The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is coordinating a Governmentwide transfer of donated annual leave from donating agencies to employees affected by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. We request that you notify your employees of the urgent need for donated annual leave for affected employees.
One year after Hurricane Katrina, many Federal employees in the Gulf coast regions of Louisiana and Mississippi continue to be affected by the hurricane and its aftermath. In a recent speech, President George W. Bush avowed "Recovering from our country's worst natural disaster requires everyone to do his or her part." Federal employees have a long tradition of being generous with their time and resources to make positive contributions to America's communities. We ask the employees of the nation's largest employer to continue this tradition by donating their annual leave to help their coworkers recover from this major disaster.
Emergency Leave Transfer Program
In our memorandum of September 2, 2005, OPM established an emergency leave transfer program to assist employees affected by Hurricane Katrina. (See CPM 2005-17.) An emergency leave transfer program permits employees (emergency leave donors) to donate their unused annual leave for transfer to employees (emergency leave recipients) of their agency or other agencies who are adversely affected by a major disaster or emergency and who need additional time off from work. We recently received notice from two agencies that the amount of annual leave donated by its emergency leave donors was not sufficient to meet the needs of its approved emergency leave recipients. The agencies requested approximately 18,000 additional hours of donated annual leave. We anticipate additional requests for donated leave from other affected agencies.
An emergency leave donor may donate a minimum of 1 hour of annual and a maximum of 104 hours of annual leave. Agencies may waive the 104-hour limitation if sufficient annual leave is not donated. An emergency leave donor may not donate annual leave for transfer to a specific emergency leave recipient. An emergency leave recipient may not receive more than 240 hours of donated annual leave at any one time from an emergency leave transfer program. OPM's regulations on the administration of the emergency leave transfer program are available on OPM's Web site at http://www.opm.gov/fedregis/html/dec_99.htm. Additional guidance is available at http://www.opm.gov/oca/leave/HTML/emerg.htm.
Transfer of Donated Leave
Each agency should notify its employees of its identified emergency leave transfer coordinator. The agency's emergency leave transfer coordinator will coordinate and facilitate the approval of requests to receive and donate annual leave under the emergency leave transfer program established for Hurricane Katrina. OPM's forms for receiving and donating annual leave under the emergency leave transfer program (OPM forms 1637 and 1638) are available from OPM's Web site at http://www.opm.gov/forms/html/emerg.htm. Employees should not send OPM forms 1637 and 1638 directly to OPM. We will return any forms received by individual employees to their agencies.
The agency's emergency leave coordinator should fax a completed and signed OPM form 1639, Transfer of Donated Annual Leave To/From the Emergency Leave Transfer Program, to Ron Genua in OPM's Pay and Leave Administration Group at (202) 606-0824. OPM's form 1639 is available from OPM's Web site at http://www.opm.gov/forms/html/emerg.htm. OPM will return a completed and signed OPM form 1639 to each donating and receiving agency. Before donating agencies send OPM form 1639 to OPM, we request that each emergency leave transfer coordinator contact Mr. Genua by October 20, 2006, to provide an estimate of the amount of donated leave that will be transferred, so that we do not collect more donated annual leave than has been requested.
For Additional Information
For additional information, please contact Ron Genua in the Pay and Leave Administration Group on 202-606-2858 or by email at pay-performance-policy@opm.gov. Employees should contact their agency human resources offices for assistance.