Taking advantage of comp time

[Murse]

Just curious if anyone else does this and what outsiders think. As a government employee I have something known as "comp time" available to me. Basically for every hour of overtime I do, I can bank it for 1.5 hours off (paid)in the future. I can also cash it out when I desire. I can bank up to 80 hours.

As a government employee I also get annual raises (typically around 5%) and COLA's (this year 2.75% in December.)

So here's the theory. I can bank my overtime, now and wait until my raise in December hits to take it out at my new hourly rate. Then at that point I might as well wait until May when I will get my annual raise before pulling it out. From there I can look at what the Cola will be in December and decide if I want to pull out my cash. Thoughts/opinions?

[marion10]

At least in our agency- it will be converted to cash after a year.I thought that was universal, but I am not sure. This is the Federal government. Also you might not be paid at 1.5 of your current salary- there is a cap. I believe it is GS11, step 10. Thirdly, your supervisor is supposed to have you use comp time before you use any annual leave (to prevent pay out) and lastly, i have to have supervisory approval to work comp time- I cannot just decide to do it.

[robartsd]

You're right that it can be advantageous to take comp time instead of immediate payment for overtime. When I started my job, I enrolled in annual leave to be able to take time off a couple of months later for a family wedding (if I had enrolled in sick/vacation, I would not be able to take vacation time in the first six months). In hindsight, sick/vacation would have been better because I had enough OT opportunities that I could bank comp time for the wedding and years later I had a medical issue that would have utilized the sick leave.

[Murse]

At least in our agency- it will be converted to cash after a year.I thought that was universal, but I am not sure. This is the Federal government. Also you might not be paid at 1.5 of your current salary- there is a cap. I believe it is GS11, step 10. Thirdly, your supervisor is supposed to have you use comp time before you use any annual leave (to prevent pay out) and lastly, i have to have supervisory approval to work comp time- I cannot just decide to do it.

So for the county I could bank 1 hour and get 1.5 hours of comp time for it. If I requested a payout I would be paid straight time for the 1.5 hours, or the equivalent of what I would get paid if I had just taken the cash as OT.

I switched to the state almost 6 months ago so maybe the rules are different. I have not banked comp time for over a year yet so maybe there is a payout after 1 year, but even if that's true it shouldn't stop me from making it to my annual pay increase. As far as having to use your comp time first, that may be true and completely destroy my plan (unless I take no vacation until after may.) I know I can use sick time before using comp time but maybe using my vacation time is different. Good points.

[JJ-]

Be careful. Some agencies have policies to not pay it out and you lose it after the 26th pay period. My agency pays out comp time if you're FLSA non-exempt but not if you're exempt.