Sick Leave Conversion Chart
How To Use This Table
Find the number in the table closest to the number of hours of your unused sick leave. In the horizontal column you will find the number of months and in the vertical column the remaining number of days. For example: 441 hours equals 2 months and 16 days. If the number of hours falls between two figures shown on the table, use the next higher figure. There is no limit to the amount of sick leave that can be added to the earned service of an eligible employee. If the sick leave balance is greater than 2,087, subtract 2,087 from your balance and calculate the amount of time in addition to the one year of credit you will receive.
NOTE: For retirement credit purposes, sick leave days are generally six hours long. By law there are 2,087 hours in a work year. Since OPM calculates annuities on a 360-day (12 equal months of 30 days in length), 360 divided into 2,087 equals roughly six hours.
Credit for Unused Sick Leave
FERS employees are now given credit for sick leave due to a change in the law as of October 2009. Under FERS, if you retire prior to 2014, you will receive credit for half of your sick balance at retirement. If you retire 1-1-14 or later, you will receive credit for your full sick leave balance at retirement. For CSRS employees your full sick leave balance is converted to service credit. Sick leave service credit is used for annuity computation only - it cannot be used for eligibility purposes.
The days of unused sick leave that are added are used only in counting your number of years and months of service for annuity computation purposes. The sick leave cannot be used in computing your "high-3" average salary or for meeting the minimum length of service for retirement eligibility.
To compute the additional credit for sick leave at retirement, add the months and days of sick leave to the months and days of actual service.
For example:
Actual Service --------- 30 years, 4 months, 16 days
Sick leave at retirement ---------- 4 months, 24 days
Total Credit ------------- 30 years, 9 months, 10 days
Only years and full months of service are used in the annuity computation – the remaining days are dropped. In the example above, the 10 days would be dropped and you would receive no credit for them towards retirement. 10 days converts to 58 hours of sick leave.