What's not to like?

The White House is encouraging private employers to let workers put payments for unused vacation and unused sick leave into their company 401(k) plans. A few now allow it, and the White House wants more people to have the option.

Under federal TSP rules, there is no provision to let investors do that now. But that could change under pressure from groups representing rank-and-file feds, managers, executives and retirees. If they get their way, and Congress would have to okay it, workers could put use-it-or-lose-it annual leave (amounts they can't carry over from year-to-year) into their TSP accounts each year, as well as unused leave when they retired.

Currently federal and postal workers have two options with annual and sick leave when they can retire:

1. They get a lump-sum payment for unused annual leave (which can be tens of thousands of dollars for high-grade feds and executives). That is taxable as part of income in the year they receive it. That's why so many choose to retire between Dec. 31 and January 3. That permits them to carry over the maximum amount of annual leave, get paid for most of it at the new higher pay rate and push that money into the tax year when they are retired and when, usually, their income is lower.

2. In the case of unused sick leave, workers under the old Civil Service Retirement System can apply all of their unused sick leave toward their service time when they are otherwise eligible to retire. Someone with 2080 hours of unused sick leave would be credited with another year of federal service.

Thanks to a brand-new change in law (the Defense Authorization Act,) workers under the Federal Employees Retirement System are no longer under a use-it-or-lose it sick leave system. FERS employees retiring between now and January, 2014 will get half credit toward service time for unused sick leave. After January, 2014 they will (like their CSRS counterparts) get full credit for unused sick leave. For an example of how it will work, click here. And for more from a discussion I had with NARFE Legislative Director, Randy Erwin, click here.

Most financial experts (people like index-fund founder John Bogle of Vanguard) says the federal TSP is the best 401(k) plan in the country. Because: 1) Its administrative fees are by far the lowest in the business, 2) the 5 percent employer match that most investors get (and which few private sector employers offer or match) and 3) the super-safe G-fund composed of special Treasury securities not available to nonfederal-postal-military investors.

But Uncle Sam doesn't offer the annual leave/sick leave rollover option that some progressive private sector employers do. But that could change.

At House hearings Tuesday, witness-after-witness generally praised the TSP. So did members of Congress who are also participants. One witness, president of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, Margaret L. Baptiste, raised the TSP rollover option. She said it is "a matter of equity... Federal workers should have the choice if it is offered to private sector employees."

Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union said she has asked the IRS and TSP board to give federal investors the new rollover option. Both informed her that Congress would have to sign off on the change.

Does this idea have legs? Is it going to go anywhere? Answer: Probably yes. How come? Think about it.

Members of Congress, staffers and high government officials - who often have lots of high-dollar value sick and annual leave saved up - would love to have the option for themselves. The only way they can get it is to also give it to you.

Stay tuned.

And stay well!

Happy Fluffy Clouds?
Noted from the Newsdesk

Wondering what this "cloud" thing is all the kids are talking about? Catch up from the privacy of your own cubicle with the Fed Cloud Blog here on FederalNewsRadio.com. It's quick, easy, interesting reading that may leave your staff wondering when you got so hip!

Nearly Useless Factoid
by Suzanne Kubota

Edinburgh University professors Gerald Lincoln and David Baird have determined that Rudolph the red nosed reindeer is either female or a eunuch.

And Stan the Man wrote to make a point about yesterday's NUF:

The European eel may be near extinction because it takes 20 years to reproduce, but Moray eels are plentiful because they reproduce so frequently. This is because they party a lot and make bad choices in their sexual behavior when they have too much to drink. Surely you've heard of this. Aren't you familiar with the term "social Morays"?

To reach me: mcausey@federalnewsradio.com