An online petition to extend federal health care benefits to seasonal wildland firefighters is spreading like … well … wildfire. John Lauer, a temporary firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service, and thousands of his colleagues aren’t eligible for the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan because they only work for the government six months out of each year. But those six months are extremely busy — Lauer and other firefighters usually work 16-hour shifts each day — and dangerous. And when medical misfortune strikes a firefighter’s family, it can be devastating. Lauer said his godson Rudy — the son of a…
Browsing: Pay & Benefits
Did you get a letter this week informing you that your Social Security number and other personal information was stolen in last July’s hacking of a Thrift Savings Plan data center? If so, Federal Times would like to speak to you. E-mail me at slosey@federaltimes.com if you’d like to talk. If you’d prefer to speak anonymously, that’s fine.
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…
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,…
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…
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.
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…
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…
Federal employees’ Thrift Savings Plan accounts could end up collateral damage in the push to hike federal employees’ pension contributions, the American Federation of Government Employees said yesterday. At Monday’s meeting with the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, AFGE public policy director Jacque Simon asked for more granular, grade-by-grade data on TSP contribution rates. Simon said she wants to know whether lower-paid federal employees are pulling back on their TSP contributions in response to proposals to increase pension contributions by anywhere from 1.2 percent to 5 percent. “It’s going to be increasingly important to have access to data like that,”…
Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s comment about “unfair” federal pay and benefits has raised the hackles of the two largest federal unions. The National Treasury Employees Union slammed Romney yesterday for going after middle-class federal workers. And today, American Federation of Government Employees President John Gage let loose with an even more cutting response: You know what’s really unfair? The specter of having a new boss who thinks so little about the work that you do that he can’t bother getting his facts straight before making the ridiculous and patently false claim that federal workers are “getting better pay and…