Federal Workers Can Donate Leave To Katrina Victims

According to govexec.com, the program will allow federal employees affected by Katrina to get time off from work without using up their own personal leave or will give them extra days of leave if they use up their own.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) issued its own memo allowing individual agencies to set up their own leave transfer programs. The Office feels each individual agency can better determine what they need. The OPM said agencies can determine the amount of donated leave needed by their employees, approve leave donors and leave recipients, and facilitate the distribution of donated leave, as well as determine the time period for which such leave can be donated and accepted, govexec.com reports.

The rules on donated leave published by OPM in the Federal Register in December 1999 say employees who receive donations of annual leave may use those days before they have exhausted all of their own. In its memo, the OPM said if an agency informs OPM that insufficient leave was donated within their agency, OPM will coordinate a governmentwide effort to bring donated annual leave in from other agencies.

OPM also said affected employees may receive excused absences and other payments.

Workers wishing to receive donated leave should fill out a form found at http://www.opm.gov/Forms/pdf_fill/opm1637.pdf .