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Brittany Ballenstedt

Blogger Reporter Portrait for GovernmentExecutive.com Brittany Ballenstedt writes Nextgov's Wired Workplace blog, which delves into the issues facing employees who work in the federal information technology sector. Before joining Nextgov, Brittany covered federal pay and benefits issues as a staff correspondent for Government Executive and served as an associate editor for National Journal's Technology Daily. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from Mansfield University and originally hails from Pennsylvania. She currently lives near Travis Air Force Base, Calif., where her husband is stationed.
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House members press for military-civilian pay parity

January 30, 2008 Ten House members from the Washington area on Wednesday kicked off discussions over the 2009 federal pay raise by sending President Bush a letter calling for civilian-military pay parity. The lawmakers asked Bush to incorporate the principle of pay parity in his fiscal 2009 budget request, scheduled to be released ...

Bush signs bill that sends unions back to bargaining table at Defense

January 29, 2008 President Bush on Monday signed into law defense authorization legislation that will fundamentally alter a new personnel system at the Defense Department. The fiscal 2008 Defense Authorization Act includes language that would restore collective bargaining and appeal rights under the National Security Personnel System. It also would exempt all wage-grade ...

Pentagon performance-based payouts average 7.6 percent

January 24, 2008 More than 110,000 employees under the Defense Department's new personnel system will receive performance-based payouts in their checks on Thursday, with the average pay increase and bonus amounting to 7.6 percent. Ninety-eight percent of employees working under the National Security Personnel System's Spiral 1 conversion received performance-based payouts this year, ...

TSP prepares for increased activity due to stock market plunge

January 22, 2008 Officials overseeing the Thrift Savings Plan said Tuesday that they are prepared to handle an influx of calls and other activity resulting from market volatility. At a monthly meeting of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, officials said they have increased call center support for participants worried about their plan ...

Homeland Security drops proposed labor relations plans

January 17, 2008 The Homeland Security Department is dropping its plans to revise the proposed labor relations rules of its new personnel system, at least for now. Thursday marked a deadline for DHS to file a status report with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia detailing its plans to either ...

Reviewing Roth

January 17, 2008 The addition of a Roth option to the federal employee Thrift Savings Plan may be an attractive investment alternative to many participants, but it still may be a long ways off. Unlike traditional 401(k) plans, Roth plans tax investments initially, but not when participants withdraw their retirement dollars years later, ...

Defense to begin recruiting foreign language corps

January 15, 2008 The Defense Department is assembling a corps of people fluent in critical foreign languages to serve the nation during times of emergency or international need. By 2010, the department will recruit at least 1,000 people to serve in the new National Language Service Corps, said Gail McGinn, deputy undersecretary of ...

Labor Department to fly solo on veterans' employment complaints

January 11, 2008 The Labor Department once again has sole jurisdiction to investigate military service members' complaints about their federal employment, even though a study examining the processing of such claims was considered inconclusive. A pilot project created by Congress in 2004 sought to determine which of two federal agencies -- Labor's Veterans ...

Panelists debate public service academy proposal

January 9, 2008 A panel of public policy experts on Wednesday debated whether establishing a bricks-and-mortar undergraduate academy would be the solution to the federal government's looming workforce challenges. At a forum sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, panelists expressed support for or suggested alternatives to creating a U.S. ...

Union files Supreme Court appeal of NSPS lawsuit

January 7, 2008 A federal labor union on Monday filed an appeal with the Supreme Court against the Defense Department's new personnel system. The American Federation of Government Employees filed a petition with the high court, asking it to hear a case on the legality of the National Security Personnel System's labor relations ...