Agriculture Close To Avoiding Furloughs
Sequester Hits Disaster Relief
Feds Respond to Oklahoma Tornadoes
Making Government 'Simpler'
OK Senator Wants Aid Offset by Budget Cuts
Boldly Go Where No Fed's Gone Before
AUTHOR ARCHIVES
Brittany Ballenstedt
Blogger
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.
Lawmakers seek to extend combat-zone tax break to feds
April 24, 2007 Legislation was introduced in the House and Senate last week that would provide federal civilian employees serving in combat zones with the same tax credit that is available to military service members. The bills (H.R. 1974 and S. 1166), sponsored by Virginia Republicans Rep. Frank Wolf and Sen. John Warner, ...
House panel probes latest DHS personnel overhaul
April 20, 2007 Members of a House subcommittee on Thursday questioned why the Homeland Security Department has continued to move forward with its controversial personnel system in the face of charges that it has caused employee morale to plummet. At a hearing of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on management, lawmakers sought to ...
House panel questions plan to trim federal guards
April 19, 2007 Members of a House committee on Wednesday expressed concerns over a proposal to cut Federal Protective Service staffing and increase fees charged to agencies using FPS' security services. The plan, discussed at a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing, is part of President Bush's fiscal 2008 budget proposal. Administration officials ...
Distance between best and worst agencies to work widens
April 19, 2007 Overall employee satisfaction across government has changed little since 2005, but the gap between the best and worst agencies is growing, according to an assessment released Thursday. Governmentwide employee satisfaction has decreased 0.4 percent since 2005, according to the 2007 Best Places to Work rankings issued by the Partnership for ...
Lawsuit seeks Sunday pay differential for part-timers
April 18, 2007 A lawsuit filed Wednesday by the labor union that represents employees at the National Weather Service could determine whether all part-time federal employees are entitled to a 25 percent bonus for working on Sunday. The lawsuit, brought by the National Weather Service Employees Organization, seeks to clarify that four part-time ...
No time off for travel on holidays, OPM says
April 17, 2007 Federal employees traveling on federal holidays as part of their jobs are not entitled to compensatory time off, under final rules issued Tuesday by the Office of Personnel Management. "Compensatory time off for travel may be earned by an employee only for time spent in a travel status away from ...
TSP to assess capacity to handle stock market plunges
April 16, 2007 Officials overseeing the Thrift Savings Plan should be sure they are prepared to handle an increased volume of transactions in the event of a major market plunge, members of the retirement plan's board said at a meeting Monday. TSP officials noted that following the stock market drop in late February, ...
DHS urged to shift bonus money from execs to employees
April 16, 2007 The Homeland Security Department must find a way to give employees better recognition for their contributions and achievements, according to Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee. In a 2007 report card, the panel's majority staff said delaying monetary awards and bonuses for upper-level managers and Senior Executive Service employees ...
Human capital officers' council outlines structural changes
April 13, 2007 A council of top agency personnel officials delivered its fourth annual report to Congress Thursday, informing lawmakers of changes and improvements last fiscal year. The report from the Chief Human Capital Officers Council listed three main structural and organizational changes in fiscal 2006. These included allowing personnel chiefs to send ...
Union, immigration agency move toward new contract
April 13, 2007 U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the American Federation of Government Employees signed a joint agreement Friday in an effort to improve the working relationship between agency managers and union representatives. The move marks the first step in the development of a new labor-management contract. The agency is operating under ...
