[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 27 (Tuesday, February 10, 2009)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E235-E236]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 ON THE INTRODUCTION OF THE FEDERAL EMPLOYEE RETIREMENT SYSTEM (FERS) 
                     SICK LEAVE EQUITY ACT OF 2009

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. JAMES P. MORAN

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 10, 2009

  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce the 
bipartisan ``Federal Employee Retirement System (FERS) Sick Leave 
Equity Act'' that I am offering with my colleague Representative Frank 
Wolf (R-VA). The current sick leave policies for the civil service are 
inappropriately bifurcated between new and older systems, and the 
current system is costing the Federal Government millions in lost 
productivity each year.
  Today, Federal employees enrolled in FERS may accrue annual sick 
leave over the course of their career, but under the current ``use-it 
or lose-it'' policy, all sick leave is eliminated at retirement. 
Representative Wolf and I believe that this policy serves as a 
disincentive to conserve sick leave--or an incentive to use sick leave 
at the end of careers when employees are not really sick. An August 
2008 Congressional Research Service (CRS) report indicated that sick 
leave balances were significantly lower for FERS employees than CSRS 
employees, and a survey of FERS and CSRS employees showed that 85% of 
CSRS employees conserve as much sick leave as possible, whereas 75% of 
FERS employees said they would use as much sick leave as possible 
during their last years. The Office of Personnel Management confirmed 
the existence of this ``FERS flu'' phenomenon as well, asserting that 
the lost productivity and training of new employees to fill in for 
absent employees cost the Federal Government an estimated $68 million 
annually. This lost productivity accompanies the aging workforce 
nearing retirement over the next ten years.
  The use of sick leave is a significant problem to the efficiency and 
effectiveness of the Federal Government, but it is also a challenge 
that has been overcome before. The story of how employees in CSRS got 
their sick leave benefit provides insight into the same challenges the 
Federal Government faces today. Originally CSRS employees had no 
benefit--they all forfeited any unused sick leave upon retirement. As a 
result, Federal employees were burning their sick leave at the end of 
their careers. The Civil Service Commission estimated that half of all 
retiring Federal employees had no sick leave; Congress reported that 
retiring employees used an average of 40 sick leave days in their last 
year before retirement.
  In response to this problem, in 1969, Congress changed the law to 
permit employees to receive credit for any accrued sick leave. This 
policy has remained in place for CSRS--whatever accrued sick leave an 
employee has, that time is added to their annuity. Not surprisingly, 
Federal employees began conserving sick leave. A later GAO report 
showed that retiring employees had significantly higher sick leave 
balances than those who retired before the law was changed.
  The Congress's failure to learn from the past has caused history to 
repeat itself. When the FERS retirement system was created in 1986, 
Congress explicitly eliminated the sick

[[Page E236]]

leave incentive, though they were cognizant of the possible 
consequences. Report language accompanying the new statute indicate 
that Congress believed that ``without an incentive to save sick leave, 
the use of sick leave may increase substantially.''
  The ``FERS Sick Leave Equity Act'' will reverse the growing trend of 
using sick leave by providing the same benefit to FERS retirees that 
CSRS retirees currently receive. Under the proposal, all FERS-eligible 
employees will add their accrued sick leave to the years of service 
that employee has worked in the Federal Government. These years of 
service are part of the FERS retirement benefits calculation, providing 
a real incentive to accrue as much sick leave as possible.
  The proposal has gained widespread endorsement by Federal employees 
who know the problem firsthand: the managers who experience the problem 
every day and the organizations that know the negative effect of the 
``use-it or lose-it'' policy. The supporting organizations include the 
American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), American Foreign 
Service Association (AFSA), American Postal Workers Union (APWU), FAA 
Managers Association (FAAMA), Federal Managers Association (FMA), 
Federally Employed Women (FEW), Government Managers Coalition (GMC), 
Senior Executives Association (SEA), National Council of Social 
Security Management Associations (NCSSMA), Professional Managers 
Association (PMA), National Association of Government Employees (NAGE), 
National Association of Postal Supervisors (NAPS), National Active and 
Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE), National Federation of 
Federal Employees (NFFE), National Rural Letter Carriers Association 
(NRLCA), and the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU). I am proud 
and grateful to have this support for the proposal.
  Madam Speaker, we need to incentivize the accrual of sick leave, not 
to keep a policy in place that encourages people to call in sick in the 
weeks leading up to retirement. It will save the Federal Government 
millions while providing sick leave parity for FERS employees and their 
CSRS counterparts. I look forward to working with the Committee on 
Oversight and Government Reform and the full House of Representatives 
on this pressing issue.

                          ____________________