Big Payouts for Religious Leave

Pretty damning (so to speak) piece in the Washington Post today about federal employees' abuse of policies regarding compensatory time for attendance at religious services.

This story goes back awhile. In May 2002, GovExec's Brian Friel reported that two executives at a Navy facility in Rhode Island had been suspended after an inspector general's report concluded that they and other employees had used religious comp time for non-religious purposes. Two years later, he followed up with a column about how the two were eventually forced to retire.

In 2005, OPM issued rules requiring that employees who take time off for religious observances provide documentation of their activities. But the agency continues to promote the concept of time off for religious activities, noting in an April 2005 memo that federal employees could use such leave to "participate in the observance of Pope John Paul's funeral service."

Now, the Post reports, congressional investigators have found that Food and Drug employees were allowed to accrue large balances of religious leave -- and some were paid for unused portions of such leave when they changed jobs or retired.

By the way, it's worth noting, though, that some employees appear to have honestly accumulated leave, and some have notified their agencies when they received reimbursement for it they thought was unwarranted. For example, the Post reports, the FDA's Joseph A. Biviano got reimbursed more than $20,000 for unused religious leave when he was promoted to be associate director of management at the agency's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. As soon as he got the money, Biviano questioned whether he should have received it, and wrote the agency a check for $13,000 -- the net amount he got after taxes.

The Office of Personnel Management says there are no governmentwide rules for reporting on how religious comp time is being used. I bet that's about to change, since several members of Congress appear to be interested in that information.