Gouge for Active duty for over 30 days as a Federal Employee?

[AQ-AT-NAVCIV]

For you guys that have done this,

I'm doing a couple of months Active Duty for NAMP indoc course.

I plan on taking my full Mil leave and a couple of weeks of Regular leave, but I also plan on taking a few weeks of LWOP. I assume there is a benefit to spreading the LWOP over the course of the 2 months as opposed to stacking it up and taking a the last few weeks LWOP?

And how if FEHB handled? will I need to continue to pay it? I also read that if taking LWOP you might need to pay both the GOV and Employee portion. But I assume that taking paid leave during the 2 months will help me from having to pay the Gov portion.

What about TSP?

 

[Pags]

Have you talked to your supervisor/BH? How about other NAVAIR NRP members who might have gouge? If you need a PoC, PM me.

 

[Flash]

...I'm doing a couple of months Active Duty for NAMP indoc course.

How long is a few months?

...I plan on taking my full Mil leave and a couple of weeks of Regular leave, but I also plan on taking a few weeks of LWOP. I assume there is a benefit to spreading the LWOP over the course of the 2 months as opposed to stacking it up and taking a the last few weeks LWOP?

I am a little baffled as to why you would take regular leave for military orders unless you want the money instead of the leave. I can't see any benefit whatsoever to spreading LWOP over the orders and taking leave in between. I actually think it would make things harder for your HR department than just straight LWOP. Just take your mil leave and do the rest LWOP, again unless you just want to burn the leave and get paid double.

And how if FEHB handled? will I need to continue to pay it? I also read that if taking LWOP you might need to pay both the GOV and Employee portion. But I assume that taking paid leave during the 2 months will help me from having to pay the Gov portion.

If you are on orders 30 days or over you get Tricare, there is very little benefit to keeping your FEHB unless your family has some sort of medical issue that would be made more difficult to pay for or just deal with in general through Tricare. So unless that is the case you should just depend on Tricare while you are on orders since it will cost you almost nothing. I did have a family medical situation on my second set of active duty orders and paid out of pocket for my FEHB but only had to continue paying my share and not the gov portion, not sure if that is universal but the HR person handling your mil leave ought to know.

...What about TSP?

Again for my work, if I contributed the 5% they continued to match it while I was on orders even allowing me to make it up after I got back. Not sure if that is agency/department-dependent but it was relatively standard after talking to other GS's.

As Pags said your work ought to know about all this stuff. I am not sure what agency/department you work for (are you willing to say?) but they likely have experience with reservists going on orders and should have a process set up for what to do when you depart. If not please PM me or Pags to get some more info.

 

[jason0231]

Hi AQ,

First things, first, your FEHB will continue for up to 365 days while you are on LWOP:

https://www.opm.gov/healthcare-insu...eave-without-pay-status-and-insufficient-pay/

I don't think it matters how you divide up the leave, but I would only take LWOP after you've exhausted your other options. A lot depends on your agency's HR rules and your financial situation.

Last but not least, I strongly recommend every federal employee reading this take a few minutes to check out FedSmith, an incredibly useful reference.

http://www.fedsmith.com/

The website is easily searchable and its contributors are true SMEs on every aspect of working for the federal government as a civilian.

Please feel free to PM me with any further questions on this topic.

Good luck with your training,

Jason

 

[AQ-AT-NAVCIV]

So I read this again and what confused me was the part about paying the employee and Gov share of FEHB, but looks like that only occurs after 12 months. I guess I missed the word "additional" referring to the second 12 months. https://www.opm.gov/healthcare-insurance/healthcare/reference-materials/reference/military-service/

My HR gave me a 1-800 to call, we mostly employ old retired military guys. I'm the only old reservist we have.

 

[jason0231]

You're right, that was not immediately clear to me. Make sure to check HR's story against the applicable regs for both your agency as well as OPM's. Our situations sound similar, and I have seen and heard some crazy things in 19 years ...

Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

[fieldrat]

I'm doing a couple of months Active Duty for NAMP indoc course.

Literally doing the same thing at this very moment. I'm halfway through CWOBC, and hadto figure this mess out before leaving on orders. There are myriad details and all that. Just finished a PFA, so I'll follow up after a shower and some chow.

 

[fieldrat]

I'm doing a couple of months Active Duty for NAMP indoc course.

First things first: Do your orders explicitly state Title 10? If so, you can safely not read the rest of my post.

If not, you might not be getting your RG paycheck while your are in the indoc course. My HR dept was quick to wash their hands and say "training" doesn't count as active duty. OPM confirmed.

I don't think it matters how you divide up the leave, but I would only take LWOP after you've exhausted your other options. A lot depends on your agency's HR rules and your financial situation.

If you can avoid it, don't take a big block of LWOP. Beyond creating a situation of reduced cash flow, it can jack with your health premiums. What I did was use my MIL leave on a M-W-F basis with LWOP on the T-Th. When I was out of MIL leave, then I used my annual leave in the same pattern. This way, you're still getting a (reduced) paycheck. Also, if there are any federal holidays while you're on orders, make sure you use a day of paid leave either just before or just after; otherwise you don't get the holiday on your timesheet. For instance, Veteran's Day was on a Friday this year. I had to make sure to take paid leave on Thursday, to ensure not being charged LWOP for the holiday; same goes for Thanksgiving - had to use paid leave for Wednesday.

PM me if you have specific questions. It's pretty asinine, but at least from my perspective, they really weren't trying to cough up the money on this one. Almost as though they were secretly saying the only reservist deserving of their full paycheck is one getting wet and/or sandy, not one being directed (ordered) to required training.

 

[Flash]

First things first: Do your orders explicitly state Title 10? If so, you can safely not read the rest of my post.

If not, you might not be getting your RG paycheck while your are in the indoc course. My HR dept was quick to wash their hands and say "training" doesn't count as active duty. OPM confirmed.

If you can avoid it, don't take a big block of LWOP. Beyond creating a situation of reduced cash flow, it can jack with your health premiums. What I did was use my MIL leave on a M-W-F basis with LWOP on the T-Th.....Almost as though they were secretly saying the only reservist deserving of their full paycheck is one getting wet and/or sandy, not one being directed (ordered) to required training.

Okay, I honestly didn't know that about training orders but I am still a little baffled as to why you would go to such lengths to keep getting paid as a GS while on active duty. For which you get paid by the military. I would understand more if there is a big difference between your GS and mil pay which I presume might be the case with you, or you just want the extra money and don't care about burning a lot of leave.

Your reasoning on medical makes even less sense to me when you are getting Tricare for free when you are on active duty 30 days or more, so you shouldn't have to pay for medical unless you want to. Also, your medical premiums stay the same for up to 12-18 months when on active duty even if you choose to keep your medical under any circumstances so taking regular leave instead of LWOP buys you nothing.

To each their own but I have never known a GS to go through such lengths to do what you are to keep getting paid as a GS while on active duty and I have know quite a few.

 

[fieldrat]

To each their own but I have never known a GS to go through such lengths to do what you are to keep getting paid as a GS while on active duty and I have know quite a few.

Whether you burn the MIL leave in one big chunk, or space it out, the pay out is basically the same. I would rather space it our with LWOP and have a smaller paycheck for a while, than tack on a block of LWOP at the end and have no paycheck waiting when returning to my regular job.