South Carolina Military Leave for a Public Officer or Employee

South Carolina runs paid military leave for public employees through three provisions that stack rather than overlap. Section 8-7-90 is the main one. All officers and employees of the State or a political subdivision who are enlisted or commissioned members of the South Carolina National Guard, the Army Reserve, the Air Force Reserve, the Naval Reserve, the Marine Corps Reserve or the Coast Guard Reserve are entitled to leaves of absence "without loss of pay, time, or efficiency rating for one or more periods not exceeding an aggregate of fifteen regularly scheduled work days in any one year" for training or any other duty ordered by the Governor or by a federal department or agency with authority to order military service. Two details in that sentence do work. "Regularly scheduled work days" and the following sentence, which says Saturdays, Sundays and state holidays may not be included in the fifteen-day aggregate "unless the particular Saturday, Sunday, or holiday to be included is a regularly scheduled work day for the officer or employee involved". A two-week annual training that spans two weekends consumes ten days of the entitlement for a Monday-to-Friday employee, not fourteen. For a shift worker whose regular schedule includes Saturdays, it consumes those Saturdays. "In any one year" is then defined, and the definition is favourable. It means either a calendar year or, for members required to perform duty on a fiscal year basis, "the fiscal year of the National Guard or reserve component issuing the orders". The employee does not have to force military duty into the employer's calendar. The emergency addition: "In the event any such person is called upon to serve during an emergency he is entitled to such leave of absence for not exceeding thirty additional days." That is thirty on top of the fifteen, and the trigger is an emergency call-up rather than routine duty. The combat zone addition, which applies only to state employees and not to local government employees: "A state employee in a full time position who serves on active duty in a combat zone and who has exhausted all available leave for military purposes is entitled to receive up to thirty additional days of military leave in any one year." Note the order of operations. This is a third tier that opens only after the other military leave is gone. The section then tells an employer how to read it: the provisions "must be construed liberally to encourage and allow full participation in all aspects of the National Guard and reserve programs", so that state employees "excel in military and emergency preparedness and service by taking full advantage of all career-enhancing assignments and training opportunities." A rule of construction written into the statute is a useful thing to quote to a supervisor who wants to treat leave as discretionary. Section 25-1-2250 covers state active duty separately, and it is unlimited on its face: officers and employees of the State and its subdivisions "shall be entitled to military leave without loss of pay, seniority or efficiency rating, when attending National Guard encampments or schools for training, under proper authority, and on all other occasions when ordered to active duty, in the service of the State of South Carolina." Duty ordered by the Governor in state service is not rationed by the fifteen-day count. Section 8-7-20 handles the long absence. Every employee of the State or a political subdivision commissioned, enlisted or selected for service in the armed forces is entitled to a leave of absence without loss of seniority, efficiency or register rating for as long as military requirements prevent return, plus ninety days after, "but in no event for a period longer than five years from the date of his entry into the armed forces". That leave is unpaid; the entitlement it protects is the job and the seniority. It expressly does not cover an officer or official elected or appointed to a statutory or constitutional term, who is handled instead by Sections 8-7-30 through 8-7-80: the absence creates a temporary vacancy rather than a forfeiture, a temporary appointee is named and paid the same salary, the absent officer draws no compensation but on thirty days' written notice is entitled to the office back for the remainder of the term, and the bond requirement is waived during the absence. Federal reemployment rights under USERRA sit on top of all of this and are broader for most purposes, including the five-year cumulative service limit, restoration to the escalator position, and continuation of health coverage for up to twenty-four months at up to one hundred and two percent of premium for service of thirty days or more.