What Is The Final Value Of Your Sick Leave?

[@Dave-sw2dm]

You are still better off burning your sick leave if you use it to extend your years of service. 62 and 30 years. Add one year of sick leave. Get 31 years towards calculation, but start living off retirement at 62. 62 and 30 years. Take sick leave for a year and now retire at 63 and 31 years. Same retirement income, but got an extra year of full pay.

[@pennguino9137]

Thanks for breaking this down.

[@planyourfederalretirement]

Our pleasure! We work with a lot of Federal employees who have been searching for information just like this online and are unsure what is accurate. Happy to provide information like this from licensed financial advisors who specialize in understanding federal benefits.

[@cynthiafoster2428]

TSP is also being matched if you are using sick leave.

[@daleaustin1938]

Hi Tammy, your comment at 2:00 that our unused sick leave "doesn't make us eligible any sooner" is correct, but there's a caveat that I think few people know about. I know you know what I'm about to write, because you personally confirmed I was correct and my HR department was wrong. I entered Federal service at age 45. As we know, at 20 years (and of course, I'd be 62 by then) my factor changes from 1% to 1.1%. I argued that my 7 months of sick leave could be counted to get me to 20 years of service. In other words, I could retire at 19 years, 5 months and get the 1.1% factor, as if I'd actually put in 20 years of actual worktime, not the 1.0% factor as if I'd worked less than 20 years. My HR Chief at K Street initially said no, I must actually work 20 years. When I showed her the text of the regulation, and walked through the two-step process (1. was I eligible to retire, and 2. how do we compute the benefit), she was "51%" convinced. When you gave me a name at OPM for the HR Chief to call, the matter was solved. I was correct. So...for those who enter Federal service later in their lives, you do NOT have to actually work 20 years to get that extra 10%. As long as you have time in service plus unused sick time that totals at least 20 years, you can retire earlier. And for those who say "So what, what difference does it make?," in my case, it's an extra $333/month...and that's for life!

[@vermontmike9800]

But that isn’t right. SL cannot be used for eligibility only credit ability like previous videos from this channel has said.

[@vermontmike9800]

Can you site the regulation that allows this?

[@melanie7202]

@@vermontmike9800 It's because they are already eligible because they've already passed 62 + 5 years. So eligibility was already achieved (at 62), and unused sick leave can be counted to get to the 20 years. This does not work unless the person is already past 62 + 5, so already eligible.

[@TJ-22]

@@melanie7202 Exactly.

[@TJ-22]

Glad it worked out for you since it was earned and deserved. So your high three must’ve been approximately 200 K. Well done.

[@donrodriguez8615]

excellent video, thank you

[@planyourfederalretirement]

Glad you liked it!