Furlough Check-in: Tell Us How It’s Going So Far

• By Amelia Gruber and Kedar Pavgi
• June 6, 2013
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For many federal employees, the much-dreaded furloughs of fiscal 2013 are under way. It’s still a little early, but we’re curious how people are holding up so far. Are the days of unpaid leave already causing a financial strain? Or have you managed to find a silver lining in having some extra time off? Take our poll, and feel free to share any other thoughts in our comment section at the bottom of this column. 

What Would Happen if the Postal Service and FEHBP Part Ways?

• By Eric Katz
• May 30, 2013
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The U.S. Postal Service wants to be left alone.

It wants to be administered by its own board of governors,  make its own decisions on how many days a week to deliver mail and set its own product prices.

It also wants to run its own health care plan.

Currently, the approximately 1 million postal employees and retirees collect their health care with all other feds; that is, through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Removing these enrollees -- as well as their dependents -- from the FEHBP would amount to losing about one quarter of the current pool, according to the Office of Personnel Management, which administers the benefits.

The Postal Service has touted the switch as economically responsible, alleging it would save the agency $8 billion annually -- most of which would come from ending the requirement to prefund retirees health care, but $2 billion of which would come from reduced health care costs. In total, retires and employees would save nearly $700 million annually in premiums, according to Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe.

“When we do this, we will be able to provide our employees and retirees with the same or better health care coverage,” Donahoe said during a recent ...

Wallet Woes Plague Military Families

• By Kellie Lunney
• May 23, 2013
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Military families have a lot to worry about, and their biggest fears are over pay and benefits.

A new survey shows a rising level of anxiety over compensation: Thirty-five percent of military families rated pay and benefits as their top concern in the 2013 report, conducted in late 2012, from Blue Star Families, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization supporting the military community. That’s a 15 percent increase from the group’s 2012 survey, conducted in 2011.

In fact, the top three fears in the 2013 report are related to financial uncertainty. About 20 percent of respondents listed both changes in retirement benefits and employment opportunities for their service member spouses as particularly worrisome. Given that more than one million service members are leaving active duty during the next five years as we leave Afghanistan, the survey results are not especially surprising. Fears over pay and benefits and potential changes to the military’s retirement system have remained the same in the last few years, regardless of whether the service member had less than or more than 20 years of service -- the point at which they become eligible for retirement benefits.

Still the level of anxiety among the members of the ...

Protection Bureau Wants Union Protection

• By Eric Katz
• May 16, 2013
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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has unionized and first up on the agenda is improving employees’ workspace.

CFPB’s Washington, D.C., headquarters -- located adjacent to the White House -- will soon undergo renovations after employees complained of being forced to work in cramped conditions. Groups of four or five people are currently sharing offices with very thin walls, Politico reported.

And just when CFPB workers thought it could not get any worse, they may now be faced with no offices at all. Various reports have said CFBP employees may have to work from home or public spaces -- such as cafes -- while renovations are conducted.

A CFPB spokeswoman told Government Executive the agency is still weighing its options.

"The CFPB's headquarters building has not been renovated since it was constructed in 1976 and requires significant infrastructure upgrades,” the spokeswoman said. “No final decisions have been made on the specific nature of those renovations or on employee swing space during such renovations. We continue to seek input and evaluate the best options for minimizing costs while maximizing employee well-being and productivity."

The CFPB workforce recently voted to grant the National Treasury Employees Union representation rights. In a statement, NTEU president Colleen ...

Doing the Math on Unpaid Leave

• By Kellie Lunney
• May 9, 2013
• comments

Government furloughs because of sequestration have been news for the better part of a year. Lately, we’ve heard a lot about federal employees who’ve been granted a reprieve this fiscal year at least from the unpaid leave ax, but there are still many agency workers who haven’t been so lucky.

The number of furlough days for affected feds ranges, at the moment, from one to 14 depending on the individual agency’s budget situation. That means thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of feds will take home less pay -- how much less depends on several factors and how you do the math. For example, if a federal employee has to take seven furlough days between the first week of June and Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, they’d face about an 8.3 percent pay cut, give or take. You divide the number of furlough days (seven) by the number of work days left in the fiscal year for most feds between June and September (about 84). Using that rough estimate, an employee earning an annual salary of $50,000 would lose about $1,400 in gross pay over four months.

It should come as ...