The bill would entitle domestic partners to myriad federal benefits, including medical benefits and long-term care insurance. To receive the benefits, the partner and the federal employee would have to sign an affidavit affirming that they are in a committed, long-term relationship and live together except for financial, work or other reasons.

Votes on the bill were split along party lines. Republicans spent several hours offering a series of amendments, including one to open federal benefits up to anyone living in a federal employee’s home.

The bill now goes to the full House for consideration.

For more on H.R. 2517 and the committee’s debate, check back with Federal Times Thursday.

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.

Sixteen committee Republicans sent a letter to Chairman Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., on Nov. 4, calling on him to schedule immediate hearings to analyze the impact H.R. 3692 may have on the FEHBP. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said Nov. 5 she has the votes to pass the health care bill on Nov. 7.

In the letter, Republicans said they need clarification on what the bill could do to participants in the FEHBP.

We believe the legislation in its current form may have a significant impact on FEHBP, including the possibility that FEHBP may not be deemed a ‘qualified health benefits plan’ for purposes of the bill, which will have the effect of either forcing federal employees out of their current coverage and into the ‘public option,’ or subjecting them to a tax for failure to obtain ‘acceptable health coverage.”

The Republicans are just trying to stall the health care bill with “baseless concerns,” Towns replied in a Nov. 4 news release.

Any suggestion that federal employees may be forced out of insurance coverage and subjected to an additional tax is false and has no basis in the text of the bill.  Under H.R. 3962, federal employees will remain in their current system, and will also benefit from the same improvements to health insurance plans that all other Americans will enjoy, such as ending copayments for preventative medicine and automatic enrollment.  Insurance providers participating in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) will be subject to the same rules and regulations covering all other health insurance plans.”

In the video game world, your Web site is ‘Pong.’”

– Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., told Greg Long, executive director of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, at a Nov. 3 hearing in reference to the state of the TSP’s Web site, comparing it to one of the first arcade games.

The board is working to make its Web site more user friendly and improve the information available, Long told members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s subcommitee on the federal workforce, postal service and the District of Columbia.

HR 2647 phases out the NSPS pay-for-performance system by Jan 1, 2012, and the Pentagon has six months from Wednesday to start transferring employees over to their original pay system. For many employees, that means a return to the General Schedule.

The bill also contains a number of provisions long anticipated by federal employees:

• Federal Employment Retirement System (FERS) employees will be able to count unused sick leave toward their years of service, just as Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) employees can. This may end the epidemic of “FERS flu,” where soon-to-retire employees burn off sick leave because they couldn’t receive credit for it.
• FERS employees returning to work for the federal government would be able to redeposit their annuities.
• CSRS employees who work part time at the end of their careers would be able to have their annuities recalculated to be based only on their full-time salaries.
• Retirees returning to work for the federal government would be able to collect their full salaries while drawing their annuities. Agencies used to be able to pay rehired annuitants a full salary only if they obtained a waiver from the Office of Personnel Management.
• Federal employees in Alaska, Hawaii and U.S. territories will now receive locality pay instead of cost of living. Employees in the continental U.S. receive locality pay.

Feel free to celebrate in the comments section below, feds!

The bill provides the long-desired FERS sick leave credit, which would allow sick leave to count as time served when calculating pensions.

The provisions in the bill are the same as those contained in a bill introduced by Rep. James Moran, D-Va.

“We’ve been working for a number of years to enact these common-sense federal employee reforms,” Moran said in a statement. “The House-passed Defense Authorization bill provides our best opportunity yet to bring needed incentives that will increase worker productivity and help recruit and retain the best and the brightest back to the federal civil service. I look forward to working with my colleagues to see that these provisions survive the House-Senate conference committee process.”

Members of the Washington delegation sent a letter to the chairmen and ranking members of the House Oversight and Government Reform and House Armed Services committees, saying the benefits are important to federal employees.

All of these provisions address key issues of fundamental fairness and efficiency for federal employees within the Department of Defense.”

Co-signers to the letter are: Reps. Frank Wolf, R-Va; Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.; Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C.; Elijah Cummings, D-Md; C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Md.; John Sarbanes, D-Md.; Donna Edwards, D-Md.; and Gerald Connolly, D-Va.

Other benefits included in the Defense Authorization bill are:

• Locality pay for federal employees in Alaska, Hawaii and U.S. territories.

• CSRS employees would be allowed to work part-time at the end of their careers and collect full annuities.

• FERS employees who leave government and return would receive credit for their previous federal service and be allowed to redeposit their retirement annuities.

At least two senators had placed holds on Sunstein’s nomination, due to concerns about his opinions on gun control and animal rights. Sunstein, a Harvard University professor, met with the senators, Saxby Chambliss of Georgia and John Cornyn of Texas, and assured them he respected the Second Amendment and would not limit hunting or impose stricter gun control. The holds were then lifted.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., filed cloture on Sunstein’s nomination, limiting time for debate. His nomination was discussed Thursday in between tributes to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., praised Sunstein’s selection on the Senate floor before the Wednesday cloture vote. Lieberman chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which cleared Sunstein’s nomination months ago.

I’m convinced that Professor Sunstein has superior qualifications for this office and a strong commitment, if confirmed, to guide OIRA in conformity with the law and public interest above all.”

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.

The move was announced hours after the Defense Business Board issued a final report recommending the Pentagon “reconstruct” NSPS. Bunn’s move means that new blood will oversee the effort to break the mammoth, highly controversial pay-for-performance system down to its core elements and build it up again.

The recommendation to keep NSPS is illogical and does not flow from your findings. The task group has miscalculated the intensity of hatred toward this system. [...] We wonder why DoD isn’t holding those responsible for NSPS accountable and terminating them for this colossal failure. Instead, the task group asks them to try again, while the employees continue to suffer and many good employees lose money. [...]

The evidence of complete failure and serious injustice to many loyal, hard-working DoD employees is overwhelming. It leads to no other conclusion that termination.

Gage also is taking offense at the task group’s recommendation that the Pentagon work together with employees and unions as it creates the new NSPS. “The original law required collaboration from the onset, but DoD leaders and staff were dismissive and arrogant,” he said.

And though the task group cited NSPS’ performance management system as a success and reason to keep from scrapping the whole thing, Gage said it too “is overly complicated, not trusted by employees, and no better than other federal sector systems in accurately evaluating performance. It certainly is no reason to retain NSPS.”

The National Federation of Federal Employees echoed AFGE’s outrage.

“We don’t want a ‘do-over’ on NSPS, and that is what the report’s recommendation amounts to,” said NFFE National President William Dougan. “The Pentagon has had six years to get NSPS right, and they have failed miserably to do so.”