Pay & Benefits

  • Uncle Sam's five-month buyout season is about to end. So if you were thinking about leaving with a $25,000 check, grab it while you can, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says.

    March 16, 2012
  • Senate amendment allows retiring federal employees to return to work on a part-time basis. Ron Sanders, senior executive adviser at Booz Allen Hamilton, says this provision allows retirees to pass along their institutional knowledge while continuing their civil service.

    March 15, 2012
  • When it comes time for your performance rating, do you ever feel like the honest, hard-working kid in the boxing movie who gets a shot at the title, only to be told that he must take a dive, or else? Senior Correspondent Mike Causey wants to know: Are your agency performance ratings rigged?

    March 15, 2012
  • Host Mike Causey will talk career mobility with Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executives Service. Federal Times Senior Writers Stephen Losey and Sean Reilly will talk about how pending legislation in Congress will affect your pay and benefits. March 14, 2012

    March 14, 2012
  • The Senate voted Wednesday to overhaul transportation programs and keep aid flowing to thousands of construction projects while strengthening highway. The $109 billion measure, approved in a 74-22 vote, included a number of amendments affecting federal pay and benefits, including a provision to allows \"phased retirements\" for federal employees and an expansion of an expired mass-transit subsidy.

    March 14, 2012
  • Ever seen the sign that reads: If Mama Ain\'t Happy, Ain\'t Nobody Happy? The bottom line, according to the book with the same title, is if the boss isn\'t pleased, everybody suffers, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says. So how\'s that working out in your office?

    March 14, 2012
  • The Senate has defeated an amendment to a transportation bill that would have extended the federal pay freeze through 2013. In a 57-41 vote, lawmakers rejected the amendment, introduced last week by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.). The measure needed 60 votes to pass. Federal unions applauded the news.

    March 13, 2012
  • Is your top management dead in the water? Are your SES bosses living in silos and afraid to even look outside the boss? Senior Correspondent Mike Causey wants to know: Is shuffling the SES deck a good idea?

    March 13, 2012
  • OPM met just more than half of its two dozen performance measures for 2011, according to an annual performance report released in February. However, among the agency\'s \"high-priority\" goals, such as telework and hiring reform, the report cites \"great strides.\" While goals on retirement processing showed mixed progress, OPM\'s director of planning and policy analysis Jonathan Foley said the agency is \"on track\" to reduce the processing time to 60 days by July 2013.

    March 12, 2012
  • Security checks at federal and military bases are a fact of life. But when it\'s a 100 percent effort, lots of people spend lots of time doing it, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says. Many feds work a lot of voluntary overtime but how much is too much?

    March 12, 2012
  • FLEO President Jon Adler and Tony Vergnetti, president of Federal Employee Defense Services, will talk about legislation affecting federal law enforcement officers. March 9, 2012

    March 09, 2012
  • State and local governments are either pulling back on pensions, or stopping them completely — and private sector employers have pretty much eliminated them. This could be a bad omen for federal benefits, some experts say, because changes to the federal workforce often follow provisions that have been put in place by the states or private companies. Tammy Flanagan, senior benefits director at the National Institute of Transition Planning, joined In Depth with Francis Rose to discuss the pattern.

    March 09, 2012
  • Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) introduced an amendment to the Surface Transportation Bill that offers part-time employment to retiring feds. The Senate passed the amendment Thursday.

    March 09, 2012
  • March 15 is the last day federal employees can use money they set aside in their healthcare flexible spending account in November 2010.

    March 09, 2012