Got my final Retirement Benefits Estimate today. Needed because my high three changed by a whole $271. That’s about $64 per year. However, I also needed it to estimate my sickness. I screwed that up a bit by using sick leave to take SO to doctor’s appointments. It turns out I will have 128 hours that will not count. It also means one month less service credit which appears to cost $48 per year in the annuity. Oh gee. Should I have taken annual instead? No.
I am taking tomorrow off as I have 33.5 hours time off award to use that I cannot sell back. Have already got 20 more hours approved. That means 27 work days left. I may not feel well some of them but will accommodate the promises I have made.
Extend my retirement date out at least 8 days to make the sick leave count? Not possible, the leave year ends 1/3/19 and I have right now 208 hours projected use/lose. Take the rest of the year off and work longer to save those sick leave hours? No.
If you are really worried about squeezing all you can out of your bennies, figure out your projected sick leave balance more than two months in advance.
About that sick leave balance. They tell you it is based on 6 hours per day. NOT. My retirement estimate states 22 days or 128 hours. “* After use of the maximum creditable unused sick leave, you will have
22 days of potentially creditable service that will not be included in your annuity calculations because it is less than a full month. This is equivalent to
128 hours of sick leave that will not be used if you separate on the date selected. This information is being provided to you only to assist you in selecting the best date for your retirement.”
22x6=132. The actual calculation they use is based on the OPM 2087 work hours per year. Divided by 12 it equals 173.917 which they tell you is 174 hours per month. Divide that by 30 and you get 5.797 which is the actual factor they used to calculate the 128 hours. Actually 127.539 hours. I have no idea how many decimal places they use.
This is all explained at:
https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-over...-hour-divisor/
Best of luck in your retirement planning.
PO
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