The number of federal employees filing for retirement in January swelled to more than 17,000, according to new data from the Office of Personnel Management. But that's actually about 2,600 fewer than expected. In fact, this past month marked the first time in at least two years that the number of federal workers filing for retirement in January fell below 20,000 claims.
Fueled by budget cuts and pay freezes, federal employee satisfaction and engagement across the government plunged last year, according to the Office of Personnel Management's annual Employee Viewpoint Survey. Now, OPM says it's here to help agencies turn around those sagging satisfaction scores.
OPM Director Katherine Archuleta called Justice's case an "egregious violation of the public trust." OPM has taken steps to reform and improve the oversight of the security clearance system to prevent future "dumping" of cases.
What's the worst job in Washington? Some would say it is being director of the Office of Personnel Management in winter, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says. And we found out why last week.
The Justice Department has accused the company that performed background investigations of both National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden and Navy Yard shooter Aaron Alexis of defrauding the government, making false statements and breach of contract. DoJ's civil complaint filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Alabama alleges the company, which is the government's largest contractor for background-investigation services, submitted at least 665,000 background investigations to the Office of Personnel Management that hadn't been properly reviewed.
The Office of Personnel Management said it's abolishing 300 positions nationwide, about 25 percent of which are full-time workers. OPM said the budget environment where fewer agencies are hiring and training employees is causing the need to reduce staff.
Facebook users were quick to criticize the Office of Personnel Management's decision to operate federal agencies on a two-hour delay Wednesday.
Due to wintry weather conditions in the D.C. region, federal agencies will be open Wednesday, Jan. 22, under a two-hour delayed arrival. Employees also have the option for unscheduled leave or telework. The Office of Personnel Management says employees should plan to arrive for work no more than two hours later than they would normally be expected to arrive.
Federal offices in D.C. closed today. Emergency and telework-ready employees must follow agency policies.
Katherine Archuleta has spent her first few months as director at the Office of Personnel Management learning, listening and asking questions to figure out how to ensure continuous improvement. Archuleta said she expects a new plan to improve the agency's technology by the end of February.
The House gave a boost to the Office of Personnel Management inspector general's office Tuesday, voting to provide the agency's auditors with access to new funding to conduct investigations. In a unanimous vote, the House approved the bipartisan OPM IG Act, introduced by Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas) and co-sponsored by Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass). The Senate approved a nearly identical measure, introduced by Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), in October.
Want to lose weight, pack on muscle and become more tech savvy? Uncle Sam has this magic plan in the works, Senior Correspondent Mike Causey says. When approved, it will benefit young and old alike.
Federal-employee unions say they're having more of a voice in the agency decisionmaking process, thanks to a four-year-old directive from President Barack Obama calling for greater collaboration between labor groups and agency leadership. Despite a slow start last year, the creation of partnerships between federal-employee unions and agency leadership — known as labor-management forums — ramped up throughout the course of 2013, according to Bill Dougan, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees.
The exodus of employees from the federal workforce was a big story this past year: More federal employees retired in 2013 than the year before, providing grist for the mill for predictions of a coming federal retirement wave. Meanwhile, the Office of Personnel Management's efforts to clear a longstanding backlog of new retirement applications faced hurdles because of the steep sequestration budget cuts that hit government. Federal News Radio parsed through the data over the past year. In the series of charts and graphs below, track the latest trends.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) has filed a lawsuit against Katherine Archuleta, the head of the Office of Personnel Management, seeking to overturn an OPM regulation that allows lawmakers and their staffs to continue receiving government contribution toward their health insurance premiums. Under the 2010 Affordable Care Act, lawmakers and their staffs were booted from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), under which the government typically kicks in about three-fourths of the cost of federal employees' premiums, and required to purchase health insurance on the federal exchange.