Hello everyone. What follows below is a letter to the editor discussing federal firefighter pay and retirement. Under the current system, federal firefighters work 53 hours a week to earn the same as other federal workers in the grade scale system. In addition, firefighters work an additional 38 hours of overtime a pay period, which does not count toward retirement and with only a fraction more pay. The letter below spells out the reader’s concerns in full, and feel free to add your thoughts, opinions or comments below. Dear Federal Times, I am a retired federal firefighter, and have been…
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Hello everyone! I just wanted to share with you the TSP returns for June, with their year to date and their 12 month views as well. As you can see, things are in the black again, but some funds are growing much faster than others. G Fund F Fund C Fund S Fund I Fund Month 0.19% 0.14% 2.07% 4.45% 0.99% YTD 1.17% 4.37% 7.18% 6.21% 5.06% 12 Month 2.30% 5.00% 24.71% 26.95% 23.97% L Income L 2020 L 2030 L 2040 L 2050 Month 0.58% 1.19% 1.52% 1.77% 1.96% YTD 2.46% 4.14% 4.91% 5.43% 5.89% 12 Month 6.74% 13.99%…
The House Budget Committee’s report on Rep. Paul Ryan’s fiscal 2014 budget fills in a few more details on how it would affect federal employees. The budget, which the House passed March 21, would get rid of the Federal Employees Retirement System supplemental payment beginning in January 2014. That supplement is paid to FERS employees who retire before age 62, to replace the Social Security payment for which they are not yet eligible. The bill also would eliminate student loan repayments for federal employees. And its 10 percent federal workforce cut would be achieved by allowing agencies to only hire…
With federal retirements continuing to spike, it’s clear that the long-predicted retirement wave is here. Retirements in 2011 were up 24 percent over 2010 levels. And so far this year, retirements are up another 8 percent. Federal managers, we’d like to hear about what the retirement wave means for you. Are you seeing one valued employee after another walk out the door? If so, how are you dealing with the loss of their years of experience? Are you getting ready for more retirements in the near future? If so, how are you preparing for that? E-mail me at slosey@federaltimes.com to…
The Office of Personnel Management has cut its backlog of unprocessed pension claims by 21 percent in the five months since it unveiled a new strategy to fix the longstanding problem. According to statistics posted online today, OPM cut the backlog by 1,150 cases in June, bringing the backlog down to 48,323 unprocessed claims. In January, when OPM announced its plan to fix its problematic pension process, the inventory was 61,108. But even though OPM has made progress so far in 2012, the size of the backlog is still far greater than it was in October 2010, when OPM Director…
The Office of Personnel Management saw a hiccup in its pension processing efforts in April, when the number of claims processed dropped to 8,028. That was slightly below the 8,300 claims it expected to process that month, and noticeably below the 12,386 claims it processed in March. But May brought slightly better news for OPM. According to monthly stats released today, the number of claims processed in May jumped back up to 9,066 — about 500 more than OPM anticipated it would process last month. This helped bring the size of the backlog down to 49,473 — about 5,100 fewer…
For several months, we’ve been tracking a disturbing increase in federal retirements — one which both complicated the Office of Personnel Management’s efforts to fix the pension process and suggests many feds have had it with the proposed pay and benefit cuts. But OPM’s latest stats show a surprising drop in the number of feds retiring. OPM said it received 6,616 retirement claims in April. That’s 17 percent less than the 8,000 it expected to receive last month, and 15 percent less than the 7,773 feds who retired in April 2011. Up until this point, retirement claims for the first…
The latest pension processing stats from the Office of Personnel Management contained an interesting nugget on retirement trends. Namely, that they’re continuing to rise in 2012, after shooting up 24 percent in 2011. It’s not hard to figure out why. Agencies are offering federal employees buyouts and early outs left and right to deal with limited budgets. And with Congress constantly threatening to further freeze feds’ pay, increase their retirement contributions, or switch to a high-5, many feds are beating a path to the door. Federal Times would like to hear from you about the still-increasing retirement trend, and how…
Federal Times would like to talk to people who invested in Wayne McLeod’s bond fund, which the Securities and Exchange Commission said ended up being a long-running Ponzi scheme that targeted federal and state employees. E-mail me at slosey@federaltimes.com. If you’d like to remain anonymous, that’s fine.
The Office of Personnel Management has buried the hatchet with Hewitt Associates over a faulty retirement calculator, according to a statement Hewitt released earlier today: The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and Hewitt have settled their dispute related to the implementation of the RetireEZ program. OPM has rescinded its October 16, 2008 termination of the contract for default and the contract has now been terminated by mutual agreement. We’re happy this matter has been resolved and we believe both parties are pleased with the outcome. We look forward to continuing to deliver outsourced retirement solutions for our current and future…