If a Federal or Postal Employee files for Federal Disability Retirement benefits under FERS or CSRS, remember that: (A) You are not required to stop working, as most people for economic necessity continue to work, and (B) If you stop working, and you are not using your Sick Leave or Annual Leave, but are out on LWOP, remember that once you obtain an approval for your Federal Disability Retirement, that back-pay will be paid all the way back to your “last day of pay”, and not to the last day you “worked”.
In other words, if you are out on LWOP for three months (as a hypothetical), and on the day before you are approved for your OPM Disability Retirement, you receive a paycheck from your Agency for 1 hour of SL or AL, then you have lost all of the potential “back pay” of the three months on LWOP, because the “last day of pay” was the day just before your Federal Disability Retirement was approved. Be careful that this does not happen. While donated leave is often accepted because of economic necessity, you will likely regret accepting such payment once your Federal Disability Retirement application is approved.
Sincerely,
Robert R. McGill, Esquire
OPM Disability Retirement, Et Cetera… 