Government Executive - Authors - Amelia Gruber

From shutdown prospects to anti-telework bills: 5 things to watch when Congress returns

Amelia Gruber — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 06:00:00 -0400

The Senate returns from recess on Tuesday and the House the following week. Lawmakers will be racing the clock to tackle big issues, such as finalizing agency spending bills. Here are five areas to watch as Congress returns, that could have big implications for federal employees’ paychecks, benefits and job security.

1. Shutdown prospects. One of the top items on lawmakers’ agenda when they return will be funding the government for next fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., have said they’ve agreed to work on a short-term continuing resolution to keep the lights on while negotiations on longer-term spending are completed. House Freedom Caucus members have threatened not to support the CR unless it meets a list of demands on conservative policy issues, but McCarthy plans to use the need to fund investigations of Hunter Biden as leverage to avoid a shutdown.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act, signed into law in June as part of a deal to avoid a debt default, has a provision intended to discourage a shutdown. Under the law, Congress has until Jan. 1, 2024 to pass all 12 annual appropriations bills or a process would be triggered that could result in cuts to all agency budgets of 1% below this year’s levels.

2. Anti-telework bills. The White House earlier in August called on agencies to “aggressively” reduce telework this fall, but Republicans aren’t taking any changes. The Stopping Home Office Work’s Unproductive Problems Act (H.R. 139 and S. 1565) would require agencies to “reinstate and apply the telework policies, practices and levels . . . in effect on December 31, 2019” within 30 days of the bill’s enactment. If agencies want to expand telework beyond 2019 levels, they would have to submit an Office of Personnel Management-certified plan to Congress first.

The House narrowly passed the bill–dubbed the SHOW UP Act–in February, but the Senate version has not made it out of committee. House lawmakers are also attacking telework through appropriations legislation, attaching a rider to their version of the Financial Services and General Government spending bill that would direct agencies to return their telework policies to pre-pandemic levels within 30 days of the bill’s enactment, similar to the SHOW UP Act.

The Senate version of the Financial Services appropriations bill does not ask agencies to scale back telework, but the report accompanying the bill requires several agencies covered under the bill–such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Trade Commission–to “evaluate how increased telework impacts recruitment, retention, and organizational performance” and report back to the panel within 180 days after enactment.

The House and Senate will eventually need to hammer out differences between their two versions before the bill becomes law.

Lawmakers are also making return-to-office policies a subject of their oversight efforts. Republican leaders on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee on Thursday sent a letter to White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients seeking more information on his August message promoting more in-person work. “The American people deserve to understand the Biden Administration’s post-pandemic telework policy and the thinking behind the Biden Administration’s rapidly evolving telework posture,” the letter stated.

3. The pay raise. President Biden has proposed a 5.2% average pay raise for civilian federal employees in 2024, and so far Congress has done nothing to override that figure, which would represent the largest raise for feds since the Carter administration granted them a 9.1% average increase in 1980.

The House and Senate draft versions of the fiscal 2024 Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill are silent on the pay hike, meaning lawmakers so far don’t plan to stand in the way of letting Biden’s plan take effect. The House’s version of the Defense Authorization Act also supports Biden’s proposed 5.2% raise for civilians, as well as military members.

Democratic lawmakers have pitched overriding Biden’s plan with an even bigger pay raise of 8.7% for 2024, introducing the Federal Adjustment of Income Rates Act in January. Such measures have become an annual effort that is rarely acted upon, and this year’s is no exception. Both the House version (H.R. 536), sponsored by Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., and the Senate bill (S. 124), from Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, are sitting at the committee level.

4. TSP limitations. Lawmakers have introduced legislative language that would place restrictions on investments made through federal employees’ 401(k)-style retirement savings plan. A provision in the House version of the fiscal 2024 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill, for instance, would prevent federal employees from investing in mutual funds through the Thrift Savings Plan’s mutual fund window that “make investment decisions based primarily on environmental, social, or governance criteria.”

The Senate’s version of the Financial Services spending bill did not have the same language; however, the Senate earlier in the summer considered a defense policy bill amendment intended to prevent TSP investments in Chinese companies. The amendment to the fiscal 2024 Defense Authorization Act by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., failed, but by a relatively small margin, receiving bipartisan support and 55 of 60 votes it would have needed to pass.

5. Schedule F (and efforts to stop it). Republican presidential hopefuls including former President Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis have pledged to revive “Schedule F,” a Trump administration initiative to place potentially tens of thousands of career federal employees into a new job classification within the excepted service that would strip them of most of their civil service protections and make it easier to hire and fire them.

Biden quickly reversed Trump’s executive order creating the new job classification upon coming into office, before any federal employees were actually affected, but Democratic lawmakers would like to stop any future plans to resurrect Schedule F in their tracks. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in February introduced the Saving the Civil Service Act, which would stop the president from creating new job classifications within the excepted service. Kaine later tried to attach the bill, which has a House companion, to the Defense Authorization Act. The language did not make it into the Senate-passed version of the policy bill, and prospects of the standalone measure being enacted are dim, with a Republican majority in the House.

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Proposed contractor climate change rule faces more questions from Republican lawmakers

Amelia Gruber — Fri, 04 Aug 2023 16:47:06 -0400

House oversight leaders are continuing their attacks against a proposed rule that would require federal contractors to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions.

The chairmen of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee and one of its subcommittees on Thursday sent a letter to the head of the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council seeking information related to the November 2022 draft rule, which they said “extends the Biden administration’s radical environmental activism into federal government contracting.”

Specifically, Reps. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the committee, and Pat Fallon, R-Texas, chairman of the Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy and Regulatory Affairs, expressed concern that the rule would restrict fuels available to the federal vehicle fleet and potentially hinder military readiness. They also said the rule would burden federal contractors with “ substantial and unreasonable costs to assess direct and indirect emissions.”

Additionally, the lawmakers argued the proposal would entrust a third-party international organization with unclear funding sources, a bias against the fossil fuel industry and ties to China with assessing contractors’ compliance with the emissions requirements and setting emissions reductions targets, raising questions about national security.

That organization–the Science Based Targets Initiative–is a partnership between the CDP, a nonprofit that helps businesses disclose their environmental impact; the United Nations Global Compact, to which the Chinese and other foreign governments make financial contributions; the World Resources Institute; and the World Wide Fund for Nature. The initiative provides information about its funding on its website.

“Delegating oversight functions to an entity supported by foreign governments, including China, raises serious concerns about the impact the rule would have on procurement for national security,” the lawmakers stated. They added: “SBTi’s stark opposition to the refining sector would prevent federal contractors from supplying ‘liquid fuels, such as jet and diesel, to power the military,’ including F-16 fighters, military cargo transport, and Black Hawk helicopters.”

The lawmakers asked the acquisition council to provide documents and communications with the three agencies that wrote the proposed rule (the Defense Department, General Services Administration and NASA) about the costs of the rule and its impact on military readiness and the federal vehicle fleet. The Republicans also wanted any correspondence between the acquisition council and SBTi related to the rule, as well as any communications with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which is developing its own related rule for publicly traded companies. They set an Aug. 10 deadline for a staff-level briefing.

The letter was addressed to Mathew Blum, head of the FAR Council and also administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy. A spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget, which houses the procurement policy office, said the administration had no comment on the letter.

The draft regulation on contractor disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions came out in November 2022. At the time, contracting groups and law firms with contracting practices noted that the rule could be costly and administratively burdensome to implement, and attract legal challenges. The SEC draft rule setting climate disclosure requirements for publicly traded companies has been beset by pushback from industry and delays.

Republicans on the House oversight committee have also tried to block the contractor disclosure rule legislatively. The Mission Not Emissions Act (H.R. 3358), which the House Oversight and Accountability Committee reported out last month, would prohibit requirements that contractors disclose greenhouse gas emissions or climate-related economic risks. Democrats on the committee did not support that bill.

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House Republicans question the SEC’s hiring and pay practices

Amelia Gruber — Tue, 01 Aug 2023 16:51:22 -0400

The Securities and Exchange Commission may be using a program meant to bring in skilled hires for short-term rotations to get around the federal government’s regular competitive hiring practices and pay restrictions, the chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee said Tuesday.

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., sent SEC Chairman Gary Gensler a letter seeking more information on the agency’s use of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act, which establishes an exchange program that allows agencies to lend or bring in talent from state and local governments, colleges and universities, and other organizations for up to two years. This time frame can be extended an additional two years “when the extension will be to the benefit of both organizations,” a program description from the Office of Personnel Management states.

“The [personnel act’s] intent is to allow agencies to hire individuals for short periods of time,” Comer wrote. “The SEC’s hirings appear to undermine the [act], raising concerns that the SEC is using the [flexibilities in the act] to avoid normal federal hiring practices and circumvent federal wage restrictions. Additionally, these hirings raise concerns about potential conflicts of interest for individuals who maintain their prior employment relationships.”

The letter lists four SEC division heads who have been in their positions since 2021 and remain simultaneously listed as professors at law and business schools. It asks for information since the beginning of the Biden administration on the number of hires the SEC has made through the Intergovernmental Personnel Act; any outside employment of those individuals; their comings and goings from the SEC’s offices; a breakdown of their compensation, including aggregate compensation from any source; and the costs of employing the individuals outside of base salary, such as travel and lodging expenses.

The letter seeks a reply by Aug. 15.

When asked for comment on the letter, an SEC spokesperson said: “Chair Gensler will respond to members of Congress directly, rather than through the media.”

Democrats on the oversight committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether they supported Comer’s investigation.

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New guidance will help agencies get underserved communities more involved in the regulatory process

Amelia Gruber — Fri, 21 Jul 2023 13:14:20 -0400

The Biden administration this week released guidance to help agencies get the public more involved in the regulatory process, especially members of underserved communities who historically might not have weighed in on proposals that could affect them.

In a July 19 memo to agency heads, Richard Revesz, administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, laid out why greater participation in the rule-making process is important and considerations for agencies as they determine what form of engagement may be best for the communities they are attempting to reach. The memo also encouraged agencies to use the regulatory agenda process to give the public a heads up about regulations that are being developed, to be more proactive in their outreach and share what they’ve learned to help develop best practices, and to let those who commented on proposals know how their feedback ended up being used.

“It is crucial for federal agencies to craft regulatory proposals with input from affected members of the public,” Revesz wrote. “Public involvement in the development of regulations can lead to more effective and equitable regulations; greater trust in government and democratic accountability; and increased public understanding of the regulatory process.”

The new guidance comes as part of the Biden administration’s efforts to modernize the regulatory process in keeping with Executive Order 14094, released in April. It also fits in with the administration’s efforts to advance equity.

Agencies invite the public to comment on most major regulations, but despite the theoretically open process they often do not hear from the individuals and smaller organizations that might be affected, particularly those in underserved communities, said Alexander Hertel-Fernandez, a senior equity fellow at OIRA, on Thursday during a webinar on the new guidance and broader public engagement efforts.

The new guidance reflects feedback the regulatory office received in four listening sessions and two public comment periods from October 2022 through March, designed to help understand how citizens “currently engage in the regulatory process, identify barriers or obstacles encountered by different segments of the public, receive suggestions for how agencies can better reach members of the public and incorporate public perspectives into the regulatory process, and solicit feedback on draft recommendations,” Revesz wrote. The regulatory office will follow up with another session to gather feedback on the guidance itself, in about a year.

Suggestions received during the sessions and incorporated into the guidance included using plain, jargon-free language in draft regulations and providing more information on the kinds of information agencies would like from the public during the rule-making process, creating explainers and guides on the steps in the regulatory process and where the public might fit in that organizations could share with their members, and encouraging agencies to use trusted intermediaries such as nonprofit organizations to reach out to affected individuals and tell them about opportunities for engagement with the government.

Groups also asked the regulatory office to urge agencies to translate regulatory proposals that might affect large populations of non-English speakers, and to use social media, local news outlets and other less traditional means of publicizing comment periods in addition to the Federal Register, Hertel-Fernandez said.

Agencies will implement the guidance at their own pace, Revesz noted in the memo. Some are already using the best practices outlined, while they will be new to others.

The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen applauded the administration’s efforts to promote greater engagement and the new guidance.

“These reforms will level the playing field by ensuring that government agencies are listening to consumers, workers, underserved and fenceline communities, and regular people – not just corporate lobbyists who want to weaken, delay, and block new public protections,” said Lisa Gilbert, the group’s executive vice president, in a statement.

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Homeland Security law enforcement officers would receive more mental health support, under a bill advancing in the House

Amelia Gruber — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 15:38:01 -0400

The Homeland Security Department would need to establish a new mental health support program for its law enforcement employees, under a bipartisan bill that advanced out of a House committee.

The House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday reported out the DHS Suicide Prevention and Resiliency for Law Enforcement Act (H.R. 2577), which would require officials to set up within the department’s medical office a mental health and wellness program for law enforcement personnel. Departmental components including Customs and Border Protection, the Secret Service, the Transportation Security Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the inspector general’s office would benefit from the program’s guidance and resources.

“Today’s markup secured a bipartisan victory for DHS law enforcement by advancing legislation to enhance crucial mental health resources that will save lives,” said Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., chairman of the committee, in a statement. “From Border Patrol agents and CBP officers facing this historic crisis [at the Southwest border] to Secret Service and TSA agents, the men and women working every day to secure the homeland deserve the support needed to succeed in their mission.”

As part of the program–which would be set up within 180 days of the bill’s enactment–the department would gather research and best practices on mental health for law enforcement personnel. It would also collect data on suicides and–if possible–attempted suicides, which have been a growing issue within the department.

Customs and Border Protection reported 15 suicides among its employees in 2022–the most since 2007, said Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., ranking member of the committee and a lead sponsor of the bill, along with Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y. Those numbers, along with a Government Accountability Office report showing widespread cases of extreme fatigue and stress among the Transportation Security Administration’s air marshals, sparked the introduction of this legislation, Thompson said.

“I look forward to the House considering this bipartisan legislation aimed at ensuring that life-saving resources are available to the men and women protecting the homeland in the very near future,” Thompson added.

The program would offer training and education to raise mental health awareness, prevent suicides, eliminate stigma associated with seeking help and supporting colleagues who have experienced trauma. Program officials would oversee mental health efforts at the department’s component agencies, and the components would assign a representative to report back to the central program office.

A companion bill has been offered in the Senate by Sens. Gary Peters, D-Mich., and Josh Hawley, R-Mo.

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OPM establishes emergency leave transfer program to help feds affected by Typhoon Mawar

Amelia Gruber — Fri, 14 Jul 2023 06:00:00 -0400

The Office of Personnel Management has set up an emergency leave transfer program to help federal employees and their family members affected by the typhoon that hit the North Pacific in late May and early June.

Agencies will administer the program for their employees since they are best positioned to assess their own needs, OPM Director Kiran Ahuja said in a June 12 memo announcing the program. The typhoon affected U.S. territories that are home to federal employees, including Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Emergency leave transfer programs allow federal employees to donate unused leave so that colleagues affected by disasters do not need to burn through their own paid leave. Employees wishing to donate leave should contact their agency. Similarly, those in need of donated leave must ask their agency in writing.

The requests can be for future annual or sick leave, even if the employee has accrued leave available. “This is necessary since donated annual leave may not be retroactively substituted for accrued annual or sick leave used because of the disaster or emergency,” Ahuja’s memo explained. “It may only be substituted retroactively for any period of leave without pay or advanced annual or sick leave used because of the disaster or emergency.”

Agencies are responsible for alerting employees to the availability of the program, accepting donations, evaluating requests to receive the donated leave and seeking help from outside agencies if they run through all of the donations they’ve accumulated internally.

The memo comes after Ahuja sent a broader memo reminding agencies of the leave benefits and flexibilities available to employees if they are affected by natural disasters. Hurricane season began on June 1, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted 12 to 17 named storms, with five to nine growing strong enough to be classified as hurricanes. This is on top of numerous other recent disasters, from wildfires in Canada pushing smoke and poor air quality into the United States, to flooding this week in Vermont.

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House oversight panel votes to overturn Biden contracting policies and cut funding for unauthorized programs

Amelia Gruber — Wed, 12 Jul 2023 17:43:42 -0400

Updated: 5:50 p.m., July 13.

The House’s main oversight panel on Wednesday advanced over objections from Democrats bills that would unravel Biden administration attempts to make federal contracting more labor-friendly and climate conscious, and legislation that would cut funding for federal programs whose authorization has lapsed.

The House Oversight and Accountability Committee also reported out several bipartisan management measures during the same markup session, including ones to make agency guidance documents more transparent and accessible (H.R. 890) and to eliminate degree requirements for certain cybersecurity jobs (H.R. 4502).

“The American people deserve a government that is transparent, efficient and effective,” said Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., chairman of the committee, in a statement. “These bills bring solutions to modernize our government, root out inefficiencies, target waste, fraud and abuse, and hold the Biden administration accountable for overreach.”

More than half of the bills did not receive the support of committee Democrats. Rep. Jaime Raskin, D-Md., ranking member of the committee, said that some of the bills considered in Wednesday's markup were developed in true collaboration with Democrats, but others represented "clear attempts to undermine the effectiveness of government, the will of Congress, and the will of the American people. "

Among the more contentious bills, the panel passed the Fair and Open Competition Act (H.R. 1209), which would prevent the government from requiring that federal construction contractors enter into pre-hire collective bargaining agreements called project labor agreements. President Biden issued an executive order in February 2022 mandating such agreements for most construction work worth $35 million or more, in the interest of workers’ rights and efficiency.

Project labor agreements “ensure that major projects are handled by well-trained, well-prepared highly skilled workers,” Biden said at the time. “And they ward off problems. They resolve disputes ahead of time, ensuring safer work sites, avoiding disruptions and work stoppages that can cause expensive delays down the line. And that makes a big difference for the American taxpayer.”

Democrats echoed many of these arguments during the committee markup Wednesday, but Republicans including Comer, who introduced the bill, argued that the agreements should not be mandatory. Nothing in the bill would prevent their use, he noted, but managers could make decisions on a project-by-project basis. He called this approach fair and “even-handed.”

Republicans also backed the Mission Not Emissions Act (H.R. 3358), which takes aim at another Biden administration executive order, this one giving federal contractors incentives to be environmentally conscious. The rule implementing the executive order “places radical environmental activist goals over U.S. national security interests,” Comer said. “It should be stopped, and this bill … will stop it.”

Ranking member Raskin argued, however, that the bill attempts to “sweep climate change under the rug” and does “the exact opposite of what we need,” which is to use the federal government as an instrument of the common good and confront the “reality” of the climate emergency by seeking to reduce emissions.

The bill the committee advanced on Wednesday would prohibit requirements that contractors disclose greenhouse gas emissions or climate-related economic risks. It also would not allow mandates that contractors develop goals for reducing emissions and submit them for validation to non-governmental organizations.

In another blow to committee Democrats, the panel advanced the Unauthorized Spending Accountability Act (H.R. 4435), which would reduce the budget for any unauthorized federal programs over three years, starting in fiscal 2024. Raskin said the bill represents a “thinly veiled attempt to kneecap vital federal programs,” including medical care for veterans, educational loans and housing assistance. It should be renamed the “dysfunction proliferation act,” he said, because it would create an “untenable workload” for lawmakers due to the extensive number of programs with expired authorizations.

Democrats introduced amendments that would carve out exceptions for particular essential programs, such as disaster relief, oversight of Ukraine aid and veterans medical care. Comer did not dispute the importance of the programs, but said the amendments ran counter to the purpose of the bill, which was to provide incentives for congressional authorizers to do their jobs.

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It's Official: No More COVID Vaccine Mandate for Federal Workers and Contractors

Amelia Gruber — Tue, 09 May 2023 14:47:55 -0400

President Biden on Tuesday officially revoked the COVID-19 vaccine mandates for federal employees and contractors that had already been mired in lawsuits that prevented them from being enforced.

The mandates–issued in September 2021–will end on May 12, Biden said in an executive order. The move had been expected following an announcement from the White House earlier this month, and will coincide with the end of the COVID public health emergency on May 11.

The vaccine mandate is no longer necessary because the United States is “no longer in the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the order stated, and the healthcare system is better able to respond to future surges in cases than it was when the mandates were issued. Biden also noted that 98% of federal workers had complied with the mandate by either receiving a dose of the vaccine or starting the process of receiving an exemption, as of January 2022.

“Considering this progress, and based on the latest guidance from our public health experts, we no longer need a governmentwide vaccination requirement for federal employees or federally specified safety protocols for federal contractors,” the order stated. “Vaccination remains an important tool to protect individuals from serious illness, but we are now able to move beyond these federal requirements.”

Federal employees and contractors likely will not notice much difference when the mandates end, because enforcement had already been suspended due to legal challenges. The military’s vaccine mandate had already been repealed, as part of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act signed in late December.

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TSP Returns Stayed Mostly Positive for April

Amelia Gruber — Wed, 03 May 2023 13:22:19 -0400

The funds in the federal employee retirement savings program remained on a mostly-positive streak for the month of April, with all but one showing growth.

The international stocks in the I Fund increased the most for the month, at 2.87%. They were up 11.74% for the year to date.

The common stocks in the C Fund had the second highest growth for April, at 1.56%. They were up 9.16% for the year.

In the middle of the pack, the fixed income bonds of the F Fund grew 0.6% last month and increased 3.76% for the year so far. The government securities (G) fund was up 0.3% for the month and 1.28% for the year.

The S Fund—invested in small- and mid-sized businesses—was once again the only offering to lose ground in April, ending the month down 2.18%. The fund had still grown for the year, however, increasing 3.54%.

The TSP’s lifecycle (L) funds, which shift to a less risky mix of investments as participants near retirement, all increased in April. L Income, for those who have already started making withdrawals, was up 0.63% for the month. The L 2025 fund grew 0.79% for April; L 2030, 1.07%; L 2035, 1.13%; L 2040, 1.2%; L 2045, 1.25%; and L 2050, 1.31%. The L 2055, L 2060 and L 2065 funds were each up 1.48% for the month.

L Income increased 3.41% for the year to date; L 2025, 4.54%; L 2030, 6.31%; L 2035, 6.8%; L 2040, 7.27%; L 2045, 7.68%; and L 2050, 8.07%. L 2055, L 2060 and L 2065 were all up 9.27% for 2023.

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The TSP Wouldn’t Be Affected By McCarthy’s Plan to Raise the Debt Ceiling and Cut Spending

Amelia Gruber — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 14:39:03 -0400

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s plan to couple raising the debt ceiling with dramatic cuts of more than 20% to discretionary domestic spending would not affect the Thrift Savings Plan, the director of the retirement savings program’s Office of External Affairs said Tuesday.

Nothing in the plan–which the House could vote on later this week–would directly impact the TSP, said Kim Weaver, during the monthly meeting of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board. McCarthy’s proposal is Republicans’ opening salvo in negotiations to raise the debt ceiling and avoid what would be the United States’ first ever default on its financial obligations. It is unlikely to pass the Democratic-controlled Senate, and President Biden has said he supports a “clean” bill to raise or suspend the debt ceiling.

A recent estimate from Moody’s Analytics placed the deadline for raising the debt ceiling at Aug. 18, and a top economist at Moody’s said failure to do so would have “cataclysmic” consequences for the U.S. economy in general. Weaver said it is too early to discuss whether or how TSP is preparing for the possibility of a default, in response to a follow-up question after Tuesday’s meeting.

One indirect effect of the debt ceiling situation on the TSP so far is that reinvestments of the government securities (G) fund were suspended in January, as part of “extraordinary measures” the Treasury took to buy more time until a default. This is a standard response when the United States gets close to the debt limit and the fund is made whole after the debt ceiling is raised, meaning there is no lasting harm to TSP participants.

It is unclear what would happen to federal employees in the scenario of a default, but analysts have said that either the Treasury would delay all payments until it had enough money to make them, or it would prioritize which bills got paid. Both situations raise the prospect of federal employees either being furloughed or required to work with a delayed paycheck.

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How Would Your Agency Do Under Biden's 2024 Budget Request?

Ross Gianfortune and Amelia Gruber — Thu, 09 Mar 2023 12:47:05 -0500

President Biden’s $6.9 trillion fiscal 2024 budget proposal would give almost every major agency an increase in discretionary spending over this year’s enacted levels. The only question is how much.

Budget boosts in the 2024 plan ranged from 1.6% for the Housing and Urban Development Department to 19.2% for the Environmental Protection Agency. Overall, non-defense base discretionary spending would rise 7.3% over the enacted levels this year, while defense spending would grow 3.3%.

The Homeland Security and Transportation departments would be the only Cabinet-level agencies to see decreases over 2023 enacted spending levels, with DHS losing 1% and Transportation, 2.9%. The Army Corps of Engineers would see a decrease of 14.4% and the Small Business Administration, 8.2%.

The numbers in the budget proposal are likely to change, as congressional appropriators set the final spending levels. But you can see how your agency would fare under Biden’s plan in the chart below:

(Click the image to enlarge)

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How to Calculate Your 2023 Pay Raise, and More Pressure to Return to the Office

Amelia Gruber — Wed, 11 Jan 2023 16:50:18 -0500

As the new year begins, federal employees may be wondering how much extra money they’ll see in their paychecks. President Biden made official a 4.6% average pay raise for civilian federal employees. Of that, 4.1% will go toward an across-the-board increase and the remainder will vary depending on where employees live.

So what will this translate to for your pocketbook? The Office of Personnel Management has updated its pay tables that show how much you can expect to receive. First, you will want to determine which locality pay area you fall under, or whether you are in the catch-all “Rest of U.S.” category. Click here to see the list of locality areas and determine which one you are in.

Once you have figured out your locality area, you can go to the list of 2023 locality pay tables and click on the PDF or web-based chart for your area to see your total percentage raise and what this means for your annual salary based on your grade and step on the General Schedule.

For instance, if you live in the Hartford-West Hartford area in Connecticut and Massachusetts and are a GS-15, Step 1, you can expect to receive a total increase of 4.67% effective in January, for a total annual salary of $153,843. If you don’t fall into any of the specific locality areas and are grouped with the “Rest of U.S.” category, you can expect to receive a 4.37% total raise, amounting to $136,908 annually for a GS-15, Step 1.

When should you expect to start seeing more money? The pay raise will take effect for the first full pay period of 2023, which ends on Saturday for most federal employees.

Pressure to Go Back Into the Office

The new Republican-led House of Representatives has already made it clear that spending cuts for domestic agencies are high on its agenda. The new chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee also has his sights set on reducing telework to pre-pandemic levels.

Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., on Wednesday announced that he introduced the Stopping Home Office Work’s Unproductive Problems (SHOW UP) Act (H.R. 139), which requires agencies within 30 days to “reinstate and apply the telework policies, practices and levels … in effect on December 31, 2019.” If agencies would like to expand telework beyond the levels in place prior to the coronavirus pandemic, they would need to submit a plan certified by the Office of Personnel Management to Congress.

The bill also requires a study of how telework during the pandemic affected agencies’ missions and customer service.

“For years, Americans have suffered from the federal government’s detrimental pandemic-era telework policies for federal bureaucrats,” Comer said in a statement. “President Biden’s unnecessary expansion of telework crippled the ability of departments and agencies to fulfill their responsibilities and created cumbersome backlogs. The federal government exists to serve the American people and these substantial delays for basic services are unacceptable.”

This is not the first time Republicans have tried to force more federal employees back to the office. Several bills introduced in the last Congress had similar goals. Meanwhile, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has also called on the federal government to take more “decisive action” and either get more employees back into downtown offices or give up the real estate.

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Almost Every TSP Fund Ended Last Month (and Year) Down

Amelia Gruber — Wed, 04 Jan 2023 12:28:55 -0500

The vast majority of offerings in the 401(k)-style Thrift Savings Plan did not have a good month in December—or a good year in 2022 for that matter.

The S Fund, invested in small and mid-sized businesses, had the worst performance for December, losing 6.55%. It was down 26.26% for 2022.

The common stocks of the C Fund fared just slightly better. The fund lost 5.78% last month and 18.13% last year.

The international stocks in the I Fund were 1.85% in the red for December and were down 13.94% for the year 2022, while the fixed income bonds in the F Fund lost 0.65% for the month and 12.83% for the year.

Government securities in the G Fund were the one bright spot, inching up 0.32% for December and 2.98% for the year.

The lifecycle funds, which move to a less risky mix of investments as participants near retirement, were all in the red for last month as well as last year. The L Income fund, designed for people who have already started making withdrawals, was down 0.9% for December. L 2025 lost 1.65% last month; L 2030, 2.64%; L 2035, 2.93%; L 2040, 3.22%; L 2045, 3.47%; L 2050, 3.71%; L 2055, 4.48%; L 2060, 4.49%; and L 2065, 4.49%.

For the year of 2022, L Income lost 2.7%; L 2025, 6.72%; L 2030, 10.32%; L 2035, 11.65%; L 2040, 12.9%; L 2045, 14.03%; L 2050, 15.05%; L 2055, 17.6%; L 2060, 17.61%; and L 2065, 17.62%.

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It Could Soon Get Even Easier for Feds to Qualify for Student Loan Forgiveness

Amelia Gruber — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 15:34:40 -0400

Federal employees may soon see another set of reforms that would make it easier for them to get their student loan debt forgiven.

The Education Department on Wednesday unveiled a package of proposed regulations aimed at improving the process of applying for a range of programs to forgive debt from educational loans, including the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which eliminates debt for those who have made 10 years of regular payments while working for a qualifying government or nonprofit organization. The proposed regulatory changes come in response to concerns expressed by borrowers and experts on the loan programs, the department said.

“We are committed to fixing a broken system,” said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona, in a statement. “If a borrower qualifies for student loan relief, it shouldn’t take mountains of paperwork or a law degree to obtain it.”

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program portion of the reforms would build on an October 2021 overhaul that made the program—established in 2007— easier to use and significantly increased the amount of debt forgiven. The October 2021 changes established a temporary waiver to ensure that federal workers and other public servants who had tried to follow the program’s rules could benefit from it. The waiver gave borrowers until Oct. 31 to consolidate their loans into the correct Direct Loan program. It also made changes such as allowing late payments to count toward the program and giving credit for time in active duty military service when their loans are technically considered in deferment or forbearance.

The new proposal would extend some parts of the waiver program such as ensuring that more types of payments qualify toward the program including partial, lump sum and late payments. It would also give credit for certain types of deferments and forbearances such as Peace Corps and Americorps service and cancer treatments in addition to military service. And it would establish a formal reconsideration process for borrowers who had their applications denied; the waiver program had created an interim process.

It would not, however, continue all of the waiver provisions “due to statutory restrictions,” the Education Department cautioned in its statement. “Borrowers seeking to count their payments on Federal Family Education Loans toward forgiveness should apply for PSLF before October 31, 2022.”

The Education Department released a fact sheet that provides more details on the proposed regulations and how they would apply to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program. Once the proposal is formally published, the department will accept comments for 30 days and plans to finalize the rules by Nov. 1 so they can take effect by next July.

Government Executive readers recently shared their experiences with the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program in a series of interviews. You can read the interviews here and listen to the stories on the June 21 GovExec Daily podcast.

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More Help Is On the Way for Feds With TSP Transition Troubles, and Those Affected By Flooding

Amelia Gruber — Wed, 06 Jul 2022 15:31:41 -0400

The past month has been a rocky ride for participants in the federal government’s 401(k)-style retirement savings program, who were hit not only by losses in the financial markets but also by glitches in the June 1 transition to a new recordkeeper.

More than a month after the transition, the Thrift Savings Plan continues to face a high volume of calls to its Thrift Line, Kim Weaver, director of external affairs for the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, said on Wednesday. The good news, though, for participants trying to get through to a representative who can answer their questions, is that by Friday the staff at the helpline will have nearly doubled, jumping from 485 on June 1 to an anticipated 955 (there were already 805 contact center representatives as of June 21).

The recently hired agents will need some time to be trained before they answer their first call, Weaver cautioned. The new recordkeeper offers a number of benefits such as a more secure login process and access to 5,000 mutual funds, but many participants initially had trouble with the basic steps needed to take advantage of these features, such as setting up their accounts.

The TSP executive director has agreed to brief Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., weekly on the status of the recordkeeper transition and will update other concerned lawmakers on an ad hoc basis, Weaver said.

“I am pleased Director [Ravindra] Deo accepted my request to be sent weekly updates,” Norton said in a statement. “My constituents and federal employees and retirees across the country continue to face many problems with the new system, including taxes being erroneously taken from accounts, incorrect beneficiary information, and inability to access their retirement savings.”

Since June 1, there have been 1.2 million unique TSP participants who have logged into the new system, Weaver said. About 3.3 million participants—or half of all participants—log onto My Account in a typical year.

An Extension of Special Hiring Rules for COVID Response

The Office of Personnel Management on June 27 extended the use of special hiring authorities to help bring on employees for the government’s COVID-19 pandemic response. The memo from OPM Director Kiran Ahuja to agency heads allows hiring officials to continue using excepted service Schedule A hiring authority to fill temporary jobs directly related to the pandemic until March 1, 2023.

Schedule A allows agencies to bypass standard competitive hiring procedures to find people faster and more efficiently. For instance, agencies need not post the vacancy publicly on USAJobs.gov (though they can still do so if they would like).

“OPM understands that during this time, agencies continue to need more tools to conduct strategic, targeted hiring for specific, short-term roles to meet mission and/or hiring needs,” Ahuja wrote. “OPM has determined that the continued use of this special authority is justified, as agencies have on-going responsibilities directly related to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The special hiring rules apply for temporary appointments of up to one year in positions directly involved in COVID-19 response. Hires made before the cutoff date can be extended up to one additional year.

OPM has released a fact sheet with more information on use of the special hiring authority.

Help for Flooding Victims

OPM has announced a leave donation program to help federal employees and their family members affected by the severe storms and flooding in Montana. Heavy rainfall combined with melting snow caused significant flooding in June that damaged Yellowstone National Park and surrounding areas, forcing rescues, evacuations and closures.

This emergency leave transfer program will help flooding victims take additional time off to recover from flooding that happened June 10 or later in the Carbon, Park and Stillwater counties of Montana, without having to dip into their own paid leave. OPM left it up to individual agencies to assess their needs and set up donation programs if they have employees affected by the storms and flooding.

“Agencies with employees affected by the disaster are in the best position to determine whether, and how much donated annual leave is needed by their employees and which of their employees have been adversely affected by the specific emergency within the meaning of OPM regulations,” stated the July 1 memo from Ahuja to agency heads. “They are also in the best position to quickly facilitate the transfer of annual donated leave within their agencies.”

Officials can also contact other federal agencies for help if they do not have enough donated leave internally to cover their needs.

Employees who wish to donate leave should contact their agency rather than OPM, and those who need help should contact their agencies in writing.

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Some Federal Employee Retirement Funds Made Up a Little Ground in March

Amelia Gruber — Fri, 01 Apr 2022 14:32:05 -0400

The funds in the federal employee 401(k)-style retirement savings program had a mixed performance in March, with three of the five basic offerings ending the month in the black. This follows two months in which most of the funds in the Thrift Savings Plan lost ground.

The common stocks of the C Fund grew 3.72% in March, boasting the best performance for the month. They were still down 4.59% for the year-to-date, however.

The small- and mid-sized companies in the S Fund also gained a little ground in March, ending the month up 0.9%. They were down 9.24% for the year-to-date. The government securities (G) fund was also positive last month, with growth of 0.17%. It was the only fund that was up since January, at 0.44%.

The international stocks in the I Fund lost 0.33% last month and were down 6.77% for the year so far, and the fixed income bonds in the F Fund lost 2.73% in March and were 5.79% in the red since January.

The lifecycle funds, which shift to a more stable portfolio as participants near retirement, all had at least small positive returns for March. L Income, for those who have already begun making withdrawals, was up 0.49%; L 2025, 0.85%; L 2030, 1.14%; L 2035, 1.21%; L 2040, 1.29%; L 2045, 1.34%; L 2050 1.42%; L 2055, 1.88%; L 2060, 1.88%; and L 2065, 1.87%.

The lifecycle funds were all in the red for the year-to-date, however. L Income was down 1.3%; L 2025, 2.54%; L 2030, 3.65%; L 2035, 4.08%; L 2040, 4.49%; L 2045, 4.86%; L 2050, 5.19%; L 2055, 5.93%; L 2060, 5.93%; and L 2065, 5.94%.

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Biden Wants to Give Nearly Every Agency a Big Budget Boost. How Much Would Your Agency Get?

Ross Gianfortune and Amelia Gruber — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 15:04:06 -0400

President Biden would like to give every Cabinet level department a budget increase next year, and not just a small one.

The president’s $5.8 trillion fiscal 2023 budget request to Congress unveiled on Monday would boost the budget of all but a handful of major departments and agencies, and every Cabinet department except three would receive a double digit percentage increase when compared with funding in the fiscal 2022 continuing resolution that was in effect until Biden signed the omnibus spending package into law on March 15.

The Commerce Department would see the highest percentage increase of the Cabinet departments at 31.2%, moving from $8.9 billion under the CR to $11.7 billion under Biden’s request. This would be closely followed by the Veterans Affairs Department, which would see a 29.4% boost from $111.1 billion in the CR to $135.2 billion under the request.

The Defense, Homeland Security and Transportation departments would receive budget increases under Biden’s request, but only in the single digits.

The comparison of the fiscal 2023 budget request to this year’s enacted levels of spending was complicated by the fact that the federal government was operating under continuing resolutions until two weeks ago. Because the omnibus spending package was enacted so recently, the budget plan compares Biden’s request to CR spending levels rather than the levels now in effect as part of the omnibus. This means some agencies would not actually get as big an increase when compared with the omnibus spending levels and the Homeland Security and Transportation departments would see slight cuts (of 1.4% and 0.4% respectively) compared to the omnibus levels in effect now. Transportation will also receive funding as part of the infrastructure bill, however.

The chart below shows how much the major agencies would be slated to receive under Biden’s 2023 request:

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Two Years Later: How the Pandemic Has Changed the Jobs and Lives of Some Federal Workers

Ross Gianfortune, Amelia Gruber, Eric Katz, Erich Wagner, and Courtney Bublé — Tue, 15 Mar 2022 14:03:11 -0400

On March 15, 2020, the Trump administration declared that federal agencies in the Washington, D.C., area were moving to “maximum telework” due to the spread of the novel coronavirus. Many federal employees packed up and headed home indefinitely; other frontline workers had no choice but to continue reporting in person.

The date was different in some areas of the United States, but there were many constants: uncertainty about the disease itself and how to stay safe; fear of getting sick; and logistical hurdles for everything from setting up home offices and caring for dependents to finding toilet paper, protective gear and other basic supplies.

“I was a little bit freaked out,” recalled one Centers for Disease Control and Prevention employee who was brought into the office for 30 days to work on pandemic response but otherwise worked from home and asked to remain anonymous so she could speak candidly. “I don't work in a lab. I'm not a science person. This is not like my daily thing. So there's a lot of anxiety around what should I touch? What shouldn't I touch? I mean, the doors were not ajar, should I be pulling on a door? Is the surface going to be clean?”

It’s now been two years and COVID-19 has become a part of daily life to an extent few people imagined. What’s happened to federal employees in those two years? We asked and many of you reached out to share your experiences with us. You’ve told us that you switched jobs; took on new responsibilities; moved across the country to be near family; postponed retirement plans; checked in on struggling colleagues; rediscovered yoga and meditation; took walks in the woods over lunch; trained new employees and formed friendships over Zoom; and even got married.

You also felt isolated, saw friends and family members fall ill, strived to separate your work from your personal life, and missed small daily interactions.

“I really kind of am the mentor or self-guiding helper for new employees, the newbies, and I [have] missed that personal interaction,” said Lee Emery, a fishery biologist with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s Office of Energy Projects who has been teleworking since March 6, 2020 but plans to return part-time to his office near Union Station in Washington, D.C. “It's really quite a puzzle palace for new people to wander in this regulatory agency and never see a boss and never see a co-worker and [they’re] trying to learn all these regulations. It's got to be very tough.”

Some of you have enjoyed returning to the office at least occasionally, while others have decided they will never go back.

“I can absolutely tell you with certainty that if the position I'm in required us to return on site, I would look for other employment. Without hesitation,” said Polly Giardina, assistant chief of health information management services for the VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System. Giardina now goes into the office one day a week and works remotely on the others, a setup she finds is “the perfect balance to accommodating people being able to live their lives well.”

What follows are just a few of your responses, lightly edited for length and clarity. You can hear more of your colleagues’ stories in a two-part series on our GovExec Daily podcast March 16-17 and in a live conversation on the Clubhouse app on March 17 from 3-4:30 p.m. ET.

Click on a name to read the interview:

Airport screener (anonymous), Transportation Security Administration

Dionne Dent-Lockett, Veterans Affairs Department

Shannon Downey, Forest Service

Diana Esher, Environmental Protection Agency

Martha Parish, Federal Aviation Administration

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New Pay Tables Released: Calculate Your 2022 Raise

Amelia Gruber — Thu, 23 Dec 2021 11:04:10 -0500

President Biden on Wednesday finalized a 2.7% pay raise for civilian federal employees in 2022. That figure is the average boost employees will receive, but the exact amount will vary depending on where they live.

So how will you figure out your personal raise for next year? The Office of Personnel Management has released pay tables that will allow you to look up what you can expect to receive.

The 2022 pay raise is split into a 2.2% across-the-board raise and an average increase of 0.5% that will vary based on locality. There are 53 locality pay areas in 2022 and a “rest of the U.S.” category for those who don’t fall into one of the other areas. Click here to see the list of locality areas and determine which one you are in.

Once you have determined your locality area, you can go to the list of 2022 locality pay tables and click on the PDF or web-based chart for your area to see your total percentage raise and what this means for your annual salary based on your grade and step on the General Schedule.

For instance, if you live in the Albany-Schenectady area and are a GS-15, Step 1, you can expect to receive a total increase of 2.89% effective in January, for a total annual salary of $133,978. If you don’t fall into any of the specific locality areas and are grouped with the “Rest of U.S.” category, you can expect to receive a 2.42% total raise, amounting to $131,178 annually for a GS-15, Step 1.

OPM also offers links to the Federal Wage System pay tables and law enforcement officer pay schedules, as well as executive and senior level employee pay tables.

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What Federal Employees Should Know About Their Pay If There Is a Shutdown at the End of This Month

Amelia Gruber — Wed, 22 Sep 2021 15:41:43 -0400

The odds of a government shutdown next month increased with the House’s passage Tuesday of a measure that links stopgap spending to keep federal agencies open past Sept. 30 to suspending the U.S. debt limit. Republicans in the Senate support language that would keep agencies open and funded at their current level through Dec.3, but will not back the portion of the measure that would suspend the debt limit through December 2022. If the package gets derailed in the Senate, the House would have to start the process over again with the Oct. 1 deadline to avert a shutdown looming.

While a shutdown would not be a good outcome for either the citizens government serves or federal employees themselves, there would be one key difference this time with regard to pay: all federal employees—even those furloughed during the closures—would be guaranteed back pay once operations resumed. This guarantee was written into the law that granted furloughed workers retroactive compensation following the 35-day partial shutdown in December 2018-January 2019.

In the past, only employees who were considered essential and had to work while agencies were shuttered were guaranteed pay after the government reopened. Others had to wait each time for Congress to pass a measure granting them back pay.

Under the new rules employees would still need to wait for the shutdown to end to collect their pay, meaning they could go several weeks without a paycheck depending on how long the closures lasted. A Jan. 23, 2019 Office of Personnel Management memo implementing the retroactive pay law said employees will need to be paid at their standard rates “as soon as possible after the lapse in appropriations ends, regardless of scheduled pay dates.”

The guidance also noted that agencies may not try to count time employees spent in furlough status against their vacation time. “In providing retroactive pay for furlough hours, employees may not be charged paid leave (e.g., annual leave and sick leave) or other paid time off (e.g., compensatory time off in lieu of overtime, for travel, or for religious purposes; credit hours under a flexible work schedule),” the memo stated. “All paid leave and other paid time off was automatically cancelled because of the lapse in appropriations. There is no legal authority to revoke those cancellations and charge employees for paid leave or other paid time off.”

For a guide to how other benefits such as health insurance would likely be affected during a shutdown, click here.

Telework After the Pandemic

The Merit Systems Protection Board is looking ahead to how agencies can maintain effective telework policies after the pandemic has ended. Policies will look different for every agency and for different jobs within an organization, but MSPB in its September newsletter suggested that supervisors think about how they can sharpen their performance management skills to make fair decisions regardless of whether an employee is working from home or the office. For their part, employees should think about their work habits and routines, MSPB said. “Not all employees or jobs are suitable for telework,” the newsletter stated. “Employees who telework should maintain their performance and fully engage with their supervisors, coworkers, customers, and other relevant parties.”

In general telework has a lot of benefits for both agencies and employees, MSPB noted, including allowing continuity of operations in emergencies, requiring less office space, and easing recruitment and retention. For employees the arrangement can help with work-life balance, reduce time and money spent commuting, and leave them more engaged at work.

“The use of post-pandemic telework may increase in federal organizations based on the experience they gained with this workplace flexibility during the pandemic,” MSPB concluded. “To determine what level of telework is appropriate, those organizations should carefully review data regarding such things as organizational productivity and employee attitudes during the period of maximum telework. Such important considerations should not be left solely to individual desires or beliefs that office productivity automatically improves when more employees are physically in the work space.”

(Image via Flickr user National Parks Conservation Association)

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Federal Employees Sing Telework’s Praises, Want to Continue After the Pandemic

Amelia Gruber — Wed, 28 Apr 2021 15:00:00 -0400

Federal employees who have been teleworking during the novel coronavirus pandemic are giving their new work arrangement rave reviews. In two recently released surveys many teleworkers said they were as—if not more—productive than they had been in the office, and reported greater engagement and job satisfaction.

The broader of these surveys—the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey administered by the Office of Personnel Management in the fall of 2020—found that 59% of federal employees teleworked daily at the height of the pandemic, up from just 3% before. Those who used the work arrangement were more likely to be engaged with their jobs, OPM said. Employees who reported that they worked at least three days per week remotely had an employee engagement index of 76 out of 100 on the survey, while those who only teleworked one or two days per week had a 74.8 engagement score, and those ineligible for telework had a 62.5 engagement mark.

“There’s a strong link between telework participation and engagement scores in the research,” said OPM acting Director of Strategy and Innovation Kimberly Wells, in a briefing accompanying the release of the survey results on Monday. “So you’d expect to see teleworkers with higher employee engagement scores than those who aren’t, and it’s the same with satisfaction and health and safety . . . There’s a wealth of research over the last decades that show all kinds of positive effects gained through telework, and I know these discussions are being had across agencies to see how we can capture this boon to performance through engaging more telework.”

Similarly, a recent survey by the National Treasury Employees Union found widespread satisfaction with the arrangement. Ninety-two percent of survey respondents said their telework experience was “successful,” the union reported, with nearly 66% saying they were a little or a lot more productive when working remotely and 24% saying their productivity did not change. Just 7% said they were less productive, according to NTEU.

The most often cited benefit garnered from telework, aside from increased health and safety during the pandemic, was saving time (95.7%) and money (89.1%) through not commuting. This was followed by better work-life balance (84.2%) and reduced stress (75.6%). Other benefits included allowing employees to care for children and dependents whose schools and care facilities were closed (54.4%); learning new skills and ways to communicate; and better overall health through exercising more, eating better and avoiding dirty shared workspaces.

“My health has improved, I get to see my kids and am happier, more focused,” an Internal Revenue Service employee in Georgia responded in a section that allowed union members to elaborate. “This means I am a better, more productive employee.”

Most respondents to the survey (93.8%) said they would like the option to continue teleworking extra days even after the pandemic ends and the union said it would push for that in legislation and collective bargaining agreements.

“Obviously telework is not for every federal employee because there will always be tasks that require a physical presence in the workplace and some people do not want to work from home, but with some effort and resources, we learned that thousands of federal workers who had never before teleworked were able to do so successfully, five days a week, across government,” said NTEU National President Tony Reardon, in a statement accompanying the survey results.

“It was an unprecedented situation and some bumps were to be expected, but now every agency that expanded their telework programs has a proven track record of success that can be replicated in the future,” he noted.

NTEU’s survey was conducted the week of April 12 and drew responses from 13,800 union members at 33 agencies and departments. The Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey by OPM was administered from September 14 to November 5, 2020 to 1.4 million federal employees, with 624,800 responding.

Erich Wagner contributed to this report.

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How Much Would Your Agency’s Budget Increase Under Biden’s Fiscal 2022 Request?

Ross Gianfortune and Amelia Gruber — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 16:13:06 -0400

President Biden’s fiscal 2022 budget request released Friday would boost discretionary spending for nearly every major federal agency, with the majority seeing double digit percentage increases.

The Biden administration’s goal is to reinvigorate civilian programs it believes have long been underfunded. “This moment of crisis is also a moment of possibility,” wrote Office of Management and Budget acting Director Shalanda Young in a letter to leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations and Budget committees. “The upcoming appropriations process is another important opportunity to continue laying a stronger foundation for the future and reversing a legacy of chronic disinvestment in crucial priorities. Together, America has a chance not simply to go back to the way things were before the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn struck, but to begin building a better, stronger, more secure, more inclusive America.”

The budget proposal would increase overall civilian agency discretionary spending by 16%, with 11 of 15 Cabinet-level departments receiving double digit percentage increases over this year’s enacted spending. The Education Department would reap the biggest percentage increase, at 40.8%, with the Commerce and Health and Human Services departments also receiving over 20% more (at 27.7% and 23.1% respectively).

Non-Cabinet level departments also would fare well. The Environmental Protection Agency would receive a 21.3% increase.

Defense spending would increase 1.6% over fiscal 2021 levels.

The budget proposal marks a big departure from President Trump’s requests. Trump's proposal last year would have cut spending for all but five major agencies. Biden granted some of his smaller increases to the agencies where Trump had traditionally proposed spending hikes. The Homeland Security Department, for instance, would receive a 0.2% increase under Biden and had been slated for a 3.4% increase under Trump’s last budget. The Veterans Affairs Department would have received a 13.3% boost under Trump’s budget and is set for an 8.2% increase under Biden’s proposal.

The chart below shows how much the Cabinet-level and major agencies would receive under Biden’s proposal:

(Click the image to enlarge)

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Trump Blasts COVID Relief Package, Demands Revisions Risking a Shutdown

Amelia Gruber — Tue, 22 Dec 2020 20:49:03 -0500

President Trump on Tuesday evening posted a video in which he signaled he would not sign the spending package and coronavirus relief deal Congress passed on Monday after lengthy negotiations, increasing the risk of a government shutdown.

In the video posted to Twitter, Trump said the package, which contains $1.4 trillion in appropriations to fund federal agencies for the rest of fiscal 2021 and $900 billion in COVID-19 relief, was not what he expected and called it a “disgrace” that had “almost nothing to do with COVID.” He shared a long list of spending in the bill he considered unnecessary and wasteful, including $40 million in funding for the Kennedy Center in Washington, which is “not even open” and $1 billion for the Smithsonian Institution.

He also took issue with the size of the economic stimulus checks that would be sent to Americans under the deal, calling the $600 offered the “bare minimum” and demanding that lawmakers raise the amount to $2,000 or $4,000 for couples. “I’m also asking Congress to immediately get rid of the wasteful and unnecessary items from this legislation, and to send me a suitable bill,” he said, “or else the next administration will have to deliver a COVID relief package. And maybe that administration will be me. And we will get it done.”

Trump had been expected to sign the deal, but due to its length and the complex process of sending it to the president’s desk, lawmakers had passed a continuing resolution to fund agencies through Dec. 28. If Trump does not sign appropriations by that date there would be a shutdown.

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Feds Are Likely to Get a Half-Day Off on Christmas Eve This Year

Amelia Gruber — Thu, 10 Dec 2020 14:36:11 -0500

If history is a guide, federal employees may be in line for an extra half-day off around Christmas this year.

Christmas will fall on a Friday, and the last three times that has happened, presidents have granted most of the federal workforce except essential workers an extra half-day of break on Christmas Eve. President Obama granted the half day in 2015 and 2009, when Christmas fell on a Friday, and President Clinton did the same in 1998.

President Trump has not generally advocated for giving federal employees additional benefits, but he has been relatively generous in granting extra time off for Christmas Eve, which is not an official federal holiday. Last year he surprised the federal workforce by granting Dec. 24 off even though Christmas fell in the middle of the week, on a Wednesday. Trump also gave Christmas Eve off in 2018, to allow the federal workforce a four-day weekend.

Executive orders granting the additional vacation time often come in mid-December.

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What Feds Teleworking During the Pandemic Need to Know About Complying With the Hatch Act

Amelia Gruber — Fri, 01 May 2020 14:17:34 -0400

The Hatch Act limiting partisan political activity in the federal workplace hasn’t gone away during the novel coronavirus pandemic, but with many federal employees now working from home, the lines between “on the job” and personal activities can be blurred. The Office of Special Counsel has released guidance for teleworkers clarifying when they are considered “on duty” and how the Hatch Act applies during video conferences and on social media.

“It is important for employees to understand that although they are working from home, they are still subject to the Hatch Act’s on-duty restrictions,” the guidance stated. “Therefore, employees wishing to engage in political activity by, for example, posting their views about a candidate on social media or making political donations, must ensure that they are not on duty when engaging in such activities.”

The definition of “on duty” at home is much the same as it would be in the office, OSC said. Federal employees are considered on duty anytime they are “in a pay status other than paid leave, compensatory time off, credit hours, time off as an incentive award, or excused or authorized absence (including leave without pay),” the guidelines stated. They are also on duty if they are representing their agency in an official capacity. They would not normally, however, be considered on duty during a lunch break, OSC noted.

Participation in virtual meetings via Skype, Teams, Zoom or other platforms also counts as being on duty and Hatch Act restrictions apply during these meetings, OSC said. This means that in addition to avoiding obvious political action such as soliciting donations for a campaign during these meetings, federal employees should not wear political t-shirts or hats that would be visible to colleagues. They should also ensure that campaign signs and other political paraphernalia are not showing in the background. Employees may not select profile pictures that include “candidate images, campaign slogans, or political party symbols,” the guidance added.

OSC also reminded federal employees of the existing rules for social media use. Those rules would remain the same for teleworkers during the pandemic.

The guidance encouraged employees with any questions about the rules to contact OSC. “During these difficult times, we are here to assist federal agencies with Hatch Act education resources to help navigate the challenges associated with a presidential election season,” OSC said.

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