You're a mean one.

UPDATE: I just got off the phone with Sue Brennan from the Postal Service, who said the AP report isn’t entirely accurate. The Postal Service isn’t canceling the whole letters to Santa program, but local post offices that don’t have the resources to redact childrens’ addresses and replace them with codes — as is now required by the Postal Service — will have to opt out of the program.

Large cities such as New York, Chicago, Washington and Philadelphia can afford the security measures and will still answer letters sent locally that are addressed to Santa. But many small towns, such as North Pole, Alaska, don’t have the money and will have to end their participation in Operation Santa, Brennan said. Los Angeles is one of the few big cities also ending the program, she said.

Original post: This may be one of the saddest stories I’ll read today. The Associated Press reports that the U.S. Postal Service is killing Operation Santa, a 55-year-old program where volunteers answer childrens’ letters sent to Santa Claus with letters postmarked “North Pole, Alaska.” The problem? A sex offender wormed his way into the program last year and almost gained access to childrens’ names and addresses. And rather than jump through the hoops that would be required to completely safeguard kids, the cash-strapped post office decided it’s easier to just scrap the whole thing:

Last year, a postal worker in Maryland recognized an Operation Santa volunteer there as a registered sex offender. The postal worker interceded before the individual could answer a child’s letter, but the Postal Service viewed the episode as a big enough scare to tighten rules in such programs nationwide.

The agency now prohibits volunteers from having access to children’s family names and addresses, said spokeswoman Sue Brennan. The Postal Service instead redacts the last name and addresses on each letter and replaces the addresses with codes that match computerized addresses known only to the post office – and leaves it up to individual post offices if they want to go through the time-consuming effort to shield the information.

Anchorage-based agency spokeswoman Pamela Moody said dealing with the tighter restrictions is not feasible in Alaska.

I remember being thrilled when I got my letter back from Santa Claus when I was a kid, and it’s a shame this one bad apple has ruined the program for everybody.

Future NRC engineers? (from CBS' Big Bang Theory)

It seems like everybody’s got a new idea for attracting new talent to the federal government these days. But Jim McDermott, chief human capital officer of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, thinks he’s found a foolproof way to convince young engineers to come to his agency: Find them dates.

“There are incentives, and then there are incentives,” McDermott told a crowd of human resources officials at the HCMF Conference in Arlington, Va., earlier today. ”When we’re hiring, we say, ‘Is there a significant other in the picture?’ If there’s no significant other, I tell them, ‘We can help.’ ”

McDermott said his unorthodox recruitment pitch works because while nuclear engineers may know how to split atoms, they’re not quite so adept on the dating front:

McDermott

“Now, engineers study a lot in college,” McDermott said. “They neglect very important extracurricular activities. My girls went to school with engineers, [and] they said, ‘Dad, they don’t know how to dance, they don’t know how to dress, they don’t even know how to talk.’ ”

Engineers may not necessarily become better dancers by taking a job at NRC, but McDermott said they can meet other single engineers (who probably won’t roll their eyes at Star Trek or lectures on reactor cooling systems). McDermott said NRC’s dating scheme — which he jokingly called “NRC Harmony,” after the eHarmony online dating service — has so far resulted in about eight or nine weddings.

McDermott’s comments made me think of the sitcom Big Bang Theory, which features hopelessly nerdy theoretical physicists and their often-failed efforts to find romance. McDermott said he’s seen bits of the show, which hit close to home: “I thought I was watching something on the NRC.”

Take a look at this OPM document — the plan terminations and reductions are on the first nine pages. And if your plan is on this list, send an e-mail to Stephen Losey at slosey@federaltimes.com.

Heyman was an assistant U.S. attorney at the Justice Department until he entered the private sector in 1968.

You can read more about the bill here, here and here.

Other things I noticed:

• The bill guarantees nobody will have their pay reduced in the move back to the General Schedule or their original system. (pg 782)
• It calls for Defense Secretary Robert Gates to set up “a fair, credible, and transparent performance appraisal system for employees” that is linked to bonuses and other performance-based actions. The system should ensure ongoing feedback and dialogue between supervisors, managers and employees, and set timetables for review, the bill says. And it calls for expanding training, counseling and mentoring opportunities for employees. (pg 784)
• It’s possible that whatever performance appraisal system DoD ends up with might not be that different from performance appraisal under NSPS. The NSPS review panel that in August harshly criticized it as systemically flawed and recommended it be “reconstructed” also praised its performance appraisal system. So the Pentagon could stick with that and build a new system around it.
• Gates has six months after the bill is passed to start shifting employees out of NSPS. (pg 781)
• He also has six months to propose a new personnel system that fixes the problems with NSPS, and explain why he doesn’t want to shift employees back to the General Schedule. Congress would have to approve the new proposal as part of the fiscal 2011 Defense Authorization bill. (pg 792-795)
• I just got of the phone with Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., who counts many DoD employees as his constituents. He said that one of the biggest problems with NSPS was the political baggage that came with it — unions felt former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld shunned them when NSPS was being crafted and were outraged that the Pentagon attempted to limit collective bargaining rights as part of NSPS.
• Moran said “I wouldn’t be at all surprised” when I asked if he thinks the Pentagon might try to propose a new personnel system to replace NSPS. Moran noted that President Barack Obama supports the concept of pay for performance, and thinks that some aspects of NSPS will return. But he said as Obama crafts a new pay-for-performance system — whether at DoD or governmentwide — he will likely engage unions and employees more than the Bush administration did, which will give him a better chance of succeeding.

• All 205,000 employees currently under NSPS will be transferred back to their original pay system by Jan. 1, 2012, according to a statement from Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y. The bulk of NSPS employees were originally under the General Schedule system.
• American Federation of Government Employees President John Gage — who in June compared NSPS to Dracula — thinks the Defense Authorization Bill will be the final stake in the heart of the program.
• But it’s not a done deal yet. Army Times reporter Rick Maze tells me that other issues could scuttle the authorization bill. Rick said that one provision in the bill, which would authorize more spending for Joint Strike Fighter engines, could get the whole thing vetoed. Also, Republican opposition to a Hate Crimes Prevention Act rider could trip the bill up in the Senate.
• And Gage told me that the bill provides one slim chance for the Defense Department to save NSPS. According to Gage, language in the authorization bill says that if the Pentagon manages to “reconstruct,” or radically overhaul, NSPS to Congress’ satisfaction within a certain time period, and if Congress passes a bill saying it’s satisified with the NSPS reconstruction, the system could be saved. But, of course, that’s an awful lot of “ifs,” and at this point, it’s not looking good for NSPS.
• Gage said that new department-wide flexibilities on hiring, assigning personnel and appraising employee performance will be subject to collective bargaining.

Keep watching www.federaltimes.com for more information.

NASA's official Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, or COLBERT, patch

What may be the most expensive consolation prize in NASA history will soon be aboard the International Space Station. A $5 million treadmill named for political satirist and faux TV pundit Stephen Colbert will be one of the first items unloaded this afternoon from a cargo container docked at the station, according to the Associated Press.

The Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, now as elevated as its namesake’s ego, will soon be used by astronauts to stay healthy and strengthen their muscles in the zero-G environment.

Earlier this year, NASA started an online poll allowing Web site visitors to vote on a name for the space station’s latest module, Node 3. But NASA also allowed visitors to write in their own suggestion. That’s when Colbert implored the viewers of his Comedy Central program “The Colbert Report” to write his name in. And boy, did they — members of the Colbert Nation cast more than 230,000 votes for their hero, far more than the second-place choice, “Serenity.” *

Though Colbert won the vote fair and square, NASA instead chose to name Node 3 “Tranquility,” in honor of the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. Colbert was, of course, outraged at the subversion of democracy. But when astronaut Sunita Williams told him that a treadmill would instead bear his name, he quickly changed his tune. Video of the announcement after the jump:

 

 

* One other popular suggestion was to name Node 3 after Scientology diety and intergalactic alien overlord Xenu. NASA has apparently never commented on Xenu’s popularity, but Colbert sure did:

Obama said that the ailing economy, increasing demands on the federal government and the ongoing terrorist threat are straining the federal budget. And since the federal government’s attrition continues to be relatively low, Obama said it will be tough to justify a larger pay raise.

The letter is something of a formality. In the unlikely event that Congress forgets to pass a federal pay raise, last year’s increase in the Employment Cost Index (which was 2.9 percent) would automatically become the average pay raise for federal employees unless the president sends Congress a letter setting an alternative pay raise.

But while it’s doubtful that Congress will cede its raise-setting power, Obama’s letter could give more strength to the House lawmakers who in July approved a 2.0 percent pay raise next year. The Senate, on the other hand, is pushing for a 2.9 percent raise.

National Treasury Employees Union National President Colleen Kelley, however, is not happy:

NTEU is disappointed that the administration continues advocating for a 2.0 percent pay increase for civilian federal employees in 2010. NTEU continues to support the principle of military and civilian pay parity and will continue to work to include an amount equal to the military raise, whether it is 2.9 percent or 3.4 percent.

NTEU recognizes that it has been a very difficult year for the economy[,] however pay parity is an important and accepted principle and reflects the reality that civilian and military workers both contribute strongly to our country and deserve the same percentage pay increase.

Obama first called for the 2.0 percent pay raise when he released his proposed fiscal 2010 budget in February.

“There is much to do on behalf of federal workers,” Gage told delegates to AFGE’s national convention in Reno after he was sworn in Aug. 27. “Our focus is now on the midterm congressional elections and making sure the American people have the public services they deserve. We plan to help elect a Congress with men and women who are actually responsive to the needs of the American people, particularly the nation’s working families.”

Delegates also re-elected J. David Cox as national secretary-treasurer, and chose Augusta Thomas to be their new national vice president for women’s and fair practices department. Andrea Brooks, AFGE’s former national vice president, passed away on April 26.