[Query Concerning Forfeiture of Annual Leave]

A decision was requested as to whether a Department of Labor employee must forfeit 61 hours of annual leave which he lost at a time of his transfer from one agency to another. Due to an administrative error, correction of the employee's annual leave records was delayed after his transfer. However, the employee did not use these hours of leave after they were recredited to his account because he believed that he had 1 year from the time of the credit to his account to use the leave. Annual leave forfeited at the end of a leave year can be restored when it is lost because of administrative error, exigencies of public business, or sickness. None of these exceptions applied in this case. GAO found that: (1) the employee had an opportunity to schedule and use the leave but failed to do so; (2) the employee's inaction, not the agency's administrative error, was the direct cause of the leave forfeiture; and (3) the agency's failure to notify the employee of the scheduling requirement was not an error, since employees are charged with actual or constructive notice of the requirement. Accordingly, the request for recredit of the annual leave was denied.