Surely there's a few salaried employees on that list?

If someone is AWOL they are not paid, and subject to disciplinary action. If they have an excused absence, for instance, they have an emergency at home without any vacation time, if management grants the time off; they are put on LWOP status (Leave without pay). That is an excused absence, but not a paid absence.

It was interesting that the article didn't mention LWOP. Might it be that a lot of the AWOL status was actually LWOP? Remember, they had a hard time gathering statistics.

LWOP = OK
AWOL = Bad

And how much do you know about the “gubmint world” and the pay system Nu
The government departments I know of use a biweekly timecard system with day-by-day rows and columns that are coded with leave status, hours and break-down of hours (1200-1600, for example).
The timecards are reviewed and signed by the supervisor before a “payroll” tech puts them in the system.
Audits w/ interviews are fairly common.

I won’t say it is perfect system, but with first-hand knowledge of “who is where” going up and down the chain ... I think the system has integrity.


I am salary and like others, I have to track hours.
Higher paid gov employees (well above 6 figures) use the same daily/hourly timecard system as me.


To go deeper on leave codes...

I am looking at a hard copy of leave hour status codes.
It is an old photocopied/stapled handout I kept.
(couldn’t find it online – more feed for gov secrecy I suppose )

Looking through it, I found codes for
“LEAVE HOURS – NONPAID” :

KA – LWOP
KB – Suspension
KC – AWOL
KD – Office of Worker Compensation Program (OWCP)
KE – Furlough
KF – Nonduty, Within Regular Schedule
KG – military Furlough (Called to Active Duty)

So... I stand corrected.
Even though I have never heard of AWOL for gov employees, it is a legit status.

Similar to what Ken mentioned – using this status is a good thing.
Especially if used correctly.
A good addition to the disciplinary paper trail for less-stellar employees

I still think Sen. Coburn’s report is skewed, irresponsible and a poor attempt at making a name for himself.... but hey, it got me thinking

And, since you're a government employee, that doesn't happen very often Just kiddin' ya!

How long can a federal employee be AWOL before disciplinary actions come to play? At college I work at I believe after 2 or 3 days without show for work or calling in absent you are considered to have abandoned the job and terminated. Don't know if the days must be consecutive or not.

A lot depends on how they define leave. In the military, it is defined as permission to be away from assigned duties. And even then, there are variables. For example, when I served, you had a difference between those who were required to live on base, and those who lived in a more open status.

I do not know what each department rules are, but I would suspect that AWOL is a temporary status that is used when a person does not show up and is not able to be reached. For example, if a person goes into the hospital and is unable to call in for a day or two.

I will take that easily - I have heard worse

Technically, .5 hours. If someone is 30 minutes late and is unaccounted for - they are "AWOL".

Our policy is to leave a message on the supervisor’s office phone for absence (99% of the time that is sick leave)
We also have a 24 hr workcenter that can pass info/e-mail supervisors.
E-mails from home to the supervisor are common as well.

On the backside of that, the form 71 (link I posted earlier) is the easiest way to account for annual and sick leave.

Outside annual/sick leave documented with the 71,
hour codes must be documented and initialed by the employee, line-by-line, day-by-day, on the timecard.

If time off is taken after the timecard has been submitted, a corrected timecard is submitted.

Some things that boggle me about this report....

Theoretically, if I have a buddy I supervise & who I am covering for ... I would never charge him “AWOL”.

I could get away with that for a little while – but it wouldn’t take long for us to get caught...

And, if someone doesn’t show up for work one day, unaccounted for, the supervisor makes a call within two hours.
Not just for accountability... but, concerned for the individual’s wellbeing.
That goes for military as well as civilians.

This report makes it sound like people sit around and say, “I haven’t seen John in two weeks, have you?” ... “Haven’t seen him either, just put him down AWOL”.

Al might be on to something with the LWOP status.
From my understanding, it is a leave of absence status.
I am sure that is an entirely different leave status (and paper trail to go with it).

I don't know each department’s rules either - but that is a pretty good assessment imo

Federal Government Employee Demographics.

While it is not quite as true today as when the civil service program was started, it was, and still is to some extent, an employment set aside for veterans. Even today, there is still preference for hiring veterans for government jobs.

Today, about 25% of federal employees are veterans, and this does not count non-veteran/but military status employees, such as National Guard employees that are "caretakers" of the units, which are full time government employees (that must be in the National Guard to be employed by the government).

And some that were in the military, say on active duty in the 1980s where there were no conflicts, do not have veteran status and are not counted as veterans. When those are added, at least 35% of all government employees have performed some military duty.

Another 10% of government employees are in law enforcement of some fashion, and may or may not be veterans and are not included in the above count.

And finally, there are thousands of government civilian employees deployed in Iraq and other hot-spots in the world. The result is that a significant number of government employees either have, or are providing a safe place for the rest of us to live.