If you're a federal manager, you may want to pay close attention to a soon-to-be-introduced bill with an innocuous title, "The Civil Service Improvement Act." It contains provisions that would change the way you are paid for overtime and how you invest your money in the Thrift Savings Plan--not to mention the way you manage your employees and deal with poor performers.
Next Tuesday, July 14, the House Government Reform and Oversight Subcommittee on the Civil Service is planning to formally introduce the bill, which it has been crafting for months. In its most recent discussion draft, the bill contains nearly 40 proposals for changing the way federal employees are paid, given benefits and managed. A markup of the bill is scheduled for Thursday, July 16. Subcommittee staffer Ned Lynch said the panel is discussing the bill with the Senate to improve the chances of pushing the bill through this year.
But employee unions and Office of Personnel Management Director Janice Lachance raised concerns with many of the bill's provisions during a hearing on June 24.
"We believe this bill on the whole is far off the mark," American Federation of Government Employees President Bobby Harnage said at the hearing.
Since the hearing, the subcommittee has revised the bill to address some of the concerns.
One provision most groups seem to favor would allow all federal employees to contribute to the Thrift Savings Plan up to the IRS annual limit, which is $10,000 this year. Under current rules, employees under the Federal Employees Retirement System can only contribute up to 10 percent of their salaries to the TSP, while Civil Service Retirement System employees can contribute up to 5 percent.
The bill would also raise the cap on overtime pay for managers and other professionals. The present cap is at GS-10, Step 1. The bill would increase the cap one step a year for five years, eventually resting it at GS-10, Step 6. Under another version of the proposal introduced by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., the cap would be raised to GS-15, Step 1. But the civil service subcommittee balked at the costs of raising the cap that high.
Rep. Dan Miller, R-Fla., had proposed a measure that would restrict federal employees' use of official time to conduct union business. The latest version of the civil service bill eliminates that provision, asking only that agencies report to Congress on how much time employees spend on union business.
The latest version of the bill also waters down a provision that would have prohibited managers from using pass/fail systems to evaluate employees. That would have meant several agencies--notably the Social Security Administration--would have had to dump their pass/fail systems. Instead, the bill puts a moratorium on new pass/fail systems, instructing OPM to review their effects on employee performance and morale.
The subcommittee completely removed proposals to reform the Federal Employees Compensation Act, which governs workplace injury compensation. (See "Employees blast workers' comp office," July 8.) The panel needs to study the issue more, Lynch said.
A proposal to give more weight to performance during reductions-in-force was also dropped. The subcommittee replaced it with a plan to create a special RIF list of the worst performing employees, to make sure they receive less retention credit than good performers with less seniority.
Other provisions of the civil service reform bill include:
- Removing employees' right to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board when managers deny them within-grade increases.
- Allowing group awards for team projects.
- Limiting the number of performance improvement plans managers must provide to employees before firing them.
- Restricting mediators' power to impose disciplinary measures on managers during arbitration negotiations.
- Barring people convicted of drug felonies from federal employment.
- Allowing more agencies to develop personnel demonstration projects, which test new pay and benefits packages for employees.
- Prohibiting political appointees from competing for career positions until after a change in administrations.
- Investing 0.5 percent of federal retirement receipts in a Thrift Savings Plan-like fund, beginning in 2002, with an additional 0.5 percent invested each year. Federal retirement receipts are currently placed in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund, which is invested in government securities.
- Creating a portable retirement plan for political appointees and legislative staff.
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