Military Service Credit for American Samoa Government Annual Leave

Code section 7.1203 sets annual leave for career service employees in three tiers: four hours for each full biweekly pay period with less than three years of service; six hours per pay period with three but less than fifteen years, except that the last full biweekly pay period of the year accrues ten hours; and eight hours per pay period at fifteen years or more. Subsection (b) is the veterans provision. In determining years of creditable service for those tiers, the count includes all time spent as a career service employee of the government and all time spent on active duty status with the armed forces of the United States. Then the exclusion, and its three exceptions. For an employee who is a retired member of any of the uniformed services, active duty time is not included unless: One, the retirement was based on disability resulting from injury or disease received in line of duty as a direct result of armed conflict, or caused by an instrumentality of war and incurred in the line of duty during a period of war, as those terms are defined in 38 U.S.C. 101 and 301. Two, immediately before the effective date of this service the employee was employed in a civilian office to which the federal Annual and Sick Leave Act applies, and continued in that office without a break in service of more than 30 days. Three, the service was performed in the armed forces during any war, or in any campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized. The third exception is the one to lead with, and published summaries of this section omit it entirely. A campaign badge is not a valor award; it is the campaign or expeditionary medal authorized for a named operation. Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Global War on Terrorism expeditionary awards are campaign badges. A military retiree working for the American Samoa Government who deployed on any such operation has their entire active duty time counted toward the leave tiers, which for a twenty-year retiree is the difference between the four-hour rate and the eight-hour rate from the day they are hired. Given the territory's deployment history, most retirees here will reach this exception. Subsection (c) is small and useful. The determination of the period of service may be made on the basis of an affidavit of the employee if other records are unavailable. In a place where a DD-214 can be slow to obtain from across an ocean, that provision is worth citing by number when a personnel office says it cannot verify your service. Two things the summaries get wrong about the rest of the section. The 60-day figure at subsection (f) is a ceiling on accumulated leave carried into the first complete pay period of a year, not a cap on how much you may accrue annually; it is a use-or-lose rule, not an accrual limit. And subsection (h) requires 90 days of continuous current employment before any annual leave is available at all, after which the amount that would have accrued during those 90 days is credited. Two smaller mechanics. Under subsection (e), a change in the accrual rate takes effect at the beginning of the pay period following the one in which the employee completes the required period of service. Under subsection (i), payment of money in lieu of leave is not allowed except on termination of employment.