TSP's G Fund Helps Delay Debt Ceiling
OK Senator Wants Aid Offset by Budget Cuts
Feds Flock to TSP's L Funds
Making Government 'Simpler'
Boldly Go Where No Fed's Gone Before
The Big Squeeze: Defense Under Sequester
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.
White House Budget Plan Increases Feds’ Pension Contributions
April 10, 2013 President Obama wants federal employees to contribute 1.2 percent more of their pay, phased in over the next three years, toward their pensions. That change would result in most federal workers contributing 2 percent to their defined benefit plan under the administration’s $3.8 trillion fiscal 2014 budget proposal. The recommendation ...
Obama Seeks 1 Percent Pay Raise for Feds
April 10, 2013 Federal employees and military service members would receive a 1 percent pay raise next year under President Obama’s fiscal 2014 budget. The president, as expected, recommended modest, across-the-board salary increases for federal civilians in 2014. If Congress agrees, a raise would lift the current civilian pay freeze, now in its ...
Senior Execs Group 'Baffled' By Bonus Policy
April 9, 2013 The group representing senior civil servants is taking issue with the Obama administration’s approach toward bonuses for top employees during sequestration. The Office of Management and Budget has directed federal agencies to withhold discretionary monetary awards during the sequester “unless agency counsel determines the awards are legally required,” stated an ...
Retirement Claims Continue to Surge
April 8, 2013 The number of new retirement applications continues to exceed the government’s estimates, according to the latest data from the Office of Personnel Management. OPM received 10,183 new claims in March, more than double the 5,000 applications the agency expected to come in last month. Still, OPM managed to reduce the ...
Watchdog: Millions in Katrina Aid Unaccounted For
April 5, 2013 Nearly $700 million in federal aid for victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita is unaccounted for, according to a new report from a government watchdog. More than 24,000 homeowners in Louisiana who received millions in disaster recovery grants after the 2005 storms either did not comply with the terms of ...
Petition Seeks Student Loan Help for Feds
April 4, 2013 A new public petition is asking the Obama administration to help federal employees by forgiving some student loan debt to offset the pay freeze, now in its third year. The online petition, posted on the administration’s We the People website, recommends reducing by 2.2 percent the principal balance of student ...
Survey: Feds Lose Faith in Leaders
April 3, 2013 Federal employees are losing faith in their agency leaders, according to a new analysis from a nonprofit group. Rank-and-file workers have never been wildly enthusiastic about the quality of leadership in their agencies, according to the Partnership for Public Service, which has compiled data on the best places to work ...
The Commuter Benefit Chase
April 1, 2013 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 ...
Around Government
April 1, 2013 Hold the Fries, Please The Agriculture Department ditches deep fat fryers in lieu of healthy options at office cafeterias. By Kedar Pavgi In early February, the Agriculture Department announced plans to remove all of the deep fryers at its two primary cafeterias in Washington. Gregory Parham, acting assistant secretary for ...
Justice Postpones Furlough Decision to Mid-April
March 29, 2013 Attorney General Eric Holder said on Thursday that he would postpone until mid-April a decision to furlough any Justice employees, according to news reports. The department in February sent letters to assistant U.S. attorneys notifying them of proposed 14-day furloughs during the rest of the fiscal year. Last week, Holder ...
