Throughout the week, Federal News Radio has been covering the debate over federal employee pay. From an analysis in USA Today on Monday, to a rebuttal from the Bureau of Labor Statistics last Thursday, there is a lot of anger on both sides of the issue. Last Friday, The Washington Times printed an editorial, The Federal Bonus Bonanza. John Berry, director ...

Imagine working for an outfit with a 3-step rank-in-person system instead of 15 grades. A system where outstanding employees could be rewarded, big time, and losers could be punished financially (maybe losing annual leave) and, if necessary fired quickly without red tape and endless appeals. Imagine that if the boss proposed to fire you, you could demand a trial, complete with ...

"It's a done deal," says Senior Correspondent Mike Causey when he joined the Federal Drive. It is a trifecta win for all federal employees because NSPS is going to be phased out, the FERS Flu is going to be cured, and retired federal employees are going to be allowed to return to work without harming their annuities. The Defense Authorization Bill ...

A new rule giving agencies authority to hire acquisition employees directly could aid the Obama administration's efforts to bring contract jobs back in-house, and could inform the conversation about hiring reform, according to federal workforce advocates. In a Federal Register notice published on Tuesday, the Office of Personnel Management finalized a regulation extending direct hire authority for procurement jobs. The rule ...

President Obama will win no fans among federal workers with his action to limit their pay increase next year to 2 percent. That's a long way from the 18.9 percent average raise Obama said many government workers would have received using a complicated statutory formula designed to make federal pay more comparable to private-sector compensation. "Our country continues to face serious ...

President Obama's executive order expanding job opportunities for veterans in federal agencies made headlines last week. He also marked Veterans Day by signing into law a bill that makes it easier for the families of service members to navigate the complicated landscape of rules governing their benefits during reassignments. The 2009 Military Spouses Residency Relief Act (S. 475) allows the husbands ...

Pay increases will be the same in 2010 for almost all Defense Department employees, regardless of whether they are covered by the controversial pay-for-performance or General Schedule system, the Pentagon has decided. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates's conclusion provides yet another measure of the troubled state of pay-for-performance, the National Security Personnel System, which was created by the Bush administration to ...

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 ...

Citing the ongoing economic crisis and a ballooning federal budget, President Obama announced he would use his authority to set a 2 percent pay raise for federal employees starting in January 2010. The proposal angered employee groups and lawmakers who have pushed for pay parity between civilians and members of the military, who are slated to receive a 3.4 percent raise ...

In a State of the Union address that ranged from job creation to education reform, President Obama also called for restoring trust in government, streamlining the federal budget, and extending debt forgiveness to students who spend 10 years in public service careers. Saying "no one should go broke because they choose to go to college," Obama proposed a program that would ...

In early May, President Obama released a long-anticipated hiring reform memorandum, replacing a requirement that federal job applicants respond to essay questions with a resume-based approach more in line with private sector practices. The memo also outlined new responsibilities for managers and supervisors, requiring them to get more involved in the hiring process. The job of making sure the hiring reform ...

President Obama signed into law on Monday a 3.4 percent pay raise for service members in 2010, while federal employee unions said they would push for parity between civilian and military pay in 2011. The military pay raise, included in the fiscal 2010 Defense Appropriations Act (H.R. 3326), was 0.5 percent higher than the 2.9 percent raise Obama requested in his ...

With logic only a lawyer -- and perhaps only a government lawyer -- could love, the Obama administration is refusing to obey a federal judge's order that agrees with a position the administration supports. Last month, Alex Kozinski, chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, ordered the Office of Personnel Management to allow health insurance companies ...

Late Monday, the Senate voted on and unanimously passed telework legislation which had been held up for more than a year. The 2010 Telework Enhancement Act (S. 707), sponsored by Sens. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and George Voinovich, R-Ohio, is designed to expand telecommuting opportunities in the federal government by making employees presumptively eligible and requiring agencies to take a number of ...

WASHINGTON - At a time when the White House is projecting the largest deficit in the nation's history, Uncle Sam is trying to recover billions of dollars in unpaid taxes from its own employees. Federal workers owe more than $3 billion in income taxes they failed to pay in 2008. According to Internal Revenue Service documents, 276,300 federal employees and retirees ...

The Department of Veterans Affairs' problems with the Post-9/11 GI Bill's benefits seem to linger, no matter what the government does. Tens of thousands of veterans, active-duty servicemembers and their dependents have been waiting for promised higher-education benefits from VA since fall classes began last month. The agency attempted to address the backlog by granting $3,000 in emergency checks, but that ...

When we think of Uncle Sam's men and women overseas, our thoughts understandably go toward the troops in uniform who risk their lives in the name of the United States. But there are many other federal employees, with no uniforms or weapons, who also subject themselves to daily war zone dangers. The civilians, however, face an inconsistent set of compensation, benefits ...

Federal employees and their unions should remember Oct. 7, 2009: It's the day they got to cross several items off their wish list. The conference committee working on a compromise version of the Defense authorization bill (pdf) delivered several long-sought reforms impacting current and former federal employees, their salaries and the way the government measures their performance. The big one: a ...

When it comes to providing employee benefits, Uncle Sam strives to be a model employer. But there's rust on his halo. Take a look at thousands of Forest Service workers who get no health and retirement benefits, despite years of service to the federal government. They are temporary employees. It's not uncommon for temps to go without benefits, but these folks ...

The health insurance program that covers President Obama and members of Congress has been touted during the current debate as a model for overhauling the nation's health-care system. But one overlooked aspect of the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program is that many federal workers go without health insurance for themselves or members of their families. Meet Lorene Salazar, the mother of ...