Printing - FECA-PT2 - National Association of Letter Carriers

2-1000-16 Benefits for Judicial Officials Assassinated in Performance
16. Benefits for Judicial Officials Assassinated in Performance of Duty. Public Law 101-650, approved
December 1, 1990, provides that the surviving spouse of an assassinated judicial official may be paid both
an annuity and compensation under the FECA. Judicial officials covered under this provision include a
justice or judge of the U.S.; a judge of the District Court of Guam, the District Court of the Northern
Mariana Islands, or the District Court of the Virgin Islands; or a full-time bankruptcy judge or a full-time
U.S. magistrate. The annuity may be reduced if the total amount payable exceeds the current salary of
the officer of the judicial official. Any such adjustment would be made by the employing agency, not
OWCP.
2-1000-17 Severance and Separation Pay
17. Severance and Separation Pay. Employing agencies may grant severance pay to employees who
are involuntarily separated as part of a reduction in force (RIF). Agencies may also offer separation pay
("buyouts") to encourage employees to leave Federal employment voluntarily. Certain severance and
separation payments constitute dual benefits under the FECA.
a. Definitions.
(1) Severance pay was first authorized by the Federal Employees' Salary Act of 1965
(Pub. Law 89-301, since codified at 5 U.S.C. 5595). Under this statute, severance pay
could not be paid "concurrently with salary or on account of the death of another person."
FECA Program Memorandum 55, dated January 24, 1968, interpreted the phrase
"concurrently with salary" to allow payment of severance pay to claimants receiving benefits
for LWEC, since the severance pay is calculated on the basis of the salary only, and does
not take claimants' LWEC payments into consideration. Also, a schedule award may be paid
concurrently.
Severance pay represents a certain number of weeks worth of salary or wages, and it is
usually computed as a lump sum. Health benefits and optional life insurance coverage may
continue during the period of severance pay as long as the OWCP eventually makes
payments for the time period covered by the severance pay to the Office of Personnel
Management (OPM).
(2) Separation pay is offered in different forms by different agencies. Sometimes it is
defined as a number of weeks of pay, and other times as a specific amount of money,
according to the law governing the agency in question.
For example, the Postal Service (in 1992) calculated its payments as six months of the
employee's base pay, while the Department of Defense (starting in 1993) used the amount
of severance pay to which the employee would have been entitled, or $25,000, whichever
was less.
b. Information Needed. The CE should ask the employing agency to submit:
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