Dear CFC community: As many of you know, the Office of Personnel Management is seeking public comment on a proposed overhaul of the campaign. As of this morning, almost 160 comments had been submitted; because the deadline for commenting is June 7, Federal Times would like to do a story for our next print issue on reaction to the plan. But we need your help. OPM isn’t posting the comments online and won’t otherwise release copies without a Freedom of Information Act request (which typically takes months to process). So, if you’ve weighed in on the plan, we’re asking you…
Browsing: OPM
This is probably not what many D.C.-area feds want to hear this morning, but agencies are open today despite the snow and employees “are expected to report to their worksite or begin telework on time,” according to the Office of Personnel Management.
Lest anyone forget, Postmaster General Pat Donahoe remains keenly interested in creating a stand-alone health insurance plan for about 1.1 million U.S. Postal Service employees and retirees. The latest reminder came at last week’s Senate hearing on the USPS’s financial crisis. Although lawmakers’ attention was predictably focused on the agency’s decision to end Saturday mail delivery, Donahoe also stressed the urgency of pulling out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. “An astonishing 20 cents of every revenue dollar the Postal Service takes in must go toward health care costs,” Donahoe said in prepared testimony. “By moving away from the…
Agencies have four months to develop or modify policies addressing the effects of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking on their respective workforces, according to a Feb. 8 Office of Personnel Management memo. Agencies will then submit the policies to OPM for review and will be required to issue a final policy within six months. “The guidance is designed to give agencies the flexibility to tailor their own individual policies to specific agency practices and culture,” OPM director John Berry said in a memo. From the memo: To assist agencies in developing their policies over the next several months OPM,…
There was some noteworthy news out of the judiciary today: the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has thrown out a three-judge panel’s decision from last year that would curtail federal employees’ ability to challenge agencies’ decisions on suitability to hold certain national security jobs. Instead, the full court of about 15 judges will rehear the case, with the first round of briefs due in early March, according to the four-page order. As Federal Times reported last year, the case dates back to 2009 when Defense Department agencies barred two employees–one a GS-5, the other a GS-7–from jobs involving access to “sensitive” information. The two sought recourse from the Merit Systems Protection Board, which…
The National Academy of Public Administration has announced the panel of five experts who will carry out a congressional required study on the possible effects of putting some federal employees’ personal financial disclosure statements on the Internet. The study is due at the end of March. The panel’s members are: David Chu, president and chief executive officer of the Institute for Defense Analyses; former Office of Personnel Management director Janice Lachance, who is now chief executive officer of the Special Libraries Association; Martha Kumar, a political science professor at Towson State University; Ronald Sanders, former chief human capital officer at…
The Office of Personnel Management just announced that federal offices in the Washington area will be open Wednesday, after two days of closures due to Hurricane Sandy. However, non-emergency employees will have the option to telework, or use unscheduled leave if they need to. That means they can use leave options such as earned annual leave, compensatory time off, or leave without pay, or they can rearrange their work week under a flexible work schedule, if possible.
Hurricane Sandy has claimed another workday in the Washington area. The Office of Personnel Management just announced that DC-area offices will be closed again Tuesday, Oct. 30. The Supreme Court also rescheduled Tuesday’s arguments for Thursday, Nov. 1. UPDATE: Tuesday’s closure will operate by the same rules as today: Emergency employees still must show up unless their bosses say otherwise, and employees who were already scheduled to or required to telework will still have to telework.
With Hurricane Sandy barreling towards the East Coast, the Office of Personnel Management just announced that federal offices in the Washington area will be closed to the public Monday. That means that most employees will be granted an excused absence, unless they’re required to telework, on official travel outside of the DC area, on leave without pay, or on an alternative work schedule day off. There are a few other categories of employees who won’t get the day off, however. Emergency employees are expected to show up for work tomorrow, unless they’re told otherwise by their bosses. And if you…
The non-profit firm that runs the nation’s largest Combined Federal Campaign has recovered about one-third of the $308,000 it had to repay earlier this year after auditors questioned spending for such items as meals for loaned executives, flowers and a night out at a Washington Nationals baseball game. Global Impact, which manages the National Capital Area CFC, had sought reimbursement for about $294,000 of that total; Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry agreed to return $$102,100 after reviewing additional documentation, according to an Aug. 14 letter released today at Federal Times’ request. Among the expenses that Berry decided were…