News Briefs

THE DAILY FED

News Briefs

The following news summaries are from OPM AM, the daily newsletter of the Office of Personnel Management. OPM AM is available on OPM Mainstreet, the agency's electronic bulletin board, at 202-606-4800.

COLA--OPM says that retired federal employees and the surviving family members of deceased employees can expect a cost-of-living increase in the payments which will be delivered to them on January 2, 1997 (Office of Communications News Release, December 16).

THE FEDERAL DIARY--"Groups that represent the five million federal workers and retirees are fighting an uphill battle to get the White House to go easy on federal retirement benefits in the budget it will send Congress early next year" (The Washington Post).

USIS--"The creation of US Investigative Services Inc. (USIS) provides an in-depth, practical model on how to overcome the resistance to privatization and successfully create an efficient and profitable private organization" (Federal Contracts Report).

AROUND GOVERNMENT--The Peace Corps is launching the Crisis Corps to help in short-term international relief efforts (The Washington Post)...The IRS, unable to resolve disputes with its union over impending layoffs, plans to ask federal arbitrators this week to intervene and force an agreement or impose a settlement (The Washington Post)...$55 million computer created by the Energy Department and Intel takes the supercomputing crown -- handling 1 trillion mathematical operations per second (The Washington Post).

FEDERAL NEWS--OPM issues employee and agency guides to help in the latest round of buyouts (Government Employee Relations Report)...A bipartisan task force on the Presidential Appointment Process has called for reducing the ranks of political appointees by one-third -- from 3,000 to 2,000 (Federal Human Resources Week).

OF INTEREST--Career counselors say they are besieged by distressed baby boomers longing to try new fields (The Wall Street Journal, Managing Your Career)...After a lull of several seasons, the holiday office party is back with a vengeance--and with it more chances than ever to win points--or lose face--with bosses and coworkers alike (The Wall Street Journal)...One good rule at those parties: Don't drink or complain (The Wall Street Journal, Work Week).