Leave management important issue for today's Airmen Published June 30, 2008 ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam -- With summer upon us, many Airmen are looking forward to vacation time to enjoy with friends and family. Maybe vacation involves international flights to distant locations or activities in the local area. Regardless of the plans, time away from work requires Airmen to take leave. As many Airmen can attest, lengthy respites from the work environment tend to have a beneficial effect on an individual's psychological and physical status. Therefore, an aggressive leave program is an essential military requirement. According to DoDD 1327.5, Leave and Liberty, all officers in command, major headquarters and the military departments shall ensure that secondary and nonessential efforts that may prevent aggressive leave program are not imposed. There are many types of leave available to Airmen; annual, advance, convalescent, emergency, en route, terminal, excess and environmental and morale. Airmen can find more detailed descriptions of the different types of leave in AFPAM 36-2241 Section 16D - Leave Management. Some basic points to remember about leave include: - Leave accrues at the rate of 2.5 calendar days per month of active duty. Military requirements may prevent members from using planned leave. A recent policy change increased the number of days members may carry over into the next fiscal year from 60 to 75 days through Dec. 31, 2010. The expression "use or lose" means that leave in excess of 75 days is lost if not used by the end of the fiscal year, which is Sept. 30. This policy is effective immediately and retroactive to January 28, 2008. - Leave must begin and end in the local area. The term "local area" means the place of residence from which the member commutes to the duty station on a daily basis. - A member who is unable to report to duty upon expiration of leave because of illness or injury must advise the leave approving authority. The next of kin, attending physician, representative at the Military Treatment Facility or American Red Cross representative may act on the member's behalf when the member is incapacitated and unable to provide notification. - Airmen must ask, orally or in writing, for an extension of leave. The extension must be requested sufficiently in advance of expiration of leave authorized to permit the Airman to return to duty at the proper time if the approval authority disapproves the extension. LeaveWeb is an Air Force system that automates the method of requesting and processing leave in lieu of using the hard copy AF Form 988. The program uses email between the Airman, the supervisor, the unit leave monitor and finance to approve leave. This electronic process reduces waste in materials as well as man-hours. It is available on the Air Force Portal.