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Federal Civilian Personnel: Cost of Lump-Sum Annual Leave Payments to Employees Separating From Government

GGD-97-100 Published: May 29, 1997. Publicly Released: May 29, 1997.
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Highlights

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed a federal civilian employee's entitlement under 5 U.S.C. 5551(a) to receive a lump-sum payment for any accumulated, unused annual leave upon separation from federal service, focusing on: (1) the governmentwide costs of providing the lump-sum annual leave payment and recent trends in these costs; (2) the basis for and consistency of agency practices in making the payment, including the sufficiency of guidance to ensure that employees who have similar pay and amounts of unused annual leave receive similar payments; and (3) any personnel cost savings that could be achieved from limiting the lump-sum leave payment to the employee's pay rate at the time of separation, instead of the current method of determining payment, which assumes the employee remains in service until the entire leave balance has expired.

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Annual leaveCivilian employeesCompensationCost controlEmployee benefit plansFederal personnel lawFringe benefit costsPaymentsGovernment employeesLabor force