If an employee has excess leave because their scheduled, approved leave was cancelled by management to complete critical Forest Service work, they will need to submit in a request to restore leave between January 3 – March 31, 2022.  Additional information is shared in the “Use or Lose” leave letter from Business Operations which is posted on HRM’s website.  

If an employee has excess leave because they responded to the COVID-19 national emergency, they will have their leave automatically restored. This is based upon direction by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). These employees should receive an email by the end of December 2021 on their status and will NOT need to submit a request to restore leave.  

• This includes employees who coded their timesheet in Paycheck 8 using a COVID accounting code or charged time using Descriptor Code 86 (COVID-19 Div M) or Prefix 11 (fire suppression time) with Transaction Code 21 (overtime premium).

As a friendly reminder, any annual leave that was re-credited based upon the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) signed December 2020 must be used by Jan. 1, 2022 or it will be forfeited. This leave is not eligible to be restored, paid out as a lump sum payment, or donated. If you had any annual leave re-credited, you would have received an HR Help case notice in March or April of 2021. Please refer to that HR Help case notice for the number of hours re-credited.  

What you need to do

Complete an application to restore leave if you had scheduled, approved leave cancelled by management to complete critical Forest Service work. Submit restoration leave requests between January 3 – March 31, 2022.

If you believe you meet the requirements to have leave restored due to providing COVID support during a national emergency and you did NOT receive an email, open a HR Help case following the below directions.

Information about how to submit a Leave Restoration request can be found on the HRM Leave website.

Help Is Available
Open an HR Help case:

• Call: 1-877-372-7248, Press 2
• Email: hrm_contact_center@usda.gov
• Self-Service: ConnectHR, then click HR Help
• For detailed instructions, visit the HR Help How-to Add a Case Guide.