News Briefs

THE DAILY FED

News Briefs

The following news summaries are from OPM AM, the daily newsletter of the Office of Personnel Management. OPM AM is available on OPM Mainstreet, the agency's electronic bulletin board, at 202-606-4800.

RIF RULES--"Proposed revisions to reduction in force regulations are intended to increase the importance of actual performance in determining employees' standing during layoffs" (Federal Human Resources Week, February 17).

PERFORMANCE--"If agencies don't have carefully written performance standards and proof that all employees have read and understood them, they will have problems taking performance-based actions to discipline their employees" (Federal Human Resources Week, February 17).

E-MAIL THREATS--"The FBI is investigating hundreds of threatening electronic-mail messages sent over the past two weeks to members of Congress" (The Washington Post, Page A21).

IRS--"The Internal Revenue Service and the National Treasury Employees Union have been instructed to resume negotiations and try to resolve their dispute over impending layoffs, according to a letter from the Federal Service Impasses Panel" (The Washington Post, Page A21).

INNOCENT--Columnist Bob Levey says he is not guilty of federal employee bashing -- even though he passed along a joke about federal employees (The Washington Post).

ENTREPRENEURIAL--One couple's story of how they started their own business and left the corporate world behind (The Washington Times, Page B7).

FIRED--An employee who told his supervisor at an Air Reserve station that he was gay was discharged from the Reserves and lost his full-time civilian job as a mechanic on the base (The New York Times, Page A25).

OTHER VIEWS--OPM blasts MSPB for decision on sexual harassment (Pentagram, Gaithersburg, MD, Jan. 17)...How to collect benefits payable after death (Retirement Life Magazine, Washington, DC, Feb.)...OPM to develop and administer the Customs Brokerage Exam (Atlantic Journal of Transportation, Quincy, MA, Jan. 20).