The effort to expand domestic benefits to the same-sex partners of federal employees took another step forward Wednesday when a House committee advanced legislation to do just that. After sometimes heated debate, the 23 to 12 vote in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee broke down along party lines, with the victorious Democrats arguing that the measure is a matter of ...

In greater detail than he has before, Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry outlined his thinking on remaking the federal personnel system during a speech this week. His address to a Human Capital Management: Federal conference was part of a series of discussions he is holding to help in the monumental task of developing a new civil service system. With ...

The U.S. Postal Service posted a $3.8 billion net loss during the fiscal year that ended in September, despite $6 billion in cost-cutting moves. Total mail volume fell more steeply than ever -- by 25.6 billion pieces, or almost 13 percent, more than double any decline in postal history. Worse, the Postal Service expects that 2010 mail volume will drop by ...

During these highly partisan and contentious times, it's not every day that Democrats and Republicans, labor and management, and workers and retirees find themselves on the same side of an issue. But that was generally the situation Tuesday when the Thrift Savings Plan for federal workers was mostly praised during a House subcommittee hearing. The TSP operates like a 401(k) retirement ...

President Obama has banned federal employees from text messaging when they are behind the wheel of government vehicles and from texting in their own cars if they use government-issued phones or are on official business. The ban, in the form of an executive order signed Wednesday night, was announced Thursday by U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood at the culmination of a ...

The Senate cleared for President Obama's signature on Sunday a $447 billion omnibus spending bill that contains thousands of earmarks and double-digit increases for several Cabinet agencies, the latest target for Republicans seeking to make growing federal deficits a focal point of the 2010 elections. The House may vote this week to raise the federal debt ceiling by at least $1.8 ...

The 40 people who met behind closed doors in the Ronald Reagan Building on Wednesday weren't in a position to make any decisions about fixing the federal government's recruitment and hiring process, but their discussion could have a lasting impact on federal policy. The Harvard Kennedy School, along with the University of Maryland and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), organized ...

Who better to save taxpayers money than the federal employees who know how it's spent? This is the guiding principle of a White House contest being launched Wednesday to seek the best ideas on how to reduce government spending. Confronted with a staggering federal deficit, the White House is inviting employees across the federal sector to submit suggestions on how to ...

Want to help the federal government save some money? Make sure to vote Thursday in a contest designed to help Uncle Sam cut costs. The winner gets a face-to-face meeting with President Obama before Christmas, and the winning idea will be included in his 2011 budget. The Office of Management and Budget launched the SAVE Award in September, an effort to ...

Diane Sawyer will succeed her friend and former partner Charlie Gibson as the anchor of ABC's "World News" in January, making her the second woman to assume the prestigious chair at a network newscast. The move, announced Wednesday by ABC, will leave a sizable void at "Good Morning America," where Sawyer's star power will be hard to replace. Gibson, who left ...

When it comes to an agency's reputation among federal employees, the Transportation Security Administration has long been a bottom feeder. Morale is low, attrition is high and it has no leader. And if that were not enough, the agency now has some really unhappy transportation security officers at Dulles International Airport who say they are being marked AWOL, absent without leave, ...

The next time you hear someone bad-mouthing federal workers as bureaucrats who sit around bemoaning this and that, tell him or her to ask Doug White about Lisa Grimm and Brian Norton. Grimm, Norton and other air-traffic controllers guided White to safety on April 12, 2009, when the pilot of his plane died during a flight. Grimm, based at the Federal ...

A congressional hearing on the future of the U.S. Postal Service can be one depressing experience. The sky outside the Rayburn House Office Building was bright Thursday morning, but it was all gloom and doom in Room 2154. Members of a Committee on Oversight and Government Reform panel explored novel ways the Postal Service might pull itself from deep debt -- ...

The Obama administration will propose that the federal government take over safety regulation of the nation's subway and light-rail systems, responding to what it says is haphazard and ineffective oversight by state agencies. Under the proposal, the U.S. Department of Transportation would do for transit what it does for airlines and Amtrak: set and enforce federal regulations to ensure that millions ...

Lawyers, lobbyists, librarians and concerned citizens, rejoice: As of Monday, it is much easier to access the Federal Register. The de facto daily newspaper of the executive branch publishes approximately 80,000 pages of documents each year, including presidential disaster declarations, Medicare reimbursement rates, and thousands of agency rulings on policies ranging from banking to fishing to food. It's a must-read for ...

President Obama gave federal employee unions an early holiday present on Wednesday. But like a Santa Claus who can't grant all the items on a wish list, Obama didn't provide everything labor leaders wanted. Obama met a long-sought union goal when he issued an executive order creating labor-management forums within the government. The order creates a National Council on Federal Labor-Management ...

Stand on a busy corner in the District, and you'll notice that cellphones appear glued to the ears of dozens of passing drivers who openly flout the city's ban on hand-held phone use. That appearance is deceiving, according to a new study, which concludes that use of hand-helds would be 43 percent higher were it not for the District's ban and ...

Seven months after President Obama vowed to "personally select" an adviser to orchestrate the government's strategy for protecting computer systems, the White House will name a former Bush administration official to the job Tuesday. Howard A. Schmidt, who was a cyber-adviser in President George W. Bush's White House, will be Obama's new cybersecurity coordinator, an administration official said Monday night. Schmidt ...

Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry sees great advantages to having federal workers stay home. That wouldn't mean taking the day off, however. Berry is an advocate of teleworking and is asking federal managers and employees to help sell the idea to skeptical managers and lawmakers. Berry was making his pitch Thursday, the same day that Washington area commuters experienced ...

Federal government employees can expect a big jump in their health-care costs in 2010, officials said Tuesday. Employees enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program will pay an average 8.8 percent more in health-care costs, according to figures released by the Office of Personnel Management. The increase averages $5.98 per paycheck for individual health-care coverage, and a $12.87 increase for ...