Maternity leave for feds? CA maternity leave?

[gretchenindisguise]

I feel like MM and CEP has quite a collection of federal employees. Any of you gone through maternity leave with the feds?

An even longer shot - anyone gone through it as a california resident?

I'm trying to see what to expect. Based on what I've read, I'll just have to exhaust my annual and sick leave. Which sucks. I'll have 6 weeks. CA leave looks promising, but as a federal employee I don't think I qualify because I don't think we contribute. I have a line item on my paycheck for CA tax, but not one for CA SDI.

If you have any knowledge, please pass it along! 
 
thanks

[catsarecute]

I'm not a federal employee but I work in education in California and don't pay into SDI.

The way my company does it is this:
-First, you use up all your sick time.
-Then, you go into "extended sick" where they use your PTO. Luckily, they split my PTO in half so I'm only using 4 hours a day. When I go on leave, I'll have 13 days of PTO which is really 26 days.
-I do qualify for half pay for 6 or 8 weeks but that only takes effect starting the day I have the baby and I have to exhaust my sick and PTO first. According to my calculations (and best guess since I have no idea when the kid will arrive), 6 or 8 weeks will expire by the time my sick and PTO run out. I'll basically go an entire month unpaid because I'm choosing to take 12 weeks. I could go back to work after 8 weeks and get paid but I want the extra time and we have made financial arrangements in advance for me to take the extra time off.

The whole system is so confusing. It took multiple emails and phone conversations with our HR person for me to understand how it works. I hope you can figure it out!

[gretchenindisguise]

Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. I'm the money maker in the family - I can't go unpaid. blerg.

[mandapanda18]

I'm a state of Ca employee, yeah.... we don't pay into SDI and I'm a Manager, so I could also not opt into AFLAC either

I got 30 days paid (6 weeks) at my regular salary per my benefits (policy book).
I could take my sick time/vacation time, but if I used one day I had to use it all (policy) so I chose to use my sick only and leave my vacation alone for appointments and such when I got back.
I then qualfied for Non-industrial disability insurance through the state, a whopping .... wait for it $35 a day. Lets just say I make more than that an hour! I took 9 weeks off, 6 fully paid, 2 weeks sick and 10 days of NDI, that is all I could afford as the higher paid parent.

[mandapanda18]

oh... and I worked until 6/28 (friday) and had C on 7/1 (monday) I was not wasting my paid time off at home with out a baby... just my preference.

[pinkdutchtulips]

Mar 4, 2014 18:32:50 GMT -5 mandapanda18 said:

oh... and I worked until 6/28 (friday) and had C on 7/1 (monday) I was not wasting my paid time off at home with out a baby... just my preference.

i did the same ... my last day at work was 7/13 and my scheduled induction was the next morning 7/14. i had a very LIMITED amount of ML (i had just started a new position about 2 1/2 months prior) and didn't want to waste it at home waiting for a baby to arrive. i was a week overdue ....

i did my 6 wks of disability and then a week under CA's PFL.

[gretchenindisguise]

Ugh, it's just so sucky. Why do we suck at maternity leave in the US?

[mandapanda18]

Mar 4, 2014 18:44:08 GMT -5 gretchenindisguise said:

Ugh, it's just so sucky. Why do we suck at maternity leave in the US?

right? If i were to have another, I'd move to Canada

[gretchenindisguise]

And yes, with my first - I had about 7 weeks - 6 paid - 1 unpaid while I was waiting for a new job to start up. And worked on Friday - was induced on Sunday. It was ok though, I wasn't feeling crappy at all by that point.

[mandapanda18]

Mar 4, 2014 18:41:12 GMT -5 pinkdutchtulips said:

Mar 4, 2014 18:32:50 GMT -5 mandapanda18 said:

oh... and I worked until 6/28 (friday) and had C on 7/1 (monday) I was not wasting my paid time off at home with out a baby... just my preference.

i did the same ... my last day at work was 7/13 and my scheduled induction was the next morning 7/14. i had a very LIMITED amount of ML (i had just started a new position about 2 1/2 months prior) and didn't want to waste it at home waiting for a baby to arrive. i was a week overdue ....

i did my 6 wks of disability and then a week under CA's PFL.

I was also induced, so it made it slightly easier to gage, but my kid wasn't bugging (I was still super high and .5 c when I started my induction).

[karinothing]

Federal employee. Varies by agency I believe. My agency allows us to have up to 11 months off (but not pay). We can use a combo of annual and sick. We can also use credit or comp time if you have it. Once we have exhausted all leave we qualify for the leave pool so folks can donate to us if they want to.

I took 6 months off. 3 months a combo of sick/annual plus a disability policy I purchased through the union. Then 3 months as LWOP.

[mlvmd]

At my federal agency we only get 12 weeks under FMLA. We can use sick leave for the time the doctor says we are "sick" so generally six to eight weeks then we can use annual leave for the remainder. We can also go unpaid if we don't have enough leave or use advance leave that we have to pay back (through accruals). There is also a possibility of leave donation but I don't know of anyone at our office who has done this.

We don't have any short term disability. Not offered through work and I'm not eligible to be in our union (not sure if it's offered through it, I think some unions do).

I carry 240 annual leave hours and have hundreds of hours of sick leave so I can have another child and still end the year with 240 annual leave hours. It means I have taken very little leave over the years and will now just take the use or lose portion until the year I have a second child then I will take no annual leave at all.

[ssmjlm]

My office was pretty lax about the whole thing bc I used leave for the 14w. I did 8w of sick and then 6w of annual just in case someone down the line asked for a doctor note. I also wanted to come back with 100ish hours in each bank.

[laurenh]

Fed here but in NY. As long as you've been a fed for at least 12 months (any agency) you're eligible for 12 weeks of unpaid FMLA.

I don't know if this is across the board or specific to my agency, but you can use your SL for "recovery" but not "bonding", where recovery means the amount of time your doctor says you need to be out of work (assume 6-8 weeks) and bonding is you choosing to stay home beyond that point (total bs). Beyond that, you can move to AL, FMLA, or a combo. I took 18 weeks off and used 20 hours of leave and 20 hours of FMLA leave per PPD. This ensured that I wasn't getting billed for health insurance while I had no income and also ensured I still earned some leave while on FMLA. At least at my agency once you hit 80 hours of LWOP you don't accrue for that pay period. It also allows you to take advantage of fed holidays.

We aren't eligible for leave donation until exhausting all leave.

I can write you a novel and feel free to PM if you have any questions. I was the only one working and worked things the best I could.

[dbsk8dance]

State enployee, not fed, but I didn't qualify for CA SDI because my district is self insured for STD. I'm an hourly so I didn't qualify for the district std either.

No paid leave for me!! I took 8 weeks unpaid. DH got 3 weeks through CA SDI.

[curbsideprophet]

There is no fed maternity policy.

With DD I took six weeks of sick leave, maybe about half of that was advanced SL. I took me about a year to get back in the positive. After my sick leave I started my FMLA leave and did a combo of AL and unpaid. I made sure to have enough paid days to cover health premiums, etc each pay period. I did not use all my FMLA at this time just in case I needed some later.

I did not exhaust my AL so I was not eligible for donated leave. I had heard donated leave was rare for routine pregnancy/delivery so I did not even attempt it. After the fact someone in HR said they could have found me leave, but who knows if that was true (I was out Sept - Nov and worked part time in Dec). I did use AL anytime DD was sick once I went back to work since I did not have any sick leave.

OPM has a great page on the effects of extended LWOP. Wish I had known about it before I went on leave. One of the biggest things is you stop accruing leave for the PP you hit 80 hours unpaid (and each time you get back to 80). I think this might reset with the calendar year. This can also push back within grade increases.

Let me know if you can not find the OPM page. PM me if you want.

[karinothing]

Mar 4, 2014 19:53:04 GMT -5 laurenh said:

Fed here but in NY. As long as you've been a fed for at least 12 months (any agency) you're eligible for 12 weeks of unpaid FMLA.

I don't know if this is across the board or specific to my agency, but you can use your SL for "recovery" but not "bonding", where recovery means the amount of time your doctor says you need to be out of work (assume 6-8 weeks) and bonding is you choosing to stay home beyond that point (total bs). Beyond that, you can move to AL, FMLA, or a combo. I took 18 weeks off and used 20 hours of leave and 20 hours of FMLA leave per PPD. This ensured that I wasn't getting billed for health insurance while I had no income and also ensured I still earned some leave while on FMLA. At least at my agency once you hit 80 hours of LWOP you don't accrue for that pay period. It also allows you to take advantage of fed holidays.

We aren't eligible for leave donation until exhausting all leave.

I can write you a novel and feel free to PM if you have any questions. I was the only one working and worked things the best I could.

Yeah, my agency lets you use sick leave for whatever. I think it is all agency dependent.

[starlily]

County employee, but we don't pay into SDI either. We do have STD through another provider though, which is somewhat reasonable in that while there is a one week waiting period, we do not have to exhaust all other leave first. It pays 55% of salary, then it's up to the employee to decide if they want to integrate their other accumulated PTO to make up the difference.

[gretchenindisguise]

Mar 4, 2014 19:16:52 GMT -5 @kirkette said:

Do you qualify for PFL?

I don't think so.

Thanks for all the info ladies. It basically confirms what I thought.

Maybe H will get a job between now and then that pays more than his Post Doc and will make up for my own lost wages. I was really hoping to take about 10 weeks this time to basically get through the holiday season. But I guess not much is happening during that time anyways so maybe it's the best time to ease back into things.

[mpc]

Mar 4, 2014 19:24:52 GMT -5 mlvmd said:

At my federal agency we only get 12 weeks under FMLA. We can use sick leave for the time the doctor says we are "sick" so generally six to eight weeks then we can use annual leave for the remainder. We can also go unpaid if we don't have enough leave or use advance leave that we have to pay back (through accruals). There is also a possibility of leave donation but I don't know of anyone at our office who has done this.

We don't have any short term disability. Not offered through work and I'm not eligible to be in our union (not sure if it's offered through it, I think some unions do).
 

I'm a fed and this is exactly how it worked for me. I had enough leave to cover my first child, but if I have a second I might run out and look into the leave donation program. I definitely would end up on the leave donor list if I ever had a third.

[lishie]

I took maternity leave twice as a fed.

Both times, I took most of it unpaid. 14 weeks the first time, 16 weeks the second.

I worked in the legal office, and they were strict about following the rules and the most sick leave they allowed us to use was for the amount of time we were officially disabled. I could have used up to 6 weeks, no matter what I had saved (though with two pregnancies/leaves in the 3 years I'd been an employee, I didn't have much anyway).

I know other agencies/departments are more generous with their use of sick leave during pregnancy.

In theory, I I had more leave and I had wanted to take longer, I would have been able to use up my SL for and AL, and then invoked my 12 weeks of FMLA.

[AmyRI]

I was in the same situation as you - as a Fed, I wasn't part of the short term disability pool run by the state. The only option for paid leave was to use sick and annual leave.

For the "medical" part of mat leave (6 weeks vaginal or 8 weeks c/s, or as long as your doc will write you out), you have to use sick leave, then annual leave, and if you run out of that, then you can apply for leave donations. The donated leave must be used while you're out on the medical emergency. So for me, I had 3 or 4 weeks of my own leave (sick + annual) and got another week or so donated to me, but the last 6 or 7 weeks was fully unpaid because I had no leave and the medical emergency was over so I couldn't accept donations.

I was given the option of advanced sick or annual leave... but knowing that I'd come back to work and have sick kids from daycare, there was no way I'd be going in the hole. It was bad enough coming back with 0 balances, and a year later, I've still only got a few days in the bank.

[Deleted]

I'm a fed but in MA. No std so I can use sick and annual leave. We can borrow an advance of 240 hrs of sick leave too. We can also take advantage of a leave sharing program. After that it is unpaid leave -LWOP. My agency allows up to 9 months off but its hard to do when you wont be paid.

Some agencies are strict with sick leave and only allow you to use 6 weeks for vaginal delivery and 8 for a c section (the medical incapacitation period). However, my leave is just approved and signed off on by my mgr and her mgr and they never care how much you use. So you might want to look into that.

[simpsongal]

Mar 5, 2014 8:32:29 GMT -5 mpc said:

Mar 4, 2014 19:24:52 GMT -5 mlvmd said:

At my federal agency we only get 12 weeks under FMLA. We can use sick leave for the time the doctor says we are "sick" so generally six to eight weeks then we can use annual leave for the remainder. We can also go unpaid if we don't have enough leave or use advance leave that we have to pay back (through accruals). There is also a possibility of leave donation but I don't know of anyone at our office who has done this.

We don't have any short term disability. Not offered through work and I'm not eligible to be in our union (not sure if it's offered through it, I think some unions do).
 

I'm a fed and this is exactly how it worked for me. I had enough leave to cover my first child, but if I have a second I might run out and look into the leave donation program. I definitely would end up on the leave donor list if I ever had a third.

This is our agency too.  More flexible agencies may have special pay & leave authority beyond other agencies or they may simply be ignoring the rules.  Some departments in our agency bend the rules.  We can't b/c we're OGC and advise on them, grrr....  If I want to take more leave I have to negotiate that with my bosses.  But my CW just had a baby and there are more coming in our small department.  Fortunately, I think I'll be ready to go back after 12 weeks.  Teleworking helps with the transition.

I'm using 6 weeks of sick leave and 6 weeks of annual to cover my ML.  I've been hoarding leave over the course of 5 years but I probably won't have enough to fully cover a second ML.

Helpful tip - award leave doesn't count towards your 'use or lose' balance so save it up!

[gretchenindisguise]

I've only been a fed for a year and a half, will have kid basically right at my 2 year anniversary - so no time to save up. It's the one major drawback of job hopping, but I think I'll be here until retirement now. Which helps me in the future, and not for this ML.

I read about leave donation, but I have enough sick and annual to get through 6 weeks, and then I won't be able to accept the donated leave because it won't be a medical reason anymore - it specifically says it cannot be used for bonding time with the babe.

[biscoffcookies]

Mar 4, 2014 20:22:30 GMT -5 karinothing said:

Mar 4, 2014 19:53:04 GMT -5 laurenh said:

Fed here but in NY. As long as you've been a fed for at least 12 months (any agency) you're eligible for 12 weeks of unpaid FMLA.

I don't know if this is across the board or specific to my agency, but you can use your SL for "recovery" but not "bonding", where recovery means the amount of time your doctor says you need to be out of work (assume 6-8 weeks) and bonding is you choosing to stay home beyond that point (total bs). Beyond that, you can move to AL, FMLA, or a combo. I took 18 weeks off and used 20 hours of leave and 20 hours of FMLA leave per PPD. This ensured that I wasn't getting billed for health insurance while I had no income and also ensured I still earned some leave while on FMLA. At least at my agency once you hit 80 hours of LWOP you don't accrue for that pay period. It also allows you to take advantage of fed holidays.

We aren't eligible for leave donation until exhausting all leave.

I can write you a novel and feel free to PM if you have any questions. I was the only one working and worked things the best I could.

Yeah, my agency lets you use sick leave for whatever. I think it is all agency dependent.

In theory, it shouldn't be, because the policy about being able to use sick time only for the time you are disabled for childbirth (6 to 8 weeks) and not for bonding is set by OPM and applies across the government.  In reality, it all depends on your supervisor and what he is willing to approve.  Even within my agency people have had different experiences.  My section adheres to the OPM rule, so I was only allowed to use sick leave for 6 weeks (which was fine, because that was all I had).  I know a girl in a different section whose bosses approved sick leave for her whole leave. 

One thing to know is that, if using the leave bank is an option, they only require you to exhaust your earned leave.  You don't have to use advanced leave before you can apply to the leave bank (assuming they will entertain an application for childbirth -- as PPs indicated, agencies seem to differ on whether they think childbirth is "worthy").