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Leave Transfer Program Fact Sheet

What is the Leave Transfer Program?

The Office of Personnel Management has established a voluntary leave transfer program for federal employees to donate annual leave to be used by other federal employees in medical or family medical emergency situations.

Definitions

Family Member - means the following relatives of the employee:

Spouse, and parents of spouse;
Children, including adopted and spouses’ children;
Parents;
Brothers and sisters, and their spouses; and
Any individual related by blood or affinity whose close association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship.

Leave Donor - an employee who volunteers to transfer annual leave to an approved leave recipient.

Leave Recipient - a current leave-earning employee that has been approved to receive annual leave from one or more leave donors.

Medical Emergency - a medical condition of an employee or his/her family member that is likely to require an absence resulting in a substantial loss of income because of unavailability of paid leave.

Substantial Loss of Income - is considered or expected to be at least 24 hours of unpaid absence.

How to Donate Leave

Employee completes AD-1043, Leave Transfer Program-Donor Application, and sends/faxes to Financial Management. Each office should have form AD-1043.
Agency accepts donated annual leave. Financial Management records time and attendance reports (AD-320). AD-320s are returned to office after emergency is over.
When medical emergency ends, unused donated leave is prorated back to leave donors. State office notifies timekeepers of adjustments necessary to leave balances on time and attendance reports.

Application to Become a Leave Recipient

The employee must apply with a written application on form AD-1046, Leave Recipient Application Under the Voluntary Leave Transfer Program, to his/her employing agency through his/her supervisor to become a leave recipient. Request forms from State Office, Financial Management.
The application may be submitted no later than 90 days after the beginning of the medical emergency.
The application must state the reasons why transferred leave is needed, including a brief description of the nature, severity, and anticipated duration of the medical emergency, and if recurring. A medical statement is generally required.
The Human Resources Manager approves leave transfer program for medical emergency, and all employees are notified.
Leave recipient uses donated leave as annual leave.

Transfer of Annual Leave

An employee’s annual and sick leave must be exhausted before using donated leave.
A leave donor shall donate no more than a total of one-half of the amount of annual leave he or she would be entitled to accrue during the leave year in which the donation is made.
A leave donor shall not transfer annual leave to his or her supervisor.
The leave recipient may substitute transferred annual leave retroactively for periods of leave without pay (LWOP) or use transferred leave to liquidate an indebtedness for any advanced annual or sick leave that was granted.
The employing agency shall accept the transfer of annual leave from leave donors employed by one or more other agencies.
Employees in use-or-lose situation at the end of the leave year cannot donate more than the number of hours remaining in the leave year for which the leave donor is scheduled to work and receive pay. Example: a donor wishes to donate 104 hours of leave subject to forfeiture 3 weeks before the end of the leave year.

Accrual of Annual and Sick Leave

Employees in a medical emergency situation continue to earn leave. The maximum amount of leave the employee can accrue during the medical emergency may not exceed 40 hours each of annual and sick leave (or in the case of a part-time employee or an employee with an uncommon tour of duty, the average number of hours of work in the employee’s biweekly scheduled tour of duty). Any leave accrued shall be recorded as a separate “banked” account in the remarks block of the T&A separate from the employee's donated leave account. The leave shall not become available for use by the employee after the medical emergency unless needed during the medical emergency.

Termination of Medical Emergency

The leave recipient’s employing agency will monitor the status of the medical emergency. When the emergency ends, no further requests for transfer of annual leave to the recipient may be granted. Any unused transferred annual leave remaining to the credit of the leave recipient shall be restored to the leave donors.

Restoration of Unused Annual Leave

Any unused annual leave will be prorated back to leave donors. The leave donor may opt to:

Credit the restored annual leave to his/her account in the current leave year (at termination of medical emergency).
Credit the restored annual leave to his/her account effective the first day of the first leave year beginning after date of election. This can have the effect of restoring annual leave that would have otherwise been lost due to leave ceilings.
Donate such leave in whole to another leave recipient. Donors wishing to exercise this option must complete a new donor application.

Questions

Contact Human Resources at 406/587-6957 or Financial Management at
406/587-6857.

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Leave Transfer Program (PDF; 17.8 KB)

Last Modified: 11/16/2005