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 ...

"When the Senior Executive Service began 30 years ago, all the assistant secretaries for administration in the government," said Carol Bonosaro, "were career executives. Over time, you will now find only two who are career executives and that's because of statute." Which is a real shame, according to the president of the Senior Executives Association. Bonosaro told the Federal Drive that ...

Dismantling the embattled Defense personnel system could spark a reinvention of performance management across government. When President Obama signed legislation that repealed the National Security Personnel System, on a warm day in late October, the Rose Garden celebration seemed like a bit of a letdown. The rollback of the controversial Defense Department pay program was just one of many federal employee ...

Federal employee groups on Monday questioned the accuracy of a recent news report that claimed from 2007 to 2009 the number of government workers earning more than $100,000 per year spiked. Based on an analysis of federal data, a Dec. 10 USA Today story, said the number of federal workers earning more than $100,000 per year rose from 14 percent in ...

The Senate on Sunday passed a catchall spending bill that includes a 2 percent pay raise for civilian federal employees in 2010. That figure is in keeping with President Obama's request, but contrary to his Nov. 30 proposal to freeze locality pay, a portion of the raise would vary depending on costs of labor where employees are based. Lawmakers granted civilians ...

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 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 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 ...

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 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 ...

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. ...

Federal employees saved more money between March and September than the general population, according to a new survey from a financial firm. On average, fed workers contributed $2,289 per month to their savings -- either through short-term, long-term or retirement savings accounts -- during the six-month period studied by First Command Financial Services, a firm that serves military and public sector ...

Between November and January, federal employees tend to think more about how they will use their leave than how they accrue it. But as personnel officials weigh hiring reforms, and existing flexibilities for enticing promising applicants to federal service, one leave policy raises concerns about how managers should be negotiating more strategically with new hires and how accrual rates vary across ...

President Obama plans to freeze locality pay rates at 2009 levels for civilian federal employees in 2010, a move that has prompted protests from government employee groups. In a letter sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Vice President Joe Biden on Monday, Obama said federal employees nationwide would receive a 2 percent increase in their base pay in 2010, ...

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 ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal employees whose regional costs of living entitles them to higher compensation will see no increase in their "locality pay" percentages next year, President Barack Obama informed Congress on Monday. Workers who receive pay over and above the base federal rates _ because of higher living costs and greater private-sector pay in their regions _ would have been ...

When President Obama signed legislation that repealed the National Security Personnel System, on a warm day in late October, the Rose Garden celebration seemed like a bit of a letdown. The rollback of the controversial Defense Department pay program was just one of many federal employee provisions bundled into the fiscal 2010 National Defense Authorization Act and was largely overshadowed by ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...