By the same token if someone from a nature fund or a save-the-kittens group asks for a donation, check them out BEFORE you send a check.

When a company advertises it can reduce your tax bill by tens of thousands of dollars put a cold cloth on your head and lie down until the urge to respond is gone.

All of the above, plus some things you wouldn’t dream up, are part of the IRS’s Dirty Dozen list. It’s part of the agency’s effort to protect taxpayers, tax preparers and corporations from scams ranging from the incredibly stupid to brilliant. All designed to take you for all they can get. Even if it’s all you got!

And if you think some of the long-distance scams you see on the Dr. Phil show: She (or he) wires money to soulmate they’ve never met so they can pay kidnapper’s ransom, get their mother a new body part, or repay a small debt to free millions of dollars from frozen account. The fact is it happens every day. Sometimes to otherwise savvy people. Like you, maybe?

So what are the scams and schemes on the Dirty Dozen list? Could you spot them? Or have you ever been had?

To talk about the ploys used to trick people we’ll be talking to tax attorney Tom O’Rourke. He’s a former IRS attorney, and he’s my guest today on our Your Turn radio show: 10 a.m. EDT on www.federalnewsnetwork.com or in the D.C.-Baltimore area on 1500 AM.

Most of us think we are too smart to be conned. But even geniuses have fallen for a ploy. Full disclosure: For three consecutive years on my first job I joined a bottle club. All I had to do was buy three semi-expensive Bourbons. Pass them on to the bottle club chain and wait while dozens, potentially hundreds of bottles, arrived at my apartment door. It cost me nearly a week’s pay, but the payoff was worth it. Almost. The thing is I’m still waiting for the happy clinking sound of a mass delivery! And I’m beginning to think I was had. Maybe. In any case Tom is an expert on what the scams look like and how to avoid them. Here’s his lead in to today’s topic, The Dirty Dozen:

The IRS has been publishing “the Dirty Dozen” for much of the past twenty years in an effort to advise taxpayers and tax preparers of scams and schemes that are in some way related to taxes. It is a list of questionable (or fraudulent) transactions designed to gain access to your money.

In recent years, the items on the dirty dozen lists have included bogus calls, texts, emails and online posts. A common scam during the past two years includes online text messages or emails about your entitlement to stimulus payments that often include a link. The link promises to help you get all you are entitled to under various stimulus programs. Accessing a link in such a message may compromise any security measures of your computer system.

Phone scams often include threats that the IRS or local law enforcement agents will arrest you if you do not immediately remit payment by way of a gift card. The IRS cautions that it always initiates contact by mail and never demands payment by gift card. You always have an opportunity to appeal any determination that you owe additional tax.

The dirty dozen also lists strategies that are many times fraudulent that offer to help you avoid taxes. Some of the more common tax avoidance schemes identified in the current list of the dirty dozen include:

• Captive insurance arrangements.
• Charitable remainder annuity trusts.
• Offshore pension arrangements.
• Monetized installment arrangements.
• Conservation easements
• High-income taxpayers who simply do not file tax returns.
• Companies that promise to settle your tax liabilities for pennies on the dollar.

All of these schemes involve transactions that on the surface involve legitimate transactions. They typically offer very significant tax benefits, but little else in the way of economic benefits.

Always exercise caution in investing in any transaction that promises benefits that sound too good to be true.

Customers who need to deal face-to-face with somebody, from the IRS to Veterans Affairs or Social Security need a real face (with brain and body attached) before them. But…

There are also lots of good reasons why many people say the 9-to-5 office of the 20th century is gone. For good. Working from home does wonders for rush hour traffic and air pollution, from the freeways of San Diego to the infamous beltway around Washington, D.C.

Many employees swear they are also more productive and likely to put in more hours if they can work remotely. So to test the waters we asked a random group from around the nation. Most answered quickly. With makes-you-think comments. Here are some of the first replies we got. All, every single one, is interesting. Some surprising. This is the first batch with more from-the-trenches feedback from readers.

A 30-year worker at NAVSEA in Dahlgren, Virginia:

I came to work every day throughout the pandemic. Went into the office; it was actually pretty nice since I was only one of very few that came in. Still coming in to the office every day.

I wouldn’t mind a couple of days a week teleworking, but I’ve got to get away from home (but I don’t have a horrible commute).

If I could work remotely from another area, I would agree that pay/raises should be based on location since a portion of pay is for locality.

Of note I have worked for Dept. of Navy for over 35 years.

A West Virginia based fed:

If you don’t want to return would you change jobs or agency if your new employer would let you work from home? So my answer to this question is “it depends.” I am not opposed to going into an office to work; I miss seeing people and working together. I feel that team building is more organic and natural if you are in one location vs. on a video conference. That being said, I would probably not change jobs into an agency or job that would require on-site presence 100% of the time. I think a hybrid situation suits me best. I should mention that I live in the eastern panhandle of WV so a commute to DC is 2+ hours each way.

If you could work remotely from a different city would you agree that future raises would be based where you were actually working, not where your official office is located? I fully understand that and would not expect to make D.C. locality pay if I was living somewhere with a much lower cost of living. That being said, I’m still thankful for Senator Robert Byrd who worked to ensure that my county is included in the D.C. locality pay area.

An about to retire employee:

I enjoyed teleworking for the last two years, until now. I am almost ready to retire with 32 yrs. of service. I am planning to work until Dec. 31, 2023.

A worker in suburban D.C.:

I am most likely not going to return to work. I got two times COVID positive: One in 2020 and the second one in 2022 and my immune system is weak.

Another is obviously making the best of what, for many, could be a tough situation:

Well, for me, I am perfectly well teleworking from home. It is a privilege that some people take for granted. I work for the Food and Drug Administration headquarters in Rockville; I have no plans to move away from Maryland, even if taxes are killing me, because I collect my SSI pension (yes, I am 71 yrs. old) and SSI is taxable in Maryland, but I enjoy this city. My office is only six miles away from home.

During the pandemic and we continue doing it now, the meetings are by Zoom. We even have a Christmas Party by Zoom. All the conferences, seminars, trainings are by Zoom or webinar. It is an amazing time! Even if I am suffering from an aggressive invasive breast cancer, I am enjoying telework. Blessed the Lord!!! That we have this incredible opportunity on these days of inflation, we get to save the gas money.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Daisy Thornton

Source: NPR

Happy Fourth of July! Please enjoy this Federal Report from the archives.

Long time feds — and the millions of merchants who depend on their business — have seen teleworking in government explode almost overnight because of the pandemic, after decades of being a minor project in most offices. Working from home has gone from a complicated/emotional exercise, limited to a handful of select workers in smaller agencies to what is likely to be its peak participation this year. In some agencies, six to eight of every ten employees has been working from home for two years or more now.

Teleworking for a long time was a minimal show-and-tell exercise. Purpose: To please Congress. Now it has become a super big deal. And a way of life — many hope — in many agencies around the nation. Agencies once supported telework centers — often leased office space between your home and your office — to show they were all in. Or they would troop out the ‘success’ of the Patent and Trademark Office’s Virginia headquarters where a relatively large number of people worked from home. Sometimes. Along came COVID-19 and almost overnight agencies that had ignored or actively fought teleworking embraced it. Now it appears that the telework program, while here to stay, is in for some shrinkage. Big time.

Eliminating teleworking, which the Trump administration tried, is a little like squeezing toothpaste back into the tube. Doable, but not easy. Now the Biden administration is trying to get more/most workers back in the office but for different reasons. During the BRAC era (the Defense Department’s base realignment and closure efforts) when feds were being moved from city to city, some estimates said that each federal job (or family) contributed significant dollars to six different merchants. So having feds in the neighborhood was a plus. But neighborhood meant near the office, where people could shop, eat and park. While teleworking did wonders shrinking traffic jams and eliminating air pollution, it also resulted in many businesses failing over time, despite huge government subsidies. That’s the primary reason the Biden administration has told federal agencies to get every available home-worker back to the office ASAP.

The impact of the federal paychecks is obvious in the D.C. metro area, which has about 20% of all white collar federal jobs. But the steady, recession-proof payroll is also a major economic driver in metro New York City and Jersey City (56,400); Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Newport News (47,000); Baltimore, Columbia and Towson (41,000); and other places you’d expect. Like San Diego (35,500); Los Angeles and Long Beach (31,000); and Dallas-Ft. Worth (27,000). But the government is also a (or the) primary employer in Ogden, Utah and Huntsville, Alabama (both nearly 20,000 feds); and Bremterton, Washington; Tampa and St. Pete in Florida; Kansas City, Missouri; Richmond, Virginia; Jacksonville, Florida; San Antonio, Texas; Fayetteville, North Carolina; Indianapolis, Indiana; and Alberquerque, New Mexico.

Back in the 90s, some agencies would allow some employees to work from home one day per month so they they could check the box which said they were onboard with teleworking. But just barely…

In the beginning, there were many real and invented obstacles to working from home. Equipment and computers were different. There was the problem of having a dedicated telephone land line (ask your grandfather what that is) among many others. Some officials worried about what would happen if an employee was injured while on the job, but at home. Whose jurisdiction was it? Who paid? Often times the objections were personal. Some bosses then — maybe still — were not comfortable with employees who were not at the office. Were they working, or taking care of kids, watching TV, writing a novel or simply goofing off? In some instances, agency heads worked from home one day a month. That was supposed to satisfy House members (mostly Democrats from the D.C., Maryland and Virginia region) who knew and understood their federal constituents.

Now folks who have been forced or allowed to work from home are being asked to go back to the office. Maybe downtown, maybe in the burbs. But back to the old ways. Many say they’ve never been happier (or more productive) than the past two years. Others say going remote has been a mistake in a variety of ways. Whatever you think, wherever you work (now and in the future), it is a tough call. Some who have been doing it for a long time now think a compromise — work from both home and the office — is the answer. Others say they’ll quit if called back, even as some can’t wait for the return to the “real” office. We’ve been hearing from lots of people who have been-there-done-that. And that’s helpful. Check in if you can and we’ll tell the powers-that-be what “real” people think about this — maybe historic — overhaul. Email me at mcausey@federalnewsnetwork.com

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Robert O’Shaughnessy

Fireworks’ colors are made in the air when metal elements are heated. This excites electrons and releases excess energy in the form of light

Source: Department of Energy

How great to live in a free country. At the time, former Health and Human Services Secretary Margaret Heckler was our representative in Congress. One year, as she passed by in the parade, my father called out, “Cut off funds for the Vietnam War!” She shouted back something to the effect that she had voted for a resolution to do that. I don’t remember the precise words, but I do recall the exchange. No one swore, no one threw anything.

No one went to jail, either. I thought of this in the context of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to Hong Kong, on the 25th anniversary of its transfer to China. How tough it must be to see a leader parade through, who has just imposed stifling laws, crushed dissent, jailed opponents, halted unfriendly press and will no doubt impose the all-encompassing surveillance with its command and control system for individuals already in place on the mainland. What would happen to someone who shouts a challenge to Xi, do you suppose?

Our national discourse seems as bad as ever right now. Yet in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when I went to the local parades, it was pretty tough too. It’s easy to forget the divisiveness of Vietnam and its expansion via the bombing of Cambodia, the original Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court, the campus “unrest” as it was called, the shocking bankruptcy of New York City and a host of other things. It all seemed to culminate in the Watergate affair. Oh my, the vitriol of that roughly 1966-1976 decade!

After Vietnam, though, the military, which had lost much esteem in the public mind, retained enough institutional resilience, and could muster enough political backing, to eventually recover. Now it enjoys a high regard, even if the policies for which it is used are not popular. An important distinction.

Watergate, while exposing the, let’s say, enthusiasm for reelection on the part of some elected, appointed and hired officials, nevertheless ultimately provoked an institutional coming together. For what it’s worth, since the Nixon/Ford administration, Republicans have held the White House for 24 years, Democrats, at the conclusion of President Biden’s current term, 24.

At the moment, the nation’s ears are gripped by the hearings connected to the  Capitol event, variously described as a riot, an insurrection, a break-in and a coup attempt, at the end of the Trump administration. That was not a good day, least of all for the former president. And yet: One theme is how strongly our institutions held. The Electoral College voted. Congress and the then-vice president accomplished their electoral missions, in spite of the dangerous circumstances. What if the nincompoops storming the Capitol had actually gotten their hands on the vote materiel? It’s hard to imagine anything other than that the regular transition of power would nevertheless have occurred. Many of the rioters are in prison.

Federal career employees have taken an oath to the Constitution. With few exceptions, they take it seriously. At least, that’s been my experience in 30 years of covering that workforce and the activities in which it engages.

Government is inherently imperfect because people are imperfect. Still, on the 4th of July, name a country where you’d rather live and claim citizenship. I can’t.

Don’t text while reading this

Fifteen years ago this week, Apple introduced the iPhone. Like the Model T a century earlier, it changed the world. Neither the first smart phone nor the first pocket-sized computer, it nevertheless became a world-changing product in ways the others did not.

The social implications of mobile computing have been thoroughly documented. Many people seemingly can’t live for two seconds without checking their devices.

In the federal environment, the iPhone significantly drove many of the changes it drove in the private sector. Namely, greater demand for mobile-native services, a still-evolving notion of customer experience, and a new idea for how and where employees can work

An irony of the iPhone era is that as a telephone, the iPhone falls short, to be honest. Whether the phone’s own internal electronics, or the limitations of the big wireless networks, but sound remains noisy and scratchy, calls still subject to going kaput. On the other hand, how much business does the average knowledge worker do on the phone any more?

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Robert O’Shaughnessy

Source: Maine Public

Stuff happens. And when it does, the steady-as-she-goes investment advice often makes less sense than it did in better times. For many people, dating back to World War I, Treasury securities have been a steady part of their personal financial planning.

For workers under the FERS retirement program, the TSP could supply anywhere from one-third to half of the income they have in retirement. Unlike their annuity, and Social Security, the TSP is not protected from inflation. But many experts say that in addition to fully funding their TSP, feds should consider other super-safe options to pad out the nest egg. Millions of people still have paper certificates. But bonds are now also electronic. And the bonds are an even better deal.

One such option is a treasury bond suggested by financial planner Arthur Stein in March. At that time it was paying 7.1%.

More recently, the Washington Post’s Michelle Singletary told feds how to get a Treasury security paying 9.62%.

Then there are also more traditional savings bonds as a nest-egg booster. Retiree Abraham Grungold, a very successful TSP investor, is now a full-time financial coach. Among other things, he’s been helping feds and retirees who had — and lost — actual paper bonds with how to get their money back. It’s a big problem, especially with older investors whose only option at the time was the paper trail. Fine, until they lost track of them. Then what? Here’s what he recommends:

For many, savings bonds have been a part of our lives. We have purchased and or received them for the birth of a child, wedding gifts, saving for college, and saving for retirement. Historically, you purchased them at your local bank and received a paper bond from the Treasury Department. For the past few years, the method to purchase savings bonds can only be transacted through the Treasury Direct website.

In the past, federal employees participated in the U.S. Savings Bond Drive and purchased bonds through their payroll allotments. I purchased bonds during my 36-year federal career and even recently in retirement. I started with 50 and 100-dollar bonds. Then I moved up in denominations, because it was easier to accumulate larger size bonds instead of a lot of smaller ones. I owned dozens of them. I kept a detailed list of them. Over the years, I cashed in many of them if I needed to make a major purchase or once they matured after thirty years. At maturity, the bond will stop accruing interest. Once you cash them in, you must pay federal tax on the interest earned. The IRS will send you a 1099.

Recent reports have shown that there are unclaimed savings bonds valued at approximately $25 billion. These matured bonds have never been cashed and no claim has ever been made by a beneficiary. And what happens if you lose the paper bonds? I had a client who contacted me about their lost bonds. They lost 72 paper bonds. The total value was approximately $694,000. It took me eight months dealing with the Treasury to have all of them recovered back into the hands of my client.

So why did it take so long and what do you need to be aware of?

Starting the process

You first need to start with a FS Form 1048 Claim for Lost, Stolen, or Destroyed United States Savings Bonds. The Treasury assigns you a case number, and then the many hurdles and challenges begin. Some of the following issues require specific forms and need to signed and notarized.

Owner

The Treasury needs to identify who is the owner of the bond. It may have only one owner, co-owners or the bond may have been gifted to someone. This is a critical issue.

Verification

If the bonds are lost, a search is performed on the owner’s Social Security Number. On paper bonds, if the SSN was incorrectly typed on the bond, that means that the bond is unverified. The only way to verify a bond without the correct SSN is with the bond’s full serial number. A closer review of the bond would then need the owner’s name. My client had 12 bonds valued at approximately $100,000, and the Treasury stated that they were previously cashed. We had the full serial numbers, so the Treasury did a separate search and found all 12 bonds which were then verified as not yet cashed. If you do not have the full serial number, then the bond may be lost forever.

Reissued and Matured Bonds

Bonds which are verified can be reissued to the owner in a Treasury Direct account. The Treasury will not reissue a paper bond. If a bond reached the full maturity of 30 years, then it cannot be reissued; it has to be cashed out and the proceeds are given to the owner. My client had 48 fully matured bonds and 24 reissued bonds. In the event these 72 paper bonds resurface, they cannot be cashed.

Communication

Although the steps sound fairly straight forward, the Treasury is short staffed and overwhelmed with these requests. Contacting the representative assigned to the case is a frustrating challenge. Due to security issues, you are not provided with their last name, you cannot leave a voice mail, you cannot send an email, and no texting. Wait times to speak to another representative are 90 to 120 minutes. Regular mail takes weeks to process due to the COVID-19 protocols. I found the best way was to send a fax with the case number and it reached the case representative quickly. The follow-up to the fax was either a phone call or an email from the Treasury representative.

My presentation of the 72 bonds and my calculations were accepted by the Treasury representative without any challenge. The successful outcome was that my client received every dollar owed to them, but that was largely due to the record-keeping they maintained over 30 years. My suggestion to anyone attempting this on their own is to be patient, tenacious and keep a chronological log of the steps you have taken along the way. You want to keep a copy of the records mailed and or faxed.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Daisy Thornton

Source: Scientific American

If you are working, retired, building a nest egg or living off one, these are tough emotional times. If you want good news, you’ve learned to avoid the financial news or stock market reports. Also national news, international news and, if you are a baseball fan in certain cities like Washington, D.C., you avoid the sporting news, too.

Hopefully you have a good cable package and a personality that lets you sort and live with the good news vs. the not-so-good-news. Which is the purpose of today’s Your Turn radio show: It’s a double-header on the good, the bad and the ugly. We are going to try to cover the waterfront. Our show begins at 10 a.m. EDT on www.federalnewsnetwork.com or 1500 AM in the Washington-Baltimore area. First up, financial advisor Arthur Stein will talk about the future course of your TSP account, and the pros and cons of investing heavily in the never-has-a-bad-day G fund. Many consider it the “safest” investment. But that begs the question: How do you define “safe” when building a retirement nest egg? Federal News Network reporter Drew Friedman will talk about the very latest on the federal pay raise. Then we’ll get into the prospects for a large retiree COLA. Last, but definitely not least, the issues TSP investors are having with the new system.

Hopefully this has something for everyone. Here’s a preview from Arthur Stein on the place of the G-fund in your TSP portfolio:

There are two advantages to the G-fund: Zero volatility and all holdings are guaranteed by the government.

However, G (and F)-fund investors need to recognize that, historically, long-term investments in the G and F-funds lost purchasing power. G-fund annual returns have gradually declined since it was introduced in April of 1987. In 2021, the return was 1.4%, 84% lower than in 1988. The cost of living (inflation) more than doubled over this period.

That leaves TSP participants with a dilemma. Should they invest for:

• The lower volatility and lower chance of losing principal (“safety”) offered by the G and F (bond) funds, and accept the higher chance of declines in purchasing power; or
• The higher potential growth historically offered by the stock funds, accepting higher volatility and market declines for the opportunity to increase purchasing power?

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Daisy Thornton

Source: Sci News

During that early 2000s super Bear Market, millions of investors lost billions of retirement nest egg dollars. The stock market plunged almost 50%. A heart-stopper for most investors. Especially if they are close to retirement, and even more so if already retired on a fixed pension. Many moved their TSP and 401(k) into “safer” bonds or treasury securities to protect them from losses. But they missed out on the stock market rebound.

Many private sector employees were also forced to take pay cuts ranging from 5-25% in order to protect their jobs. And some companies — including several well-known investment management giants — stopped giving their own employees matching 401(k) contributions, so they could stay afloat. Federal workers did without pay raises for two years. But there were no recession-triggered layoffs. In fact, many agencies grew. The TSP continued to give investors a matching government contribution of up to 5%. Further proof that it’s nice to be in a plan that covers members of Congress too. And workers with enough time in service continued to get WIGs (within-grade raises) worth about 3% every one, two or three years based on their time in government.

Benefits expert Tammy Flanagan said don’t focus entirely on the next recession, whether it is two years, or two weeks, away. Her advice: “What about the next recession. And the next few recessions? Be prepared because it is always something: War, recession, the roof of your house caves in. Always something.” Her advice, particularly for people who are retirement eligible or close to retirement is: Think about waiting. Maybe a delay of two years. In an earlier column, she pointed out that an $80,000 per year fed who works an extra two years — from 60 to 62 — will boost their starting annuity by almost $30,000. That’s also important because while CSRS retirees get full cost of living adjustments no matter when they retire, FERS retirees don’t get any COLA until age 62. Then it’s minus 1% if inflation exceeds 3%. Currently it is running much, much higher. So are you ready? For retirement, the next recession, or both? The Employee Benefit Research Institute says many retirees — federal and private — are not well prepared for retirement. Among other things it says:

• Many retirees say they wish they’d saved more. They may seem obvious but by the time you’ve learned that lesson it may be too late.
• Also, most retirees seem to do better if they have a financial advisor, though many don’t. Or didn’t until later.
• The EBRI also says that 9 out of 10 retirees who have financial advisors feel the value they got “outweighed the cost” of such an advisor.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Daisy Thornton

Source: World Wildlife Fund

How’s the return to the office going at your federal agency? Not great, according to the more than 3,200 feds who responded to our recent office reentry survey.

More than half of the survey respondents felt dissatisfied with their agency’s return-to-office plans. Ditto for feds who said a mandatory office reentry has made them less productive.

Nearly half of all respondents also said agency leaders aren’t listening to their concerns.

Agencies that listen to their employees, meanwhile, are writing the playbook for what the “future of work” can look like across the federal government.

The Government Publishing Office, for example, still about a third of its workforce still out on full-time telework or remote work — that’s about 500 employees. GPO, adopting a hybrid work environment, is in no hurry to bring them back.

GPO’s Chief Human Capital Officer Dan Mielke said the agency is offering 100% telework for its white-collar employees in the D.C. area, unless they’re needed on a specific day to come into the office.

Mielke said GPO didn’t have a strong telework culture before the pandemic. But like many agencies, GPO’s workforce proved to be more productive while out of mandatory telework.

“For me, it was like, ‘Well, the folks don’t really have to come back, as long as they’re willing to continue the support level that we have.’ We just don’t need to come back to the office to provide that,” Mielke said.

Other elements of GPO’s hybrid workforce include remote employees who live outside the D.C. locality area. If they have to travel to GPO’s central office in D.C., Mielke said the agency will pay for that travel.

Some employees, meanwhile, are coming into the office one or more days a week, but work out of the office the rest of the week.

An employee’s level of telework eligibility is still up to their supervisors. But Mielke said having only essential employees in the office for much of the pandemic made it clear who needed to be in the office regularly.

“We didn’t do a lot of telework before the pandemic, and we didn’t really have the systems in place to support doing our work from a telework position,” Mielke said. “Of course, the pandemic changed all that, and we quickly built up our systems so we can do a lot of things that you probably could have done before the pandemic telework, but we just didn’t design the work that way for the workforce.”

It’s more than a nice-to-have. Mielke said about half of GPO’s workforce will be eligible to retire in the next five years, and that implementing an unpopular office reentry plan might trigger the ominous “retirement cliff,” or mass exodus of retirement-eligible feds that has long been looming, but yet to actually materialize.

“I’ve heard that talk for almost 15 years, and it just seems like it never happened. Well, at GPO it’s going to happen.”

Federal employees broadly, and GPO employees specifically, don’t usually retire as soon as they’re eligible. Mielke said that for GPO, most workers stay for an additional two or three years.

“We know that we have about eight years to train up folks and get them ready to, to step into those shoes. And it’s going to be a steady flow of retirements up during that eight years as well,” he said.

Stewart Lane, GPO’s Chief of Workforce Development, Education & Training, said the agency also shifted its training model from in-person to include virtual classroom training and web-based training.

“We realized we really have to change what we’re doing. Our business model needs to change, we still have an important job to do providing training to the employees at GPO,” Lane said.

GPO made this shift possible by acquiring a new learning management system from ExpertusONE. The system allows the agency to pull monthly reports and send them to the Office of Personnel Management to comply with governmentwide training reporting requirements.

Ramesh Ramani, CEO of ExpertusONE, said the system allows employees to receive training in the format that works best for them.

“It doesn’t matter whether you’re training the leadership or you’re training other sorts of employees. the content itself can be in a variety of formats. It can be video, it can be audio, it can be a book, it can be a manual,” Ramani said.

Mielke said GPO’s new system also allows the agency to be transparent with staff on personnel decisions, including pay adjustments and any changes to an employee’s personnel record.

“As the Chief Human Capital Officer, I wanted to lift that mystery of what human capital is doing.  Every action we take in human capital has something to do with an employee, so we felt I felt that the employee needs to be able to see those actions,” he said.

While much of the agency’s HR functions are telework-friendly, Mielke said in some cases, in-person works best.

“The general rule for human capital is if a customer wants to meet you face to face, because for example, when an individual retires, it’s very personal. It’s a big step in their life. And sometimes they want to see that benefit specialist face-to-face to go over the paperwork. We’ll come in, and we’ll meet with that customer that day,” he said.

GPO is also training its workforce on how to adjust to a hybrid workforce environment.

“It’s not just the supervisor trusting the employee. It’s the employee trusting the supervisor — are you going to be able to communicate with me in this remote posture to where, you know, I can continue to do a good job?” Mielke said.

Managing the hybrid workforce also comes down to setting expectations for the employees who do have to come into the office.

Mielke said that about half of the agency’s workforce is highly skilled tradespeople and other blue-collar positions that have to come into the office more regularly. The rest are administrative and white-collar professional employees.

“What we had to do over this period was really build the confidence in the folks that have to come in every day, that the folks that are teleworking can do their jobs, and do them well, and provide that same level of support to them that we were providing when we were in the building,” Mielke said.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Robert O’Shaughnessy

Source: DARPA

As our Jory Heckman reported last week, the overseers of the Technology Modernization Fund will devote a cool hundred million dollars to projects that cut wait times or excessive paperwork for public-facing federal services. This revelation, from the General Services Administration and the White House, coincided with an IRS announcement that people late on their taxes can try out a phone line and reach a robot response system to set up their payments.

The agency is expanding its use of so-called voice and chat bots to take a burden off human phone answerers. That way, the IRS employees will have more time to devote to complicated problems beyond the capabilities of the bots. And callers with those problems won’t have on-hold times long enough to hear a Beethoven piano concerto.

I’m kidding on that last point. If only on-hold music was so compelling.

But the effort can’t come soon enough. On Wednesday, the National Taxpayer Advocate had bad news for the IRS, in its objectives report for 2023. In the more recent filing season, it answered only 10% of its phone calls — and even then the average time on hold was a half hour.

The IRS isn’t doing so well with paper returns, either. Its paper return backlog has reached 21 million returns. It’s processing them at about 240,000 per week. It will have to double that rate to get through it all this year, the NTA stated.

So there’s work to do at this high-impact service provider, as the administration has designated the IRS and 19 other agencies for purposes of customer experience.

The idea of improving customer experience isn’t new. But the state of the art keeps moving. About 20 years ago, self-service kiosks came into vogue. At the Department of Veterans Affairs, they’re about to disappear from the lobbies of medical centers. A release from VA states the agency’s national contract for the VetLink kiosks expires in September. Now VA is introducing check-in for appointments using a phone and QR code affixed to a poster. It’ll save veterans a little time in verifying who they are.

Three themes in customer experience I think need pointing out:

• At its best, technology-powered CX eases burdens on both constituents served and on employees doing the serving. But it doesn’t always reduce the headcount required. I noticed this at the airport recently. The airline might have had three dozen check-in kiosks, even though you’ve “checked in” online. After re-checking in for purposes of obtaining a luggage tag, I found I had to still wait in a slow line for an agent to check my ID and yank my luggage over to the conveyor belt. I’m not sure who saved what in this chain of transactions.
• Self-service, which is preferable to human service in many circumstances, merely time-shifts burdens people have to take on at some point — registering, creating an account and filling in data, applying for a license or permit. Here, the government can exceed the private sector if only it could accomplish the dream of one person, one account, every agency. Contrast that to, say, medical health records in the private sector. All the practices have some sort of semi-comprehensible portal. But none of the portals connect. Plastic clipboards have been replaced by stovepipe portals.
• It’s easy for automated response to get a little off course. You’ve got to design systems carefully. I bot-chatted with the manufacturer of my grandfather clock, which needs repair. It’s at least 25 year old, purchased a while back by my late parents, and it is certainly out of warranty. I found an authorized repair shop at the web site, but then received an email asking me for proof of purchase so they could find my order. The bot introduced a bit of incoherence.

A footnote: The federal government in some circumstances is the provider of last, or only, resort. Talk about customer experience. I witnessed where a federal agency came through. A fellow traveler on a two-week rafting trip I took in the Grand Canyon fell sick. There is literally no way out, other than a National Park Service helicopter. The guide had a satellite phone, the only way to reach the NPS. A shiny blue and yellow helicopter arrived within a half hour. An NPS crew examined the man, loaded him aboard, then swooped out. A few days later we heard he was recovering in an Arizona hospital.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Robert O’Shaughnessy

Source: National Geographic

So for an update, we went to Kim Weaver, the director of external affairs for the Board. We had the questions, she provided the answers.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Daisy Thornton

Source: Smithsonian Magazine

When is the last time you and your significant other took a romantic weekend to rekindle the fire? And spent most of the time, at the beach or in the mountains, talking about the pros and cons of an irrevocable trust?

Wild guess: How about … never?

Although vitally important in some cases, irrevocable trusts are sort of like heel spurs or picking kitchen paint colors as a topic of extended conversation. And yet …

There may come a time in your family’s life when having the should-I-have-a-trust conversation is critical. Whether you did it, or especially if you didn’t do it but should have!

All this is a sneaky way to lead into today’s Your Turn radio show. And while the subject doesn’t automatically draw your attention, in many cases it should. What such a trust is, and whether it is vital or useless for you and yours is something you have to deal with while you are still around. It won’t wait until after you’ve gone and mourning — maybe fighting — loved ones are dealing with your estate which, by the way, even the most modest feds have. Today at 10 a.m. we’ll be talking with Tom O’Rourke, a Washington area tax and estate attorney. Many of his clients are current or retired feds. Some need a trust. Some should avoid it. So how do you know? Here’s Tom’s explanation of what it is, and why you may need one. Or not. The show is at 10 a.m. on federanewsnetwork.com or 1500 AM in the D.C.-Baltimore area. The show will be archived on our home page so you can listen anytime or refer it to a coworker. If you have any legal questions about wills or trusts send them to me before showtime: mcausey@federalnewsnetwork.com

Irrevocable trusts are commonly used as part of a comprehensive estate plan, but they are not for everybody. They have significant tax and legal consequences and should only be entered into after considerable thought and with the guidance of a knowledgeable advisor. Once an irrevocable trust is signed and funded, it cannot be revoked or changed.

Irrevocable trusts allow you to accomplish several important goals. They can be used as a tax-planning tool, they can provide a vehicle for managing assets for the benefit of a person who is not capable of managing their own assets, and they may be used to protect assets from the claims of creditors.

Some of the more common tax planning trusts include a life insurance trust, a QTIP trust, and various types of charitable trusts. For many individuals, however, tax planning is no longer an issue. The federal estate tax exemption is now $12 million per person. Many states either have eliminated their estate tax, or have significantly increased the exemption amount.

Irrevocable trusts are also commonly used to accomplish non-tax goals. Some of the more common irrevocable trusts include a trust for a minor child, an education trust, a special needs trust for a handicapped adult child, a trust to protect an inheritance for a spendthrift child, or a trust to protect a child’s inheritance in the event of his or her divorce.

Irrevocable trusts also have a number of disadvantages including the following:

1. You must irrevocably give up the right to control the assets transferred to the trust.
2. It is a separate tax and legal entity and it is advisable to seek guidance from a knowledgeable advisor to make sure you are not falling into a tax trap.
3. It is often more expensive than using other less complex estate planning tools.

While irrevocable tools are certainly available to help you accomplish your estate planning goals, they should only be used after you have considered all advantages and disadvantages, and had the benefit of professional guidance.

-Tom O’Rourke

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Daisy Thornton

Source: Amusing Planet

Consider:

If you get invited to enter the Kentucky Derby, bring a horse.

If you want to make butter, a Jersey cow is the way to go.

To the untrained city slicker’s eye cows and horses are pretty much the same. But in fact they are very different. And that same big differential applies to pay raises vs. cost of living adjustments. Two very different things. And that difference can be critical in a time like now when inflation has taken off, prices for everything are going up and prospects for the future are dim. If you are still working, but eligible to retire, is this a good time? Because of the diet-COLA feature for FERS retirees a long period of inflation can eat into the buying power of an annuity. And if you are eligible or close to retiring this year or next you need to do some homework.

Most federal workers are looking at a minimum 4.6% pay raise in January 2023. Congress might even boost it to 5.1%. Depending on how the political winds blow between now and November.

The amount of the retiree COLA is to be determined but right now it looks like a minimum of 8.6%. But it could be more, or less, depending on what path inflation takes between now and September. That would mean an 8.6% increase for Social Security and CSRS retirees but “only” 7.6 for FERS retirees. That’s a lot. It would be the biggest in years. But its going up because prices are too. And the system used to measure inflation doesn’t take into account many of the added costs of older, retired people. Solution: Maybe you should defer your retirement a couple of years.

Benefits expert Tammy Flanagan says someone making $80,000 a year can boost his or her starting annuity by $30,000 by working just two more years. That’s a nightmare prospect if you hate your job, boss, coworkers or community. But its money in your pocket for life, if you hand on. And it’s linked to inflation. Here’s the example showing the magic of deferring your retirement, especially during a time of skyrocketing inflation:

• Length of Service at age 60: 19 years

  • 19 x $80,000 x 1% = $15,200 x .90 = $13,680 (10% reduction under the MRA + 10 retirement because employee didn’t have 20 years of service at age 60 to qualify for an unreduced retirement)

• Length of Service at age 61: 20 years

  • 20 x $80,000 x 1% = $16,000 + $12,000 = $28,000(The extra $12,000 represents a FERS supplement of $1,000 a month payable to age 62 when retiree could file for SSA and get an even larger SSA benefit based on their lifetime of FICA taxed wages)

• Length of Service at age 62: 21 years

  • 21 x $80,000 x 1.1% = $18,400 + $24,000 = $42,480(The $24,000 represents the SSA benefit payable at age 62 of $2,000 a month from their lifetime of FICA taxed wages)

The difference between this person leaving at 60 vs. 62 is almost $30,000 a year more income for only two more years on the job. Of course, at age 62, the person who left at age 60 could claim their SSA benefit, but the gap would still be close to $5,000 a year or $600 a month in their FERS basic retirement benefit for life! In addition, they would have benefited from two more years at their presumably highest earning years added to their SSA record, and two more years of contributions and growth to their TSP accounts. A win-win, for many. –Tammy Flanagan

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Daisy Thornton

Source: Wikipedia

Countless surveys have asked this — and lot of the results show consistently low scores. But drilling down into a specific group might yield some more telling answers. What about federal workers’ trust in the very institutions that employ them?

If federal employees have more trust at work, they’ll be more engaged and productive, the Partnership for Public Service reported in newly released survey results. The Partnership said there’s one surefire way to improve trust: focus on feds’ perceptions of agency leaders.

It makes sense — leaders are figureheads. They represent the function of an agency. If you trust the person who’s in charge, you’ll be more likely to trust the agency, too.

But the way to improve trust in leadership isn’t so easy to define. A lot of research on trust is qualitative. It’s hard to measure changes in perception.

In its recent research, the Partnership defined trust as “a person’s belief that another person or institution will act consistently with their expectations of positive behavior.” That can be accomplished through several means — things like capability, reliability and humanity.

All of those are important for improving trust, but another crucial piece is transparency. Leaders should be clear about what they can actually accomplish — and be honest when they don’t have the answers.

“From a decision-making perspective, you have to be fair and transparent. We don’t always have the right answer or the best answer or a good answer. But [you should still] say, ‘this is how the decision was derived,’” said Pam Coleman, the Office of Management and Budget’s associate director for performance and personnel management.

Adhir Kackar, a senior leader at the Environmental Protection Agency, added at the Partnership’s event that being as candid and transparent as you can be about why certain decisions are being made will yield better trust from employees.

“[We have to] recognize that sometimes, even as frontline supervisors, we don’t know. Sometimes we’re a bit in the dark as well. If you are transparent with folks, then there’s a level of grace they’re going to give you,” said Kackar, EPA’s director for the federal and state division at the Office of Sustainable Communities.

Many leaders like Coleman and Kackar say transparency is critical for good leadership, but a lot of the points are anecdotal. How exactly do you quantify transparency?

Part of that can come from looking at employees’ input. On the Office of Personnel Management’s 2021 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey, the question with the most negative responses was: “I believe the results of this survey will be used to make my agency a better place to work.”

The percentage of respondents who agree has hovered in the same ballpark for at least for the last five years. But it has dropped from 43% in 2020. In 2021, only 40% of respondents agreed.

From those numbers, it seems like many federal employees are wary of their leaders actually listening and taking action on what they have to say.

To improve transparency, the Partnership recommended more communication. Leaders dedicate more time to engage openly with staff at all levels — a practice that some leaders, like Coleman, already implement.

“When I first get to a new position, I hold a one-on-one with everybody. That’s for everybody, from my deputy to the interns,” she said. “Everybody is going to get time because I want to know what they think. Everyone has something to contribute.”

Having that level of transparency between leaders and employees will contribute to better trust, higher quality work and more work satisfaction, the Partnership said.

And the Partnership certainly isn’t the only place calling for more transparency from leaders. On Capitol Hill, bipartisan House lawmakers want agency heads to be more transparent with the public about their actions.

Reps. Don Beyer (D-Va.) and Chip Roy (R-Texas) introduced legislation that would require agencies to publicly share copies of their schedules and speeches. In the Transparent Leadership Act, agencies would have 30 days to publish information about meetings and events that they lead.

Although the legislation is public-facing rather than looking internally at federal employees, it still calls on those leaders to be held accountable.

“It is extremely important to have transparency about who is in a position to influence key policymakers at meetings and events,” Beyer wrote in a press release. “This information is a crucial safeguard to establish that public servants are serving the interests of the public and abiding by ethics requirements.”

Previous research from the Partnership for Public Service showed that just four in 10 people trust the federal government to do what’s right. But, the scores were higher when the survey asked respondents how they perceived the work of individual civil servants.

If federal employees are the key to improving overall trust in government, then should leaders first prioritize improving trust for those workers themselves?

Do you agree that transparency is important to good leadership? What else do you think makes a good leader? Send your comments to fnncomment@federalnewsnetwork.com.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Robert O’Shaughnessy

Source: Outdoor Project

While Tom Temin is on vacation, please enjoy this Federal Report from the archives.

You know you’ve finally reached management when you’re personally incapable of doing a job you’re hiring someone else to do.

In the middle of my career, I oversaw the content of a small group of business magazines. One of them operated a testing lab for computer gear. It was a source of endless requests for more racks, more equipment, more benchmarking software. I also had to sign off on hires to work in the small lab staff. I had no idea how to do the work they did. Luckily I had a very smart cookie in charge of the lab, someone not only with tech chops but also with an excellent reputation in the industry.

The lab manager naturally became my go-to person to evaluate whether candidates could run benchmarks on a PC or a switch. Or if they could tell the difference between a RJ-11-tipped cable and a RJ-45-tipped one. I knew a banana plug when I saw one because I’d visited the company that invented them and had received an exhaustive briefing.

My reliance on a hands-on expert hardly constituted a genius piece of managerial insight. It seemed like the only practical way of avoiding hiring failures. If the hire were to produce grammar or punctuation problems, my copy desk could fix that. But if they screwed up an evaluation, we’d have a real problem on our hands.

The government is apparently widening its use of this method of hiring — using what it calls subject matter expert qualification assessments. It’s even a word now, smeequa. Sounds like something from Dr. Seuss.

Jennifer Pahlka, formerly of Code For America and U.S. Digital Service, had a comprehensive post about SME-QA more than a year ago. She, like many others, was surprised that 90% of competitive job postings by the federal government rely on candidates’ self-assessment questionnaires.

That doesn’t mean that 90% of hires go to phony braggarts. It means more that the government wastes a lot of time and effort sifting through resumes and interviewing people with no chance of ever getting the job. Often no one gets hired. Or the truly qualified don’t make it through resume screening.

You or I could fill out a self assessment describing our deep knowledge and skill in operating nuclear reactors. We’d probably get a call back and even an interview, say, with the Navy or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission or the Energy Department. At best someone would catch on. At worst the government would hire into a “Catch Me If You Can” situation. Instead, under SME-QA, there’s no self-assessment questionnaire. As Pahlka described it, “Instead, subject matter experts (SMEs) partner with HR to review resumes, using their understanding of the actual job to determine who is qualified and eligible.”

SME-QA represents so much common sense, naturally the government people who saw its potential had to comb through statute and regulation to justify it legally. But it is totally justifiable for competitive hires.

Some agencies have been using SME-QA or its equivalent for years. Case in point: The Government Publishing Office. Chief Human Capital Officer Dan Mielke says he’s had success with the SME-QA methodology since 2018. In this interview, Mielke points out that GPO encompasses many craft and technical positions. It needs people who can hand-color edges of book leaves, set up a bindery, do mechanical and electrical repair on machinery and, of course, actually print books and periodicals. Physical printing remains an important part of the GPO’s increasingly digital mission.

Mielke says you can even ask candidates to perform a specific task they’d reasonably be expected to do shortly after joining. Weld that joint. Code that function.

In one case, GPO used a long-time employee with deep expertise in social media as the SME to assess a hire to do similar work.

That’s the beauty of the process with the awkward name — you’ve already got in your agency the experts you need to help you hire more accurately. And if you don’t, some nearby agency surely does. Mielke says he himself loaned his expertise to another agency looking to hire a workforce development director, a job Mielke held earlier.

You need people. A great way to streamline getting them is out there. What are you waiting for?

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Robert O’Shaughnessy

Source: National Constitution Center

Nobody has to invest in any of the new funds being offered. And only those who do invest part of their optional retirement fund will pay new fees. The rollout — involving 6 million accounts — has been rocky for some. Smooth for others. The new choices are a blessing to many investors while confusing to others. An early 80s retiree from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said, “If I were younger, I would object to so many because some of them could be weak and go under. Adding another 10 or so would be good. However, I have been withdrawing from the TSP for years, so don’t much care anymore… I sold most of my fund holdings in December, which turned out to be near the top of the market.”

The rollout of the TSP has been bumpy as reported by Federal News Network’s Drew Friedman. So what’s next? Should you embrace the new investments, stick with what you know, or what? For the for-what answer, we turned to, Abraham Grungold. He’s a long time fed, recently retired to a new career as financial coach. He’s a member of the TSPs self-made Millionaire-plus club. Here’s what he said to the complicated  question, is the new TSP right for you?

I have been a TSP participant since the beginning. I have taken advantage of all the benefits that the TSP has to offer. And the TSP has made me successful beyond my wildest dreams. The TSP has a track history of over 30 plus years and it has made many millionaires. The TSP members have desired more investment options and great flexibility.

What are my thoughts on the new TSP? For me I like no frills. What makes me happy is quality, a good price and performance. It reminds me of the car that I drive, a Toyota Camry. It starts up every morning, requires little maintenance and I purchased it a great price. That is how I want my TSP website to work for me. The ability to log in every morning with ease, require little effort on my part to keep up and I want my expenses to remain the lowest in the retirement industry.

The 5,000 new mutual funds offered by the TSP reminds [me] of when my daughter would ask me to get her the new Oreo mint or double fudge cookie.   I go to the supermarket and view all the Oreo selections and find that there are 20 different Oreo flavors.  And every time I buy the new flavor, she tries it and never finishes the bag. She always goes back to the original cookie.

The new TSP website needed an overhaul, a fresh look.  Now the categories jump out at you. The website has now presented those main categories in a distinct way so as you age you can find what you are looking for. As you drill down into the sub-menus it still takes some effort to find a particular TSP form and some sub-menus such as the beneficiary page do not load with ease. OK, there are some bugs to work out. Don’t worry, the TSP board will correct all these issues.

So, what about the 5,000 new mutual funds? The TSP fund already offers a Government Fund, a Bond Fund, a Stock Fund, a Small Cap Stock fund and an International Stock fund. And they offer ten targets balance funds. So how much more variety do you need? Well, my friend, if you have your heart set on investing in a fund that specializes in electric vehicles or cannabis. Go for it.  But it will cost you. I wanted to simply view the 5,000 available mutual funds. The agreement for the Mutual Fund Window requires me to pay the annual fee to open the account just to view the list of available funds and possibly pay the maintenance fee up front. To stop those fees, you have to permanently close your Mutual Fund Window account.

Let us compare the C Fund versus Vanguard S&P 500 Index. They are basically the same type of investment. However, if you invest 10,000 dollars in another fund you will be paying the following:

An annual fee – $55

An annual maintenance fee – $95

A transaction fee – $28.75

Other fees – I am interpreting these to be front load and redemption fees.

The C fund will cost you a 40 cents per $10,000 of investment. Yes, the Vanguard fund has low expense but that is only if you buy it directly from Vanguard. In the TSP, you have to go through the TSP third party vendor, Mutual Fund Window, who is assisting you with that investment. And that convenience will cost you and decrease your rate of return.

On a $10,000 investment transaction, you would be incurring approximately 2% in fees. If your C Fund investment is earning 10% per year. Your investment in the Vanguard S&P Fund would have to earn 12% to compete with the C Fund. Let’s look at another hypothetical example. You invest in the JP Morgan Research Market Fund; you have a 3.51% front load fee and a defer 1% load fee. To compete with the C Fund earning 10%, you would need to generate a 16.5% rate of return. That includes the TSP fees and the sales fees for the JP Morgan fund that is mentioned. Many of the other available funds may have a load fee so you have to read the fine print before you invest.

As a financial coach, many federal employees contact me regarding their retirement, their TSP and their assets outside of the TSP. As a TSP investor, if I want to purchase another fund for whatever reason, I can still do that through a brokerage account or an IRA. But if you want to do that through the TSP there is a surcharge.

Financial success can easily be achieved; it only takes a little effort.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Robert O’Shaughnessy

Source: San Francisco Chronicle