Attentive (and we mean really attentive) Fedline readers might remember a post from last month about the apparent disconnect of the Office of Personnel Management’s charging the U.S. Postal Service more for its current pension contributions at the same time the Obama administration is proposing a big refund to the Postal Service on past contributions. We’d asked OPM for comment and finally received an answer yesterday. So, in the interest of thoroughness, we’re rerunning the original Feb. 22 post, with the OPM response appended verbatim. Here’s an intriguing nugget from the U.S. Postal Service’s latest quarterly report: Even as the Obama…
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Here’s an intriguing nugget from the U.S. Postal Service’s latest quarterly report: Even as the Obama administration agrees that the Postal Service is owed a huge refund on past payments to its pension program, the Office of Personnel Management—headed by Obama appointee John Berry—is requiring it to shell out more for current payments. For the first quarter of fiscal 2011, the Postal Service’s contributions to the Federal Employees Retirement System, or FERS, rose by $24 million—from $1,469 million to $1.493 million—versus the same period in fiscal 2010, even though the USPS workforce continued to shrink, the report says. The reason,…
“Since OPM refuses to exercise this authority, we urge you to use your authority as President to do so,” postal labor and management groups said in a letter to President Obama.
The Office of Personnel Management just released a letter that said this year’s open season for the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program will run from Monday, Nov. 8 through Monday, Dec. 13. Federal employees will be able to select their health, dental and vision insurance plans and enroll in a Flexible Spending Account between those dates. Anyone already enrolled in a health, dental or vision plan will stay enrolled in their current plan unless they choose to change or cancel it. But Flexible Spending Accounts don’t carry over from one year to another — enrollees must set up an account…
Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry is a full-fledged convert to the Results Oriented Work Environment theory of employee management, under which employees are given complete leeway to choose where and when they work, as long as they get their jobs done. He’s even getting ready to experiment with the ROWE program at OPM headquarters and its facility in Boyers, Pa. But will it work? We’d like to hear from employees and managers alike about the potential benefits and pitfalls of such a program, and the challenges that might come from trying to change an office’s culture so thoroughly. E-mail…
Office of Personnel Management employees in Washington will get a treat later this week: an hour off to view the cherry blossoms and squeeze in a little exercise. OPM Director John Berry issued a memo March 26 to the nearly 1,500 employees at the agency’s Washington headquarters granting them an hour off from April 1 to 4 to walk down to the Tidal Basin and see the blossoms. Those four days will be the blossoms’ peak blooming days. Berry has made promoting wellness initiatives and encouraging federal employees to be healthier a major part of his agenda. This excused absence…
Federal Times would like to hear from federal employees who might be affected by the health care reform bill passed last week. Do you have an adult child who can get health coverage as a result of the bill? Are you concerned about the excise tax or how it might affect your premiums? Are you worried that putting the Office of Personnel Management in charge of insurance exchanges could take its attention away from its traditional missions? Send us an e-mail at slosey@federaltimes.com.
All federal employees in Washington will have their first full workday in nearly two weeks tomorrow. The Office of Personnel Management announced this afternoon that government offices will open on time Wednesday, and without an unscheduled leave option. So if you haven’t dug your car out yet, now may be the time.
OPM director John Berry has talked a lot about expanding federal telework programs — and it occurs to me that this week gives him a perfect opportunity to evangelize. Today is the second consecutive snow day for the federal government, and if tonight’s forecast is accurate, tomorrow might well be the third. Each snow day costs the federal government $100 million — possibly more during this blizzard, because I’m sure some feds will just take the rest of the week off and give themselves a “snowcation.” But many telecommuters are expected to work today, according to OPM — even though…
The Office of Personnel Management announced the federal government will once again be closed tomorrow in Washington. This will be the second snow day in a row, and the third this winter. This screenshot at data.gov announcing the closure is apparently all that is left of OPM’s decimated Web site. The National Weather Service is forecasting more snow — anywhere from 10 to 20 inches — beginning Tuesday afternoon. That forecast, combined with the still-lousy conditions on many roads in the Washington area, led OPM Director John Berry to close the government. OPM hasn’t yet made any decisions on Wednesday.…