Akaka introduces bill to automatically boost TSP contributions
May 15th, 2012 | Pay & Benefits | Posted by Stephen Losey
Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, today introduced a bill that would automatically increase the Thrift Savings Plan contributions of some new federal employees. The Save More Tomorrow Act would only apply to automatically-enrolled feds — that is, new employees who make no choice on TSP and are automatically enrolled in the G Fund at 3 percent — and would boost their contributions by 1 percent each year.
Akaka’s office said this would help push more feds to invest 5 percent of their paychecks in their TSP. That’s the amount federal employees have to contribute to get the maximum matching contribution from their employing agency. The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which governs TSP, has repeatedly expressed concern that many federal employees are leaving money on the table by not contributing 5 percent.
Said Akaka:
The Save More Tomorrow Act will make it easier for new TSP participants to save for retirement. Pairing automatic enrollment with automatic escalation in 401(k) plans has proven effective in increasing private sector savings rates. Congress should incorporate this best practice into the TSP.
Tags: Daniel Akaka, TSP
Your salary is (probably) now online
May 15th, 2012 | Pay & Benefits | Posted by Stephen Losey
The Asbury Park Press, which like Federal Times is owned by Gannett, this morning posted their latest database of federal salary and bonus information.
APP obtained 2011 salary data for most federal employees through a Freedom of Information Act request. A user can search by name, agency, job title, and location, and find out many feds’ grade levels, salaries, and bonuses for 2011. For example, a search for “Geithner,” “Treasury” and “District of Columbia” will reveal Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was paid $199,700 last year and received no bonus.
The list is not comprehensive, however. It doesn’t include FBI, CIA, Defense Department, or IRS employees, or employees involved in security work, nuclear materials or national security matters. A separate U.S. Postal Service database can be found here.
What do you think about this database? Will it spark conversations in your office about what your colleagues are making? Are you angry that federal salary data has been posted publicly? Sound off below.
Will 5% pay cut change your retirement plans?
May 11th, 2012 | Pay & Benefits | Posted by Stephen Losey
The House yesterday passed a budget that hikes federal employees’ retirement contributions by 5 percent, which translates to an effective cut in take-home pay. If that becomes law, what would it mean for you? Would it change how much you invest in the Thrift Savings Plan? Or would you go so far as to bail out of the pension system — leave the federal service before retirement and get your FERS contributions refunded, with interest? (See “If You Leave Before Retirement Age” on this page for more details.)
Write me at slosey@federaltimes.com if you’d like to talk further. If you prefer to stay anonymous, that’s fine.
Tags: FERS, pay cut, what do you think?
Is your agency rolling back retention incentives?
May 11th, 2012 | Pay & Benefits | Posted by Stephen Losey
With agencies facing tight budgets and unprecedented scrutiny of their payroll costs, has your agency reined in its use of retention incentives? Have you recently lost a retention incentive, or are you offering your employees fewer such bonuses to hold on to them? If so, why?
E-mail me at slosey@federaltimes.com. I will keep your response anonymous if you like.
Tags: incentives, retention, what do you think?
OPM’s Berry: Justice Dept. opinion ties my hands on gay spouses’ health benefits
May 9th, 2012 | Pay & Benefits | Posted by Stephen Losey
Last week we reported that even though lesbian federal employee Karen Golinski won health coverage for her wife — courtesy of a February court ruling — the Office of Personnel Management is still instructing federal agencies to deny the same coverage to all other gay and lesbian feds’ spouses.
Today I asked OPM Director John Berry how his agency can legally extend Federal Employees Health Benefits Program benefits to only one couple, and treat thousands more differently. He said, basically, that the Justice Department’s legal opinion on the Golinski ruling has tied OPM’s hands:
As someone who’s openly gay and has a partner that would love to join the FEHBP program, and I would love to have him be able to join the FEHBP program, because it’s a great program. I look forward to this issue resolving itself, personally. So you can rest assured, I’m watching this issue closely. That being said, it’s the Justice Department that gets to decide what a court ruling allows us to do. And the Justice Department has defined that, how this court ruling, because of the jurisdiction of the court and the direction of the court, it only applies to this one person. That’s what I’ve been told.
I have to do what the Justice Department tells me to do. As a sworn officer, upholding the Constitution, I’m enforcing what the Justice Department’s told me.
Berry pledged to keep pushing to extend health care benefits to gay and lesbian feds’ same-sex partners, and said he hopes Congress will pass a bill granting those rights:
My hope, at the end of the day, is that Congress can act. We’ve had wonderful bipartisan support on this. Sen. [Susan] Collins [R-Maine] has been as strong an advocate as Sen. [Joe] Lieberman [I-Conn.] and Sen. [Daniel] Akaka [D-Hawaii] in the Senate, and we’ve got the same in the House. I think there’s a shot that, even legislatively, we can move forward on this, is my hope. Otherwise, we’ll wait and see what the Justice Department allows us to do, responding to appropriate court action.
However, Senate support for extending same-sex benefits isn’t as bipartisan as Berry suggested. Collins remains the only Republican co-sponsor of S 1910, and no Republicans have signed on to the House version, HR 3485. And with House Republicans dead-set against broadening federal employees’ benefits — gay or straight — I don’t see how same-sex health benefits can possibly pass Congress.
Berry’s comments came a few hours before news broke that President Obama now backs gay marriage.
Tags: FEHBP, gay rights, John Berry, same-sex benefits
Press ends up the villain at Public Service town hall
May 8th, 2012 | Uncategorized | Posted by Stephen Losey
Two key themes emerged at this morning’s Town Hall with top Obama administration officials in honor of Public Service Recognition Week: First, the public often doesn’t understand or appreciate all the things federal employees do for them. And second, that’s partly because a hostile or indifferent press corps only appears interested in federal workers when they throw extravagant Vegas conferences or hire a couple of prostitutes.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Health and Human Services Director Kathleen Sebelius, and acting General Services Administration head Dan Tangherlini spoke with news anchor Cokie Roberts at the Partnership for Public Service’s headquarters today about the difficulties faced by federal agencies trying to spread their message.
The media criticism began with Sebelius, who said recruiting and retaining talented workers “is particularly tough when people are working a zillion hours a day, paid well below market value, and trashed day in and day out in the news media and told that they are incompetent. … [Stories about selfless feds, such as those recognized with Service to America medals] always get page 30, bottom left-hand corner [placement], one nanosecond and they’re gone. So having a little more press balance would really be helpful.”
LaHood followed up on her comments later after lauding the cooperation between Homeland Security and Amtrak to provide security for commuters, as well as the Transportation Security Administration’s airport security:
We know it’s not going to get the headlines unless something goes wrong, but so many things go right. That’s why you don’t see that many headlines about it. Because a lot of stuff goes right. … Think of the good work that’s gone on for more than 10 years by TSA federal employees. Not one plane has been brought down by a terrorist. We’d all love to have a track record like that.
Sebelius advised agencies to reach out to media organizations throughout the nation, beyond the Washington Beltway:
Sometimes it’s easier, I find, to get outside of DC and shine a bright light on a regional office for work that’s going on. Oftentimes, the press is cynical inside the Beltway and end up on a “gotcha” kind of media. The local press is often delighted to print those stories [about employees doing good jobs and delivering services].
The press wasn’t the only villain criticized by the Cabinet members. LaHood said excessive partisanship and gridlock in Congress is hurting feds, most of whom come to government to serve a higher purpose. “Unfortunately, what we have in at least one house of Congress is people who came to do nothing,” LaHood said, referring to the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. “And that’s basically what they’ve been doing for the last year and a half. I know what good Congress can do when they put their minds to it.”
Sebelius also criticized “people who have sought public office to really dismantle government. Anything involved with the government has to be bad. Whether it’s cutting out education funding, or health programs, the things that typically were seen as public good, public service, we come together to do the things we can’t do one at a time. That attitude, unfortunately, has changed among some of the people who now are serving in office, and see that any progress made on anything by government is inherently wrong.”
And the annual budget process ends up a victim of the gridlock in Congress, Tangherlini said, which makes things tougher for the feds who have to actually get things done.
Napolitano also criticized Congress’ inability to get budgets passed and the recurring threat of a government shutdown:
Oftentimes we’re operating without [a budget]. We’re trying to guess what it’s going to be. There’s no CEO in the country that has to deal with the sort of uncertainty we have about budgets, and coming right up to the edge of closing down the government — that’s not a morale builder for the federal workforce.
Tags: Partnership for Public Service, Public Service Recognition Week
CHCOs: Supervisors must do better on poor performers
May 7th, 2012 | HR Management | Posted by Stephen Losey
Federal supervisors aren’t doing nearly enough to hold poor performers accountable — or keep them from ending up as poor performers in the first place, two chief human capital officers said today.
Reginald Wells of the Social Security Administration and Jeri Buchholz of NASA, speaking at Government Executive’s Excellence in Government conference, agreed that managers need to be more willing to take action when an employee isn’t cutting it. Maybe that means retraining that employee to get him up to snuff, Wells said, or punishing him. But a manager might only need to “call it as it is” and let the employee know he’s falling behind, Wells said.
But supervisors also need to look at themselves, and consider whether they’re managing the employee properly, Wells said:
Very often they end up poor performers because we fail them. We don’t engage them, or they get put on the back burner. There are all kinds of reasons why people become poor performers. We really do have to put an emphasis on how to reach them, give them an opportunity to cure, and if not, encourage them to want other careers or leave government. Because with things being so lean, the days of putting somebody on that back burner are gone. We need everybody engaged, and committed to the mission.
Buchholz said that while she thinks Congress needs to pass legislation making it easier for managers to hold poor performers accountable — though she didn’t say what that should be — she said managers already have many tools that they’re not using:
We have the ability to remove people under [Chapter] 75 actions for performance — we don’t do it. We have the ability to downgrade people, to get them into a job that they can do well. Never seen that in 30 years. So I think there are things that we could do that we’re not actually doing, and we should really contemplate.
But it all starts with better training of supervisors, Wells said.
Could RIFs be the lesser of two evils?
May 7th, 2012 | HR Management | Posted by Stephen Losey
Former intelligence CHCO Ron Sanders
For more than a year, cash-strapped agencies across the government have been offering buyouts and early outs to reduce their payrolls. Several of those agencies said it’s better to cut the rolls voluntary to avoid messy, morale-killing layoffs, or reductions-in-force for those who speak government-ese.
But at today’s Excellence in Government conference, a common refrain emerged: The dreaded RIF may be unavoidable — and may even be a better tool for managing the workforce than buyouts and early outs.
“The R-word — RIF — has its place, because it is the most surgical,” said Ron Sanders, the intelligence community’s former chief human capital officer. “I know that sounds harsh. I don’t mean it to be. But if you’re trying to protect critical skills, that’s an option you can’t take off the table.”
Reginald Wells, the Social Security Administration’s CHCO, echoed Sanders in a later session at the conference, sponsored by Government Executive:
Most of us in the human capital world would probably rather not go there, if we can avoid it. I hope not. But I don’t think you can afford to invalidate any legitimate tool. If you tinker around the edges and you still end up with a problem, when you could have had a reduction in force … if you can just sometimes make a cut, and be done with that particular problem, you’re better off.
The problem with buyouts and early outs, Sanders said, is that agencies have limited control over who will leave. There’s no guarantee the people an agency is trying to get rid of will take the offer, Sanders said. And there’s a risk that, unless the offer is narrowly targeted, the agency could lose some vital employees.
A RIF “sometimes does the least harm,” Sanders said. “But these things take time to heal.” The IRS’ remaining workforce was still talking about their 1995 RIF six years later, he said. And those left behind sometimes experience survivor’s guilt.
Wells stressed to Federal Times that SSA is not considering RIFs, and said he hopes other agencies will be able to make it through the current budget crunch without having to take that step.
But with federal agencies already stretched thin, sequestration looming, and current and former HR officials openly discussing the possible necessity of RIFs, could this be the next shoe to drop?
Tags: budget cuts, Excellence in Government conference, Reginald Wells, RIF, Ron Sanders
OPM: FEHBP must cover lesbian fed’s wife, but no other same-sex spouses
May 3rd, 2012 | Pay & Benefits | Posted by Stephen Losey
Karen Golinski, a lesbian federal employee, won a major court victory in February when a federal judge ruled that the government had to extend health benefits to her same-sex wife. But other gay and lesbian feds won’t be able to benefit from Golinski’s victory at this time.
The Office of Personnel Management in March ordered Blue Cross Blue Shield to cover Golinski’s wife, Amy Cunninghis. But today, OPM sent a notice out on its listserv that said the Golinski ruling does not apply to anyone else.
“OPM has been directed by the Department of Justice to continue applying the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) to all other situations,” OPM said. “Therefore, if you receive a request to enroll a same-sex spouse, you are still precluded by DOMA from processing the enrollment request or sending it to the [Federal Employees Health Benefits] Plan.”
OPM has been in an awkward position for some time regarding health benefits for same-sex spouses. OPM Director John Berry is gay, and has repeatedly said he thinks gay and lesbian feds’ spouses should be covered. But Section 3 of DOMA prevents the government from legally recognizing same-sex marriages, which bars gay feds’ husbands and wives from FEHBP. The Justice Department last year said it believes DOMA is unconstitutional and it would no longer defend the law. And last July, Justice backed Golinski’s case in a brief that amounted to a mea culpa for the government’s “significant and regrettable” history of persecuting gay and lesbian employees. (Go back and read that blog, and this one for some background on how gay and lesbian feds were treated. It’s pretty startling.)
But even though the Obama administration may want to extend health care to gay and lesbian feds’ spouses, it now seems pretty clear that won’t happen until DOMA is repealed or struck down.
Retirement claims slow in April
May 3rd, 2012 | Office of Personnel Management | Posted by Stephen Losey
For several months, we’ve been tracking a disturbing increase in federal retirements — one which both complicated the Office of Personnel Management’s efforts to fix the pension process and suggests many feds have had it with the proposed pay and benefit cuts. But OPM’s latest stats show a surprising drop in the number of feds retiring.
OPM said it received 6,616 retirement claims in April. That’s 17 percent less than the 8,000 it expected to receive last month, and 15 percent less than the 7,773 feds who retired in April 2011. Up until this point, retirement claims for the first three months of 2012 were up roughly 11 percent from the same period last year. But when April’s numbers are factored in, that increase drops almost in half, to nearly 6 percent.
It remains to be seen whether April is a blip, or the start of a trend in which retirements slow back down to a more manageable pace.
The rest of April’s stats contained some mixed news for OPM. The number of claims processed dropped from 12,386 in March to 8,028 in April. That was slightly less than the 8,300 OPM expected to process last month.
But there was good news: Despite the slight decline in productivity, the decreased retirement claims helped OPM cut its backlog from 52,274 to 51,016 cases. OPM is now way ahead of the 55,078-case backlog it expected to have in April.
I’ve asked OPM for their thoughts on what might have caused April’s changes and will update this blog when they respond.
UPDATE: OPM just sent me the following statement from Associate Director Ken Zawodny:
The first pillar of our strategic plan is the most simple and most urgent: adding more people to the claims adjudication process. The new hires from January 2012 have completed their initial training and now require coaching and mentoring as they begin to process cases. This is an expected part of the training program and requires the most experienced and effective LAS’s to be coaches and mentors in addition to processing retirement claims. Our front line employees split their time in April between processing cases, training the new hires and working with Navy Lean Six Sigma Team to improve the adjudication process, especially for more complex cases. Strategic investments of time and expertise will continue into May. To date, we have processed 39,116 retirement claims compared to the 32,900 that we estimated having done at this time.
As Director Berry stated in the Strategic Plan for Retirement Services, it is our goal to eliminate the current backlog in 18 months so that 90 percent of retirees will receive their full annuity payments within 60 days of retirement by July 2013.
Tags: backlog, pension, retirement