'Back-Door' Base Closures
Biden Talks Loss With Fallen Troops' Families
Neely Out at GSA
More USPS Buyouts
Gimme My Discount! Deals for Feds
Buyout Watch: Who's Offering What
AUTHOR ARCHIVES
Kellie Lunney
Senior Correspondent
Kellie Lunney covers federal pay and benefits issues, the budget process and financial management. After starting her career in journalism at Government Executive in 2000, she returned in 2008 after four years at sister publication National Journal writing profiles of influential Washingtonians. In 2006, she received a fellowship at the Ohio State University through the Kiplinger Public Affairs in Journalism program, where she worked on a project that looked at rebuilding affordable housing in Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina. She has appeared on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, NPR and Feature Story News, where she participated in a weekly radio roundtable on the 2008 presidential campaign. In the late 1990s, she worked at the Housing and Urban Development Department as a career employee. She is a graduate of Colgate University.
Senators join forces to contain TRICARE hikes
May 18, 2012 Increases to certain health care insurance fees in the TRICARE program would be capped under a bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate on Friday. The 2012 Military Health Care Protection Act links hikes to enrollment fees, deductibles and drug co-payments for military retirees to their annuity. It requires that the ...
House approves military pay raise
May 18, 2012 The House on Friday passed a bill giving military personnel a 1.7 percent pay raise in 2013, as well as limiting increases to certain prescription drug co-pays under the TRICARE program. The chamber spent Thursday and Friday debating the fiscal 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, eventually passing it Friday afternoon ...
Panel advances military pay raise
May 17, 2012 A House panel Thursday approved legislation that gives military personnel a 1.7 percent pay raise in fiscal 2013 and provides more money for health and wellness programs for service members and their families. The Appropriations Committee advanced by voice vote a bill funding the Defense Department in fiscal 2013. It ...
Defensive Positions
May 17, 2012 The federal civilian workforce has labored under a two-year pay freeze and countless efforts to further reduce their wages and benefits during the past year. It appears that military families are not immune to fears over pay and benefits either. Changes to pensions, pay and other benefits rank at the ...
Lawmakers urged to bring Hatch Act into the age of telework and social media
May 16, 2012 Congress should address technology and social media in current legislation that reforms the law restricting government employees from certain political activities, a panel of witnesses told House lawmakers Wednesday. Legislation circulating in the House and Senate would update the 1939 Hatch Act, which prohibits federal, state and local government employees ...
Uncle Sam scales back on bonuses
May 15, 2012 The government handed out less bonus money to federal employees in 2011 compared to 2010, according to new data. Uncle Sam paid at least $439 million in merit awards to federal workers last year, down $43 million from 2010. The Asbury Park Press reported the findings Tuesday. The data, obtained ...
Active-duty military now can see America the Beautiful for free
May 15, 2012 Active-duty service members and their families will be able to visit the country’s national parks and wildlife refuges for free under a new federal program. Jill Biden and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on Monday announced the initiative to waive entrance fees and other costs associated with more than 2,000 federal ...
Panel rejects proposals to raise military retirees’ health care premiums
May 14, 2012 At the same time the House passed a bill requiring civilian federal employees to contribute more to their pensions, lawmakers on the Armed Services Committee rejected the Obama administration’s proposals to increase the amount military retirees pay for their health care insurance. The committee advanced the fiscal 2013 National Defense ...
House passes fed pension hike
May 10, 2012 Federal employees would have to contribute more to their government pensions under a bill approved by the House Thursday. The House voted 218-199 with one Republican voting present for legislation (H.R. 5652) that requires current federal workers to pay 5 percent more toward their retirement, with the increase introduced incrementally ...
Uncle Sam wants you, at every age
May 10, 2012 The Office of Personnel Management on Wednesday unveiled the final details of the government’s new program to attract students and recent graduates to public service. During a briefing with reporters, Director John Berry outlined the final regulations regarding the Pathways Programs, an initiative that grew out of a 2010 executive ...
