Looking forward to a pay raise?

Would you like to be reimbursed for what is now use-it-or-lose-it sick leave?

If the answer is yes to either or both, the news is good. Congress is on a roll. Up to a point!

First, the good news:

1. Congress is moving right along to nail down a 3.9 percent white collar pay raise effective next January. That raise will be subject to locality pay calculations which could boost it considerably for feds in many cities where private sector pay is high. (Example: The January, 2008 national pay adjustment for feds was 2.5 percent. But when locality pay was factored in, workers in Washington-Baltimore, for example, got a total increase of 4.49 percent. In San Francisco-San Jose-Oakland the total raise was 4.23 percent. In Cincinnati the 2.5 percent raise translated to a 2.84 percent total increase. Many feds in other cities got more than the 3.9 percent base raise.)

   To see how the 2008 locality payout impacted your city (in a pdf format), click here.

2. The House this week passed a bill that would compensate (in the form of a higher annuity) FERS employees for unused sick leave. Most current feds are under FERS. CSRS employees can, and do, credit their unused leave toward retirement. In some cases that can boost the starting pension by thousands of dollars a year. But for FERS sick-leave is a use-it-or-lose-it deal!

   That would change under the House bill, introduced by Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), Jim Moran (D-Va.) and Steny Hoyer (D-Md). The bill is a rider to legislation to regulate tobacco products. Moran said that 85 percent of CSRS employees say they save their sick leave whereas 75 percent of FERS employees say, at the close of their careers, they often get what we’ve dubbed the FERS Flu. That is they get sick a lot.

If you want to check it out for yourself the bill numbers are H.R. 5573 and H.R. 1108. Under the plan 75 percent of the value sick leave earned and not used over the next 3 years would by applied to a future retirees’ high-3. After that, future FERS retirees could apply 100 percent of their unused sick leave toward service time for pension calculation purposes. The bill now goes to the Senate, and that is the rub…

Most Senators, like most House members, have fled D.C. A lucky few (who aren’t up for reelection or who are in “safe” districts may be looking out for their constituents interests by visiting Hawaii, Paris or Hong Kong. But most will either be out hustling votes for their November races or helping out Sen. Obama or Sen. McCain.

The problem is the congressional calendar. Man, do those folks get a lot of annual leave. When Congress goes into recess it doesn’t call it a recess. The technical term is “State Work Period” as in they are in their home states working for you. Period.

In addition to taking extra off for all the national holidays (like 8 days for the Memorial Day holiday), they also took off from late June to July 6, and they are about to take off again, until September 7. That will give them time to attend the Democratic convention (Aug. 25-28) and the Republican convention (Sept. 1-4).

The TAD is TBD. Translation: The Target Adjournment Date is yet To Be Determined. That’s the way we talk in this town.

Bottom line: You can count. And you can see that while the pay raise is looking pretty certain, other things, like the FERS sick leave credit, action on the Social Security windfall and offset provisions and just about everything else is likely to be a victim of the calendar.

To check out the Congressional schedule, click here.

Disincentive To Telework

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) has asked the Department of Veterans Affairs to explain its teleworking policy. Wolf is the number one congressional booster of telework programs.

In a July 30 letter Wolf sent to VA Secretary James Peake, Wolf said some of his constituents (VA attorneys) claim they are being required “to complete an additional ’14’ credits (approximately 140 hours) of work {more} than non-flexiplace.” Wolf, who has cut the budgets of some agencies over the issue of telework, asked VA to respond ASAP with a copy of their telework policy.

Click here to read the letter.

VA is planning a prompt response.

Nearly Useless Factoid

Welcome to August. It’s National Win with Civility month, “stressing the benefits of being civil and courteous to each other in all aspects of life.”

To reach me: mcausey@federalnewsradio.com

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