this was in the Morning Report on nov. 5
 
by Rebecca Neal
Nov. 4, 2009
Legislators are considering allowing federal employees to deposit the cash value of their unused sick leave and vacation time into their Thrift Savings Plan accounts.
The Internal Revenue Service allows private sector employees to do the same with their 401(k) plans for unused leave that cannot be rolled over. TSP participants can’t do that, however, unless Congress modifies the Federal Employees Retirement System Act, the bill that created the Thrift Savings Plan.
Several TSP improvements, such as automatically enrolling new federal employees in the plan, were included in a tobacco bill Obama signed in June. Chairman Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., said at a Nov. 3 House hearing that it was an oversight to have left out of those legislative improvements a measure that would enable federal employees to deposit their unused leave cash equivalents into their TSP accounts.“Credits for unused sick leave is a great idea … shame on us for not anticipating that and putting it in our bill,” Lynch said, adding that he wants to move on the idea soon.