Mail Stop 442 March 6, 1996 MEMORANDUM To: District Chiefs Branch Chiefs From: Catherine L. Hill Assistant Chief Hydrologist for Operations Subject: Restored Leave for Fiscal Year 1995 The Office of Personnel Management is requiring the restoration of unused use or lose annual leave to employees who had leave scheduled during the furlough period. Leave is to be considered scheduled if the request for annual leave was made in accordance with the supervisor's normal procedures (either oral or written). In most instances, employees scheduled their leave. Decisions on restoration must be made consistently across the division to eliminate grievances that might occur as a result of one district making a more strict interpretation of "scheduled" leave than another. For this reason, we ask that the reasons to support any decision to not restore leave be fully documented in your files and be provided to the affected employee in writing. The Water Resources Division has approximately 1,300 employees eligible to have use or lose annual leave restored. We believe that the procedure outlined by the Human Resources Office that requires a form be completed by each employee is not as efficient as the one we propose as an alternative. The procedure we will use requires one request per cost center (totalling 80 for the division). We are recommending the following procedure be followed for restoration of leave: 1. Administrative Officers should determine the amount of leave eligible for restoration per employee. For employees who had use or lose annual leave scheduled: use timesheets from pay period (PP) 01; take the balance of use or lose annual leave; subtract leave taken in PP 26; subtract leave taken the first week of PP 01 (December 10-15, 1995). This balance will reflect the correct annual leave balance to be restored. 2. Prepare a list for submission to the Bureau of Reclamation Payroll office, signed by the District Chief, certifying that those employees requesting restored annual leave did, in fact, have leave scheduled and provide the following information for each employee: Employee Name SSN Org Code No. of Hours to be Restored 3. Add the following certification to the list: I certify that the forfeited annual leave was scheduled to be used during the period of the furlough, December 18, 1995, through January 5, 1996. I approve this request for restored leave. All employees have been informed that the restored leave will expire at the end of pay period 98/02 (January 3, 1998). District or Branch Chief's signature: ______________________ Date: ________ 3. A copy of the list should be provided to each employee and their supervisors. The original signed list should be sent to the following address: Bureau of Reclamation Payroll Operations Division Post Office Box 272030 D-2663 Denver, Colorado 80227-9030 (Facsimile submissions or copies without an original signature will not be accepted.) 4. Each employee should be provided with a copy of the following statement: Notice to Employee: Restored annual leave will be kept in a separate account and has no effect on your normal maximum permissible leave carry-over. The expiration date for use of the leave is the end of the leave year which ends 2 years after the ending date of the exigency. Restored leave unused at the expiration date is again forfeited with no further right to restoration. Should separation occur prior to the expiration of the restored leave, any unused restored annual leave is included in the lump-sum leave payment. It is your responsibility to notify your timekeeper when your restored leave account is to be charged instead of your regular leave (annual or sick) account. A specific lead time for the processing of these requests by the Bureau of Reclamation has not been defined. With the large volume of these requests, it is likely that it could take several months for the restored annual leave to appear on employee leave and earnings statements. Restored leave is kept in a separate leave account and shows up in the bottom left side of the Leave and Earnings Statement in the line "Rest/An." Questions regarding the restoration of annual leave should be addressed to Patrick Smith on (703) 648-5254 (email pdsmith) or Jeanne Placanica of the Office of Human Resources on (703) 648-7432. cc: Senior Staff Administrative Officers *************************************************** * Cathy Hill * * Assistant Chief Hydrologist for Operations * * U.S. Geological Survey * * 441 National Center * * Reston, VA 22092 * * Phone: (703) 648-5031 * * Fax: (703) 648-5295 * ***************************************************