Defense
Senate approves COLA hike for disabled vets
Bill provides 3.6 percent increase and also boosts benefits to surviving spouses and children.
Pay & Benefits
GAO weighs in on Postal Service’s financial health
Report recommends eliminating or revising requirement for prefunding retiree health benefits, among other options.
Pay & Benefits
FEHBP pharmacy changes stir up controversy
Proposal to bring all drug benefit negotiations in-house goes to super committee but draws some opposition.
Pay & Benefits
Targeting Early Retirement
A look at how and why the federal system permits some employees to leave early.
Pay & Benefits
Reviewing the 3Rs
OPM wants to know how much agencies spent on recruitment, retention and relocation incentives during the past two years.
Pay & Benefits
New USAJobs site to get more servers, OPM chief tells labor-management meeting
The personnel office also responds to performance management recommendations from September.
Oversight
Individual contractors sue over right to make campaign gifts
Complaint criticizes 1972 election law for giving federal employees and corporations a privilege denied to individual awardees.
Pay & Benefits
Federal retirees will see COLA boost in 2012
CSRS retirees receive a 3.6 percent cost-of-living adjustment increase as food and gas prices rise, while FERS retirees get a 2.6 percent bump.
Oversight
Justice plans to cut four antitrust division field offices, employee relocation time
Measures are part of plan to reduce spending by $130 million.
Pay & Benefits
Agriculture offers another round of buyouts
Nearly 2,000 Rural Development employees will have the option of leaving, for payments of $25,000.
Oversight
Super committee gets mixed messages on USPS
Recommendations range from “please save” the Postal Service to “stay out.”
Oversight
IG council honors star performers
14th annual awards ceremony highlights crime-fighting, exposure of waste and fraud.
Defense
Agencies propose privacy training in wake of TRICARE data theft
Draft rule requiring all contractors to brush up on handling sensitive information in many cases codifies policies already in place.
Defense
Flooded Walter Reed clinics to reopen Friday
Patients scheduled for treatment in the damaged clinics were relocated during the cleanup.
Pay & Benefits
TSP participants look for safe investment choices
After several tough months, funds appear to be bouncing back as enrollees weather the storm.
Pay & Benefits
Postal workers hire former Obama 'car czar'
Union argues cuts aren't enough to resolve the agency's financial problems and is considering proposals to tap new sources of revenue.
Pay & Benefits
Lawmakers push extended pay freeze, increased pension contributions
Recommendations to super committee call for additional sacrifices from feds.
Oversight
Homeland Security cracks down on workers’ outside employment
Proposed rules would require employees to get permission before agreeing to outside work including teaching, speaking and consulting.
Oversight
Senior execs get more help starting off on the right foot
Pilot program tempers the expectation that new SES members should walk in the door knowing everything.
Defense