Even though this has abolutely nothing to do with the Iowa viewpoint on farm subsidies, I will answer the question.


I do not know about state and local government employees receiving a lump sum payment for unused sick days at the end of their career. I can tell you about Federal government employees, though, since I am one of those.

Federal employees DO NOT receive a lump sum payment for unused sick days. This practice (for the Civil Service Retirement System) went out back in the 1970's. Currently, any unused sick leave for CSRS employees is added onto their service computation date in 30 day increments to give a little boost to the retirement. For example, a person with a total of 33 years, 5 months of Federal service would receive 2 extra months if he had 88 days of unused sick leave. The remaining 28 days would be lost because it is only counted in 30 day increments.

In 2009, this was added to the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) and will be phased in - as explained in the attached link. http://blogs.federaltimes.com/federa...-leave-credit/

The lump sum payment was a feature that did grant many thousands of dollars to retirees as sick leave carryover is unlimited. I know people that got paid for at least one full year of unused sick leave at their current salary. However, as I said, that went out due to a change in the law back in the late 1970's.

Hope this answers a few of your questions and was not too technical. I have given classes on this and other Federal government benefits many times.