After wrapping up their national conventions in August, leaders of some of the largest federal employee unions prepared to aggressively pursue a broad set of legislative priorities when Congress returns on Tuesday. They also said their members are looking for clarity about what kind of reforms to the pay and personnel systems the Obama administration might pursue. One of the first ...

WASHINGTON - There will be no cost-of-living increase for more than 50 million Social Security recipients next year, the first year without a raise since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975. Blame falling consumer prices. By law, cost-of-living adjustments are pegged to inflation, which is negative this year because of lower energy costs. Social Security payments, however, do not go down ...

The rules governing federal employee compensation are complicated enough when they're reported accurately. Mischaracterizations in the general media only muddy the waters further in discussions over how civil servants' salaries are set and how they stack up against private sector pay. If the Obama administration wants to start an informed debate outside the Beltway over federal compensation, it must correct repeated ...

The people who protect airline passengers by stopping guns, knives and hijackers from getting on planes moved a step closer to securing the civil service protections they have long been denied with legislation approved Thursday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The Transportation Workforce Enhancement Act, approved on a 19-to-10 party-line vote, would allow some 60,000 Transportation Security ...

The House on Thursday took a major step toward wrapping up the fiscal 2010 appropriations process when it approved, 221-202, a nearly $450 billion spending package that includes a 2.0 percent pay raise for civilian federal employees. Rejecting President Obama's recommendation to freeze locality pay at 2009 rates, the House allocated 1.5 percent of the 2.0 percent raise to base pay ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrats are muscling through a deficit-swelling spending bill, giving domestic programs their third major boost this year and awarding lawmakers with more than 5,000 home-state projects. The House voted 221-202 Thursday to pass the 1,088-page, $1.1 trillion measure _ combining $447 billion in operating budgets with about $650 billion in payments for federal benefit programs such as Medicare ...

The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data. Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession's first 18 months — and that's before overtime pay and bonuses are counted. Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary ...

The U.S. Postal Service must look for new ways to generate revenue beyond simply reducing its workforce, said lawmakers and witnesses during a House hearing on Thursday. Employee layoffs are not the only solution to digging the agency out of debt, said Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform's federal workforce subcommittee. "It would be a ...

Applying for a job with the federal government can be a miserable experience. Announcements of vacancies are often written in arcane, incomprehensible jargon; applications can stretch for dozens of pages; one branch of an agency might not have any idea of the hiring needs of a second branch. This is not the opinion of jilted job-seekers. Instead, it was the frank ...

Most people who have earned a paycheck probably have discovered that the federal income tax withholding formula can be complicated. But changes to withholding stemming from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are causing even more head-scratching than usual this year, both inside and outside the federal workforce. "When the tables first came out, there was a flurry of questions," ...

There are a lot of questions about pay & benefits that have been cropping up lately, and Senior Correspondent Mike Causey spoke with three experts to get the answers for you. His guests on this week's show were: Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executive Association; Jessica Klement of the Federal Managers Association; and Dan Adcock, legislative director of the National ...

The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program typically includes an array of health insurance options. But this year the choices are more limited than before because 32 health insurance plans are leaving FEHBP or reducing their coverage across the country. "It's kind of a disturbing trend," said Dave Snell, retirement benefits service department director for the National Active and Retired Federal Employees ...

Some federal employees will have to choose new health plans during open season this year because their insurance providers are leaving the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, or reducing the number of areas they cover. "Some employees still might not receive instructions to change plans during open season," Kathleen M. McGettigan, deputy associate director of the Center for Retirement and Insurance ...

Since he arrived at the Office of Personnel Management in April, Director John Berry has been an active advocate for federal charitable giving. The summer-long Feds Feed Families canned food drive collected more than 1 million pounds of goods for food banks nationwide, and Berry is confident that federal employees of all ages also will deliver for the 2009 Combined Federal ...

Fed-watchers will be checking President Obama's budget or State of the Union address for clues of a possible link between the size of the next pay raise and soon-to-be-proposed major overhaul of the federal civil service system. Well-plugged in folks, like Politicio, are reporting that after a year of massive spending (to both save the economy and pump a little pork ...

Current and former federal employees angered by premium increases in the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program will get their day before Congress on Wednesday, when senators hope to get answers about why the impending price jump is warranted and what the government did to inform participants. Most federal and postal employees are eligible for the program, which is run by ...

A new analysis claiming federal employees earn twice as much as their private sector counterparts is fueling the debate over pay disparities, but a comprehensive study on the issue still could be a while in coming. The analysis, conducted by USA Today, found that federal employees earned an average of $123,049 in pay and benefits in 2009 while private sector workers ...

Remember when President Obama said he wanted to make working for the federal government cool again? The government's chief human resources officer told lawmakers Thursday that they need to approve a bill that extends full benefits to the same-sex domestic partners of gay or lesbian federal employees in order to ensure the government's coolness factor. “Young people are looking at this ...

A coalition of 36 labor unions have rejected a Senate provision to repeal the Pentagon's National Security Personnel System, claiming that it wouldn't do enough to ensure that employees are paid fairly. The language, included in the Senate's 2010 Defense authorization bill (S. 1390), would eliminate the NSPS within a year. But it also would give the Defense Department the opportunity ...

Congressional negotiators sealed agreement Tuesday night on sweeping spending legislation that would fund agencies into the new year. The $1.1 trillion dollar spending bill includes a 2.0 percent federal employee pay adjustment, including a 1.5 percent nationwide increase in base pay and a 0.5 percent average increase in locality pay. It would combine six of 12 appropriations measures for fiscal 2010. ...