The Commuter Benefit Chase

• By Kellie Lunney
• March 28, 2013
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The sequester is squeezing nearly every agency’s budget. Managers are scouring the books to find all available savings, and that could include less generous public transit and parking benefits for federal employees. The Labor Department, for instance, has already decided to provide a maximum monthly transit subsidy of $125 to employees in 2013 -- $120 less than the maximum that agencies can give feds this year under the law. Agencies would like to avoid massive furloughs, so perks like commuting subsidies are very much on the table. Transit benefits, after all, aren’t entitlements.

The Commuter Benefit Chase 

There’s a rumor out there, beyond the Beltway, that all Washington-area federal employees get free parking.

It’s not true, of course. Some work at agencies that provide free or subsidized parking to eligible employees—for example, the Pentagon and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation—but many others ride public transportation to and from their jobs out of necessity, just like workers in other parts of the country. A 2000 executive order directed federal agencies to create a transportation fringe benefit program for employees to ease traffic congestion and encourage the use of mass transit and carpooling. Thirteen years later, it ...

Unlike Some Benefits, Sequester Is Here to Stay

• By Eric Katz
• March 21, 2013
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Remember the days when everyone from House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to Gov. Bob McDonnell, R-Va., called sequestration bad policy, and President Obama said it “will not happen”?

Oh, how far we have come.

The across-the-board spending cuts are already in effect, and federal employee furloughs are all but certain. Notices have been sent out at several agencies, and lawmakers are pessimistic about any last-ditch efforts to cancel the across-the-board cuts.

“There will definitely be, in this year, there will be agencies that will be doing furloughs,” Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., told Government Executive on Monday after a town hall meeting with U.S. Census Bureau employees.

The House and Senate have already passed separate spending bills for the remainder of the fiscal year, and both keep sequestration-level budgets in place.

Dozens of federal agencies have announced the specifics of their furlough plans. A few say they will be able to stay within their diminished budget levels without forcing unpaid leave by freezing hiring and cutting other costs, such as travel and training.

Benefits on the Table

As agencies look for ways to save money to meet new spending targets, managers are targeting everything from transit benefits to…compressed work ...

Not Everyone Hates Sequestration

• By Eric Katz
• March 14, 2013
• comments

While most in government -- from President Obama to agency heads to front-line workers to lawmakers to contractors -- have decried the across-the-board spending cuts of sequestration, a select few could actually benefit from them. Here are some examples:

Premium pay executives: Premium pay is offered to certain federal employees -- for example, law enforcement personnel -- in addition to their basic rate of pay. The amount of premium pay is capped, however, in each pay period. The Office of Personnel Management has identified a scenario in which an employee who regularly hits the premium pay cap would end up taking home the same amount of money during a furlough because the reduction in basic pay would be offset by extra premium pay that no longer falls above the ceiling. In other words, this employee would receive the same compensation as usual, but work fewer hours. Not a bad position to be in, at least from the employee’s perspective.   

Federal employee lawyers: Workers can challenge furloughs, and that means more business for lawyers with a government clientele. The Merit Systems Protection Board is bracing for a flood of such appeals. Tully Rinckey PLLC, an employment and labor law firm that serves federal employees ...

Between the Pay Freeze and Snowquester, It’s Cold in Washington

• By Kellie Lunney
• March 7, 2013
• comments

Mother Nature tricked Washington again. As of midafternoon on Wednesday, a much-anticipated late winter snowstorm had largely bypassed the District, despite shutting down the government in the region for the day. Fortunately, we can always count on Congress for drama when the weather fails to deliver.

The big news this week? While sequestration looks like it’s here to stay, at least there (probably) won’t be a man-made government shutdown at the end of the month.

The House voted on Wednesday to keep the government running through Sept. 30 and uphold the sequester with some flexibility for the Pentagon, Veterans Affairs Department and other programs. But, unfortunately for federal employees, lawmakers also included a provision in the continuing resolution that extends the current civilian pay freeze through 2013. Lawmakers froze their own pay too, but it’s cold comfort at this point to most feds.

The continuing resolution in its current form likely will become law, despite the White House’s objection to maintaining the sequester with most agencies remaining at fiscal 2012 spending levels. Then again, President Obama said that if policymakers hewed to the spending levels outlined in the 2011 Budget Control Act, he would sign a ...

How Furloughs Will Affect Pay and Benefits

• By Kellie Lunney
• February 28, 2013
• comments

Well, the deadline is here at last: Sequestration lands in less than two days. Despite all the rhetoric from both sides of the aisle, there are few serious efforts under way to head it off by Friday.

There’s also a dearth of specific information on possible furloughs and how they would affect federal employees’ pay and benefits. Agencies now are starting to send out general notices to employees on the likelihood of furloughs during the rest of the fiscal year. Actual furloughs in some agencies could start as early as March or April, if Congress opts not to reverse the automatic spending cuts or otherwise modify the sequester timetable. Congress also needs to keep the government open past March 27, so it’s likely they will try to incorporate some solution on the sequester into extending the continuing resolution.

But who knows?

Let’s assume the sequester stays in place and there are furloughs. Federal employees and managers should look closely at the Office of Personnel Management’s furlough guidance here as well as the agency’s supplemental information on the topic.

It’s important to remember that agencies are supposed to turn to furloughs only as a last ...