USPS to Overhaul Retirements – Plus the 7 Gov Stories

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• The government workforce is living in the time of World War II. The current general schedule classification and pay system was designed when Harry Truman was president. We talked with Jeff Neal to get some insights on what to do going forward.

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The SEVEN stories that impact your life

1. Washington Post: House votes to hold ex-IRS official Lois Lerner in contempt of Congress – “The House voted Wednesday to hold former Internal Revenue Service official Lois G. Lerner in contempt of Congress and request a special prosecutor to investigate the agency’s targeting of advocacy groups during the past two election cycles. Lerner, who headed an IRS division that processed applications for tax-exempt status,invoked her Fifth Amendment right during two hearings, frustrating Republicans and Democrats who want answers.”

2. Federal Computer Week: Senate appropriators signal support for IT reform – “The botched launch of HealthCare.gov last October continues to drive conversation about federal IT reform, with an eye to making the buck stop with agency CIOs. Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M), chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that funds the federal CIO’s office, is continuing to fine-tune legislation to ‘empower federal agency CIOs to drive more effective IT investments,’ he said at a May 7 Senate hearing.”

3. GovExec: How the Postal Service Could Overhaul its Retirement and Leave Benefits – “The U.S. Postal Service spent $6 billion on retirement benefits in fiscal 2013, and the agency thought that was too much. USPS asked its inspector general’s office to evaluate its retirement packages against the benefits offered at other organizations. Current law mandates the Postal Service offer employees enrollment in the Federal Employees Retirement System, unless they were grandfathered into the Civil Service Retirement System.”

4. GovExec: Phased Retirement is in Regulation Limbo – “It’s been almost two years since a law allowing phased retirement for federal employees has been on the books. But the program is still in limbo because the Obama administration has yet to issue final regulations on its implementation.”

5. Washington Post: Report urges new law against gay bias in federal workforce – “Workplace discrimination against federal employees based on sexual orientation has been against government’s policy since 1980, but the policy has not been interpreted uniformly, says a Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) report.”

6. National Journal: Conga Line of Problems” Awaits Burwell at HHS – “There’s already a mountain of problems waiting for Sylvia Mathews Burwell at HHS. And that mountain will probably grow even bigger by the time she’s confirmed. Burwell’s confirmation process begins Thursday with a hearing in the Senate Health Committee, followed sometime soon by a Finance Committee hearing. She’ll likely be confirmed. Democrats have enough votes on their own, and she’s already drawing some bipartisan support. And if she is confirmed, she’ll then have to actually take over a sprawling, poorly managed department responsible for the president’s top domestic priority—not to mention the country’s most expensive entitlement programs, its food and drug regulations, and its most important medical research.”

7. Federal News Radio: Background investigation fraud case against USIS moved to DC court – “The false claims case against embattled background-check firm USIS is inching forward. On April 25, a district court judge approved the transfer of the case from the middle district of Alabama — where a former USIS employee filed a whistleblower suit in 2011 accusing the company of cutting corners in its reviews of background investigations supplied to the government — to Washington, D.C. Both the Office of Personnel Management, which oversees the background-investigation process and is a victim of the alleged fraud, and the Falls Church, Virginia-based company are headquartered in the area”

DorobekINSIDER water-cooler fodder… yes, we’re trying to help you make your water-cooler time better too…

• The Federal Government as an Employer – Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty? While it is probably not a model employer, for a lot of reasons the US government is a very good employer. Here are a few reasons why I believe that is true