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

The fiscal 2023 financial services and general government bill, which the House Appropriations Committee advanced on June 24 in a vote of 31 to 22, makes no mention of the pay raise proposal for federal employees.

Similar to their silence last year, House appropriators’ lack of comment on the federal pay raise essentially endorses the White House’s 4.6% proposal from March’s budget request. In 2022, federal employees received a pay raise of 2.7% on average.

Military service members would also receive a 4.6% pay increase under the legislation. The White House did not specify locality pay in the across-the-board increase for 2023.

Democratic House lawmakers, though, are pushing for an even higher 5.1% pay increase for federal employees.

A lot can still change, though, between now and the start of the next fiscal year. For instance, the Senate would still need to approve the spending bill for the pay raise to become official.

The House Appropriations Committee also looked at funding requests for agencies including the Office of Personnel Management, Office of Management and Budget, General Services Administration and more.

In particular, spending for OPM includes a requested increase of about $70.9 million over the enacted level for 2022. That funding would in part go to heightened oversight and transparency for the agency’s retirement services, a program that faces ongoing processing delays and call center challenges.

Federal organizations like the National Active and Retired Federal Employees (NARFE) Association support the language about retirement services that the bill highlights.

“We hope this increased attention will elevate the urgency of the administration’s efforts to solve these problems,” NARFE National President Ken Thomas said in a June 24 statement. “We understand OPM may be struggling with pandemic-related disruptions and that there are dedicated public servants at OPM retirement services who recognize the problems. But they must prevent the situation from deteriorating further and start making real progress to improve and modernize their processes to better serve those who spent careers serving their nation.”

OPM Director Kiran Ahuja said at a June 23 press conference that she’s focused on improving retirement services. For example, the agency is currently piloting an online application for feds looking to retire.

The committee members also pointed to the President’s Management Agenda goal of strengthening the federal workforce, saying the funding request would support many of the White House’s workforce initiatives.

“This multi-year strategy includes dedicated investments to attract and hire the most qualified employees, including developing a diverse and competent workforce, improving federal hiring processing and identifying human capital needs of the federal workforce,” the committee wrote.

The funding would reduce barriers to federal employment and delays in the hiring process, through information technology modernization, more telework guidance and programs to support reentry to the civil service for those who previously left a federal position, the committee said.

The bill would also remove a ban on abortion services under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, a point over which several House Republicans voiced concerns.

Additionally, the Executive Office of the President would receive $4.5 million to pay White House interns. That comes after the Biden administration announced earlier this month that it will start paying its interns this fall.

The bill gives OMB $12 million above its enacted level for 2022, while the Office of the National Cyber Director would receive $22 million in funding to continue standing up an office for coordinating federal cybersecurity policy.

GSA would also get $100 million to fund electric vehicles in an effort to reduce the impacts of climate change, which is an ongoing priority from the Biden administration. The agency would get another $100 million for the Technology Modernization Fund.

Similar to last year, the bill funds GSA with $10.5 billion for the Federal Buildings Fund, which includes $380 million for the Department of Homeland Security headquarters consolidation at St. Elizabeths and $500 million for a new Federal Bureau of Investigation headquarters.

To support increased access to records documenting underserved and underrepresented communities, the National Archives and Records Administration would receive $2 million above the President’s request for a total of $452 million.

Notably, the bill would also make permanent a provision from last year that requires more transparency on apportionment of appropriations. The provision would mandate OMB to make its appropriations publicly available in a timely manner.

Another section of the bill aims to improve budget execution, which would “require budget authority be made available prudently for obligation, executive agencies to provide budget and appropriations information to the Government Accountability Office promptly and agencies to notify Congress of certain delays or restrictions in apportionment of appropriations,” the committee stated.

One other new provision tries to create a commission to recommend name changes or removal of federal property that’s “inconsistent with the values of diversity, equity and inclusion,” the committee wrote.

The temporary raise comes as the departments of Agriculture and Interior and the U.S. Forest Service — agencies that employ federal wildland firefighters — face rising recruitment and retention challenges for the frontline positions.

The salary increase for about 15,000 federal firefighters is funded with $600 million under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, commonly known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL). Federal firefighters will receive a bump to their biweekly pay starting July 3, up by either $20,000 or 50% of their annual base salary, whichever number is lower.

“Hiring and retaining firefighters in increasingly long and complex fire years is a challenge that we take seriously. The President’s budget and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law provide a significant down payment towards investments in the stable, professional and permanent wildland firefighting workforce we need to confront the wildfire crisis,” USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a June 21 press release.

The temporary pay increase will also incorporate retroactive pay going back to Oct. 1, 2021, the administration wrote in a June 21 fact sheet.

A provision of the BIL initially paused the raise’s enactment, which required USDA, DOI and the Forest Service to analyze and implement the pay increase only in areas where it’s difficult to recruit or retain firefighters. Ultimately, the agencies determined that the raise will apply to “every geographic area,” a June 21 FAQ page stated.

The temporary raise will last through September 2023, and builds on President Joe Biden’s executive order last June, which increased the base pay for all federal firefighters to at least $15 per hour.

Many federal unions and organizations voiced their support for the pay raise. The National Federation of Federal Employees, the union that represents a majority of federal wildland firefighters, said in a June 21 press release that the announcement will go a long way to help agencies hire and keep workers in those positions.

“There has been a serious recruitment and retention problem for wildland firefighters at federal agencies this year. Firefighters simply could not make ends meet on the hopelessly low salaries offered at federal agencies, so jobs were becoming very difficult to fill,” NFFE President Randy Erwin said. “For wildland firefighters, the additional income will give them the opportunity to pay for housing, childcare and other everyday necessities.”

The changes for federal firefighters include more than just a pay raise, though. The BIL funding will also support a mental health program for firefighters.

Additionally, the Office of Personnel Management, in partnership with the Forest Service and DOI, created a new wildland firefighter occupation series —something that has not existed in 50 years. OPM announced on June 21 that the occupation series defined new position descriptions for wildland firefighters.

OPM said the occupation series will support more equitable compensation and a better work-life balance for federal firefighters. In line with other recent efforts from OPM, the job postings will also call on agencies to focus on a skills-based approach when considering applicants. Federal firefighters can opt in to the series, and the new information will let agencies post more specific job opportunities with a clear career progression.

In contrast, the previous approach folded all firefighting jobs into one broad job description, making it difficult for federal wildland firefighters to understand a path for advancement, OPM wrote in a June 21 announcement.

“The new standard is an important step toward recognizing and valuing the wildland firefighter workforce,” OPM wrote. “The clarity on career progression will also support better retention. Wildland firefighters will be able to readily understand the career path and the expectations and requirements for promotions.”

The new occupation series, along with the pay raise, will help long-term efforts to improve federal firefighting positions, said OPM Director Kiran Ahuja.

“These are important steps that will provide a solid foundation for recruitment, retention and further strengthening our wildland firefighter workforce,” Ahuja said in a statement.

“For decades, federal wildland firefighters have faced the challenges of longer, more severe fire years with pay that has lagged behind their counterparts,” the White House wrote. “These measures are a significant step forward that will deliver an immediate, temporary pay raise to federal wildland firefighters across the nation, and sets federal agencies on a path to continue working with stakeholders towards an updated, competitive and equitable pay structure, along with a support system that will address the many challenges that have plagued our wildland firefighter workforce for decades.”

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers are also pushing forward on legislation to help federal firefighters receive better health benefits.

The Federal Firefighter Fairness Act would create the presumption that certain illnesses and disabilities are the result of on-the-job duties for federal firefighters, making them eligible for workers’ compensation.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee approved the bill on May 25, following the House’s passage of partnership legislation on May 12 in a vote of 288 to 131. The full Senate has not yet voted on the bill.

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

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Last month, the House passed a resolution that helps pave the way for its staff members to unionize. The measure essentially grants House staffers the same legal protections other federal employees have against retaliation if they do try to formally organize a labor union. Backers say it’s needed in part because of low pay and high turnover on Capitol Hill. But not everyone thinks it’s a good idea, including Suzanne Bates, a senior writer and researcher at Americans for Fair Treatment, a group that calls itself a union watchdog. Bates talked about what she sees as the downsides on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin.

Interview transcript:

Suzanne Bates: This is a new thing, organizing political staffers. We’ve seen it in some campaigns. And now we’re seeing it in some state legislatures. And then Congress is kind of the big prize, I think, at the end. And so our concerns are that this is already a very political space. Unions are political organizations. They spend a lot of money on politics, including elections and lobbying, $2 billion by their own accounting last year. So I think this is just going to make Congress more political than it already is. And it may lead to some unhappy staffers, not to mention members of Congress.

Jared Serbu: We don’t have a lot of experience with unionizing among members of legislative bodies. But there’s plenty of experience at the agency level. A lot of those folks are in our audience right now listening, and I think they would probably bristle at the idea that membership in a union is affecting their work or influencing their work decisions. So what’s the evidence that this would be a problem in the legislative branch?

Suzanne Bates: Sure, we’re already seeing, I mean, we’ve seen unions in federal and state agencies trying to use their positions to gain a foothold on policy issues. The latest example is the American Federation of Government Employees. One of their locals that represents EPA employees said that during collective bargaining, they plan to ask for a climate emergency declaration by President Biden. That’s, I mean, that’s not what we traditionally think of as collective bargaining, right? We think of it as being just about what the employee needs, their benefits, their pay, their working conditions. So when you add in sort of the public sector, it adds another layer of politics, and it becomes more complicated. And especially if you see something like that, where a union that represents people, members of the bureaucracy asked for an actual policy change in collective bargaining, what does that mean, for Congress, right, where you’re already talking about political staffers? There was sort of this idea that there was a dividing line between people who work for agencies, like you said, and then people who worked in political offices, because, members of Congress, members of state legislators need to be able to be more nimble, perhaps in their hiring and firing decisions. This is going to change that. I mean, we really don’t have that much experience with seeing unions in a politicized environment like this, it’s going to be very different, I think, than what you see at the agency level.

Jared Serbu: And the EPA example, you just used, I can totally understand, disagreeing with the position the union took, there in negotiations. And EPA is free to say, “You’re crazy. We’re not doing that. It’s not your position to make that request in the first place.” But it’s hard for me to get from there to public employees should therefore not have the right to organize. Draw that connection a little more closely, if you could?

Suzanne Bates: Yeah, no, I’m not saying public employees should not have the right to organize. And especially, I mean, again, at the agency level, I think we have a history of that now, we’ve seen sort of how it plays out. I do have some concerns. I mean, we work with public employees who’ve been harmed by their unions in some way. And so in a public environment, it changes the dynamics a lot, because you’re talking about people who can help elect the people who they’re bargaining with, right? And so it just changes the dynamic versus a private sector environment where you’ve kind of got this natural tension between the bosses and the workers, right. It’s just a different environment in the public sector. But we’re not saying you shouldn’t unionize the public sector. But I do think, again, the political staff, it’s just a next level. So what happens if you don’t like what your boss is doing? Do you threaten to primary the member of Congress? Do you spend money in a primary? I mean, we already know that unions do spend money in primaries trying to get rid of, or at least they fund organizations, for example, the Working Families Party, which is mostly Union funded. Primaries, members of Congress and members of state legislatures that are, who are not progressive enough for them. So what kind of bargaining chip does that create in Congress, right, where you’re talking about your boss is a member of Congress. And so are you going to use that leverage? I just think it raises questions and concerns that don’t exist again, at the agency level.

Jared Serbu: In the legislative branch, I want to address the issue of referring to these folks as political creatures. Some of them certainly are. I mean, you’ve got tons of examples of legislative assistants and communications directors, et cetera, et cetera, moving back and forth between the campaign and the congressional office. There’s a lot of people too, though, that spend their time on policy stuff, especially at the committee level. Could you could you solve some of the concerns that you have by, I don’t know, narrowing the right to unionize in some way so that people who are more directly involved in the political side of things are restricted? Or let me broaden the question out even further, is there anything in this House resolution that you would change to solve some of the concerns that you have while allowing some kind of organizing?

Suzanne Bates: Well, so we don’t know yet what the scope of collective bargaining will be. And so that wasn’t addressed in this resolution. So there’s still so many unanswered questions. So I mean, there’s some idea that we won’t see bargaining over wages or benefits. So what will they bargain over? So I think if you have a very narrow scope, then potentially, but maybe something besides like, unions, again, are just such political organizations at this point, and where we are in America, that I just can’t picture introducing unions into the legislature and not having them create more tension and a more deeply partisan political atmosphere. So like, you’re talking about the committee staff versus an office staff, right. They’re also hired by political parties to run those committees. It changes, depending on who’s in control of the of the legislature at that time. So they’re political, I mean, that’s their function. Their function is to answer to political partisan members of Congress. And so what will it mean to introduce, again, a deeply partisan political organization into that dynamic? Will it change, if the Republicans take control of the House, will the unions not be invited in anymore? I mean, I think there’s just so many questions that are still unanswered about how this would even work.

Jared Serbu: The main rationale that’s been offered for why this needs to happen is really around wages. Congressional staff wages are incredibly low for the market that folks are expected to live in there. Are there other ways to solve that problem besides unionization?

Suzanne Bates: Yeah, absolutely. Well, that’s, I think, really the wages were really terrible. The fact that they had to set a floor at $45,000. And that’s gonna raise a lot of people’s salaries, just tells you that it’s kind of considered a stepping stone right to other jobs that pay better. It ends up being a lot of sort of young staffers, but I mean, I think most people think they deserve a fair wage, right. And unions are one way to get there. That’s what the unions want. But again, are they even going to be able to bargain over wages? That’s not even determined at this point. So are there other ways? Yeah, look, they just got a raise without unions, right? They kind of publicly went out there. They have these Instagram accounts that people have created to air some of their grievances. It sounds like some sexual harassment problems are a real issue in Congress. I think we’ve known that for a long time. There probably needs to be a better way to deal with those. But I think when they take these things to the public, especially this press, there’s so much media around them. And they’re, I think, really interested in what’s going on on the Hill. They have a sympathetic audience. And they’ve clearly been able to put pressure on their bosses and they’ve gotten a raise. And I think that that can happen again. Unions are not the only way to do this.

Jared Serbu: Suzanne Bates is a senior writer and researcher at Americans for fair treatment. You can find his interview at Federal News network.com/federal Drive

The Senate on Thursday passed the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (Honoring Our PACT) Act. The bill now heads back to the House for final approval before heading to President Joe Biden’s desk.

The legislation, at its core, would expand disability compensation and health care benefits for veterans exposed to toxic substances during their military service.

VA Secretary Denis McDonough told the Senate VA Committee on Tuesday that the PACT Act, combined with the agency’s fiscal 2023 budget request, will give the VA the resources it needs to prepare its health care workforce to treat up to 3.5 million additional veterans.

“This is a very important piece of legislation. I think it’d be very difficult to implement, but oftentimes, the most important things are difficult, and I think we’re ready for it,” McDonough said.

The VA said in a statement last month that the PACT Act would be one of the largest substantive health and benefit expansions in VA’s history, comparable in scale and impact to the 1991 Agent Orange Act.

The VA’s budget request for fiscal 2023 includes $42.2 billion for medical service staffing, and provides for 22,789 full-time equivalent hires, an increase of 14,000 FTEs compared to last year.

McDonough said the PACT Act would give the VA much-needed authority to set higher pay caps for certain health care positions, and that the VA’s ability to get veterans into care more quickly is “obviously impacted by the tightness of the labor market.”

“The first thing we need to do is retain the docs that we have, and you’re giving us new authorities to do that. Pay is a big one, and you’re giving us enhanced recruiting authorities as well. We’re thinking very diligently about this and planning very diligently about making sure that we have the people in the spots, and that we have the buildings for the increased demand that we anticipate seeing,” he said.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement last week that the PACT Act marks “one of the most significant and substantive expansions of benefits and services in the Department of Veterans Affairs history,” and that the Senate is taking steps to ensure the VA has the support it needs to effectively implement the legislation.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill would increase spending subject to congressional appropriations by $147 billion through 2031. CBO estimates that 5.4 million veterans, nearly a third of the 19 million veterans in the U.S., will receive some disability compensation this fiscal year.

The PACT Act contains a slew of provisions meant to bolster the VA’s workforce, health care facilities and claims processing capabilities, and is the latest in a series of bills meant to recruit and retain in-demand health care workers and address the agency’s record-high rate of turnover.

Committee Chairman Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Ranking Member Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) introduced the bill.

Congress in March also passed the RAISE Act, which raises the pay caps for certain VA nurses and physician assistants. McDonough said about 10,000 nurses will see their salary increase next month under that legislation — that’s about one out of every nine VA nurses.

McDonough said the Office of Personnel Management recently gave the VA another year to continue with its direct-hire authority for health care workers.

But even with that expedited hiring authority, Veterans Health Administration officials recently told the committee it’s taking 95 days on average to hire new employees.

“The direct-hire authority, of the many variables in the equation of bringing people on, it’s perhaps the most impactful. It accounts for probably a third of the savings we were able to get, in terms of time to hire. But the hiring and onboarding process is still so sclerotic, that we’re finding things that can change,” McDonough said.

Among the changes the VA is looking at, McDonough said nurses have to write an essay as part of their onboarding process.

“I think that’s antiquated, and we should get rid of that,” he said.

The PACT Act outlines many provisions meant to make the VA a more attractive employer for health care workers in a competitive labor market.

The bill would also give the VA up to $40 million a year to buy out the contracts of certain private-sector health care professionals in exchange for employment at rural VA facilities.

The bill also expands recruitment and retention bonuses for VA employees, including merit awards and pay incentives for employees that have a “high-demand skill or skill that is at a shortage.” The critical-skills pay incentive cannot exceed 25% of an employee’s base pay.

The bill also includes expedited hiring authority for college graduates into competitive service jobs.

The PACT Act also gives the VA 180 days to work with OPM to establish qualifications for each human resources position within the VA, and to establish standardized performance metrics for its human resources positions.

The bill gives the VA a year to submit to the House and Senate committees a plan on how it will recruit and retain HR employees.

The agency would also have 90 days to provide enhanced monitoring of the hiring and other human resources that happen at the local regional and national levels of the department. The agency must also provide at least annual training to human resources professionals in VHA.

VHA officials told the committee last month that non-standardized HR processes at the local level have led to hiring and onboarding inefficiencies across the agency. The legislation, if signed, gives the VA 18 months to develop a national rural recruitment and hiring strategy for VHA.

As part of this strategy, the VA must determine which clinics or centers have a staffing shortage of health care professionals, and develop best practices and techniques for recruiting health care professionals for such clinics and centers. The PACT Act requires the VA to provide the House and Senate VA committees with updates on its progress in implementing the rural recruitment and hiring strategy within 18 months of the bill going into effect and then annually.

The bill would waive pay caps for VHA impacted by the closure or realignment of their official duty stations, which may happen if the agency’s recommendations to the Asset and Infrastructure Review (AIR) Commission come into focus.

The PACT Act also waives pay caps for VHA employees providing care to veterans exposed to open burn pits.

While Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman have opposed the planned closure of VA medical centers in New York, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said the VA can’t continue to deliver modern health care in outdated facilities.

“This strategy is untenable. In fact, it’s not a strategy,” Blumenthal said. “There is no way that the Veterans Administration can continue quality care with facilities of that age at a time when technology requires that the entire structure of a facility be designed and built to accommodate the most modern means of delivering care, of monitoring patient health.”

McDonough said that if the AIR Commission process doesn’t move forward, the MISSION Act still requires the VA to conduct four-year reviews of its real-estate needs in each of its regional health care markets.

“We’re watching to see what you all choose to do with the nominees for the AIR Commission. In all cases under the MISSION Act. We’re required to go back and look each four years at what the needs are in each of those markets across the country,” he said.

Meanwhile, the PACT Act authorizes 31 leases for new VA health care facilities across the country.

Bill mandates VA updates on claims automation

The PACT Act also gives the VA 180 days to submit a plan to Congress on the state of IT modernization at the Veterans Benefits Administration.

The report should identify any legacy systems the VA plans to retire or modernize, as well as update Congress on the progress the VA is making in automating claims processing decisions.

The bill states that automation “should be conducted in a manner that enhances the productivity of employees,” but keeps VA employees in charge of making the final decision of granting benefits to claimants.

The bill makes clear that the automation should “not be carried out in a manner that reduces or infringes upon the due process rights of applicants.”

McDonough told the committee that the current claims backlog is 188,000, which is down from 265,000 claims only a few months ago.

The VA announced in January that the automation pilot, through its newly created Office of Automated Benefit Delivery, is processing claims within a day or two, while the traditional method of processing these claims currently takes well over 100 days, on average.

The VA began the pilot by automating claims of service-related hypertension, and is adding three new diagnostic codes each quarter.

McDonough said that by the end of the year, the 12 most common claims will be automatable.

While the Biden administration and some lawmakers have pressed for federal employees to return to the office, McDonough said the VBA productivity increased during the pandemic.

“As we think about questions about do people come back in the office, or do they work virtually, we’re taking that into consideration,” he said.

VA is also in the process of hiring 2,000 additional claims personnel.

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• Federal workers who get injured on the job may soon have better access to workers’ compensation. The House passes legislation that would expand federal employees’ choice of medical providers. The act would cover the cost of medical care for injured federal workers who seek treatment from physician assistants and nurse practitioners. The current law limits reimbursable medical fees just to physicians. The bipartisan bill cleared the House in a vote of 325-83.
• The Senate reversed a 16-year-old law that made it harder for contractors to respond to disasters. The Repeal of Obsolete DHS Contracting Requirements Act rescinded a section of the Post-Katrina Emergency Management Reform Act of 2006. This provision required the Department of Homeland Security to prohibit the use of subcontracts for more than 65% of the cost of certain emergency response and recovery contracts. The section conflicted with a provision of the 2009 National Defense Authorization Act that imposed a governmentwide limitation to prevent excessive subcontracting. Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who co-sponsored the bill, said the provision caused confusion for FEMA officials and contractors, and weakened disaster response efforts.

• Two senators are urging President Joe Biden to update what they say is an outdated government classification system. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) said there is an urgent need to modernize rules governing classification and declassification. They are urging Biden to either amend or replace the current executive order on classified national security information. Earlier this year, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told lawmakers that overclassification is a threat to U.S. national security.

• The agency that manages the Thrift Savings Plan has a new team of leaders. The Senate confirmed four members to the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board. Dana Bilyeu and Michael Gerber are reappointments, while Leona Bridges and Stacie Olivares are new board members. The confirmation comes after six Republican senators placed a hold on the nominees last month. The lawmakers raised concerns about Chinese investments through the TSP’s mutual fund window, but after the members said they would not let TSP funds invest in China, the senators lifted the hold.

• Federal employees have a chance to help improve the Freedom of Information Act process. The FOIA Federal Advisory Committee is looking for new members after the current group finished its fourth term. The committee is made up of 20 members, divided evenly among the public and private sectors. Members serve two-year terms and attend monthly meetings to discuss possible improvements to the FOIA process. Applications for the 2022 to 2024 committee are due on June 30. The committee is a part of the Office of Government Information Services.

• The National Archives’ FOIA Federal Advisory Committee offered 21 ways departments across the government can improve the Freedom of Information Act process. The committee’s recommendations include advising agencies to post information beyond what is required by law on their FOIA websites and to proactively update an online searchable FOIA log. Their report also includes possible ideas for expanding documents included in FOIA to the judicial branch.

• The Postal Service’s regulator finds USPS’ plans to upgrade some its package services might lead to inefficiencies. The Postal Service’s proposal would upgrade service standards for its retail ground and Parcel Select Ground services to a 2-to-5 day delivery standard. USPS currently allows up to 8 days to deliver under its standard. But the Postal Regulatory Commission in a nonbinding opinion finds the plan may lead to more manual processing of packages and a higher demand for staff at facilities. The PRC says this could lead to disruptions in processing and transportation as well as cost increases. The commission’s raised concerns about USPS slowing some first-class mail and its first-class package service.

• A key group behind the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification program is rebranding. The CMMC Accreditation Body is now the Cyber AB. The independent group is responsible for accrediting organizations and individuals to conduct CMMC assessments of defense contractors. The Cyber AB said the new name is less phonetically challenging and helps differentiate it from the internal Defense Department program office. The Pentagon is still moving forward with the cyber certification program, but is not expecting to publish final rules requiring CMMC assessments until next year.

• Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Michael Langley is nominated as the next chief of U.S. Africa Command. In that position he will be responsible for operations in the Africa area of responsibility. Langley is currently the head of U.S. Marine Corps Forces Command. He will take over for Army Gen. Stephen Townsend.

• The Army laid out its digital transformation and budget priorities for 2023. It’s asking for almost $17 billion for its IT and cybersecurity budget in fiscal 2023. About $2 billion of that is for cybersecurity operations. Raj Iyer, the Army’s CIO, said 2023 is a year of inflection for their digital transformation journey. “Our technologies, our networks, how we get to data centricity, how we address cybersecurity, all of these things need to be addressed from that future threat perspective.” Iyer said investments in cloud, business system modernization and the unified network top his priority list. (Federal News Network)

• Women veterans now have more options to get screened for breast cancer. Biden signed two bills into law that will expand veterans’ access to mammograms. One bill expands the eligibility of veterans who were exposed to toxic chemicals to get the test. The other bill creates a plan to improve access to breast imaging services in rural areas where the Department of Veterans Affairs does not offer in-house tests. Female veterans are three times more likely to develop invasive breast cancer and it is currently the leading cancer affecting women who served in the military.

• A bill to help VA staff up in underserved areas is introduced in the House. The VA Workforce Investment and Expansion Act would require the VA to create a national VA Rural Recruitment and Hiring Plan, and allow the agency to waive pay caps for certain positions to compete with the private sector. The bill would also expanding hiring opportunities for housekeeping aides, which is one of the most understaffed and hardest to hire positions across the VA.

The raise could be a floor though, considering the current inflation rates and housing markets. While the markup officially has the president’s requested 4.6% bump in it, House Armed Services Committee staff said that’s not necessarily set in stone.

“We’re certainly concerned about inflation,” a staff member said. “We’ll continue to look at that. I think right now, our understanding is 4.6% is what we have. Until we make it further congressional action on this, we don’t know if we will or not, but 4.6% is the pay to pay raise the pay increase right now.”

Some service members are already having issues with pay. Last year, Congress passed a law allowing the Defense Department to implement a basic needs allowance for troops who were food insecure. A Blue Star Families survey also found that more than three-quarters of service members are paying more than $200 out-of-pocket for housing after their basic allowance for housing (BAH) benefit.

“Military families are subjected to the same inflationary pressures as their civilian counterparts and they are doing it with far fewer structures of support, and they’re doing it often on a single income,” said Jennifer Akin, co-director of research at Blue Star Families. “Even if a service member’s pay is keeping up with inflation, that doesn’t solve long standing issues with military spouse unemployment and underemployment. It doesn’t solve the compounding costs of multiple relocations, and those things just add up over time. Even if pay is keeping up with the rate of inflation that is not accounting for some of these other variables that can make it difficult to gain to gain leverage on your own finding long term financial stability.”

If Congress wants to increase the pay raise it will need to do it as an amendment in the full committee markup, an amendment on the full House vote on the bill, in the Senate version of the bill or in the reconciliation process.

The markup also requires DoD conduct a study on the value and validity of the basic pay model for service members.

As far as BAH goes, Congress wants to see if there are systemic issues with the benefit. The markup allows for a study to assess the validity of BAH calculations. In the past, some payment increases have seemed arbitrary.

End Strength

The Army said it’s basically taking a pass on any hardcore recruiting this coming year. With the labor market stretched thin and unemployment at a low point, the service said it isn’t going to expend too many resources going after a small number of recruits.

Because of that, the service will temporarily let its end strength drop about 12,000 soldiers to 473,000 active duty. The personnel subcommittee said it will play along with the Army’s tactic, but it’s still concerned about the risk.

“We did use the Army’s number because they based it their ability to meet the requirements,” committee staff said. “We felt that we would go with the number that they have. We’re going to be very much scrutinizing it because it’s such a big change. So bottom line, we took the number, obviously we’re skeptical, but we just need to make sure that they’re meeting mission requirements.”

“To me, that is the nation saying that, ‘Hey, we know up front, you’re going to need supplementals,’” said Reid, a military fellow in the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ International Security Program.

Food insecurity affected one in five military families as of 2021 — up from one in eight in 2019 — according to the Military Family Advisory Network. The issue has existed for decades and has bipartisan support in Congress, but Lloyd Austin was the first secretary of Defense to publicly direct DoD to address food insecurity for military families, just last year. The 2022 National Defense Authorization Act called for a study of food insecurity in the armed forces with results due to Congress by Oct. 1, according to CSIS.

The issue links to global supply chain complications, inflation, government assistance programs and family needs. Caitlin Welsh, director of CSIS’ Global Food Security Program, wrote in a 2021 analysis that the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or “food stamps,” eligibility is inconsistent and problematic.

“For service members who live on base, the income USDA uses to assess SNAP eligibility does not include the cost of on-base housing, as this cost is simply subtracted from the service member’s pay. For service members who live off base and receive a housing allowance — the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) — the income USDA uses to assess SNAP eligibility does include BAH, even though BAH is not considered as income for tax and other purposes,” she wrote. She went on to suggest USDA could work with Congress to exempt BAH from SNAP eligibility, as the Defense Department said it could create inequalities based on geographic location and family size.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), in a taped message for CSIS’s Policy Brief Launch: Solving Food Insecurity Among U.S. Veterans and Military Families on Tuesday, said he was perplexed that DoD has waited to study or address food insecurity for active and veteran service members until now.

“We did the hearing in the [House] rules committee that you referred to, we heard from experts who told us that our service members and veterans and their families need more support, to be able to put nutritious food on the table. They talked about improving data collection, removing the basic allowance, for housing from the SNAP calculation, base pay increases or expanding short term SNAP guarantee a smooth transition to civilian life,” he said. “But … there are answers, and there are solutions here that are simple.”

Military families struggle to make ends meet

Outside groups who have studied the issue of food insecurity in the armed services say the most impacted are junior-level enlisted service members in the E1 to E4 ranks, especially those with children. Modest pay, frequent moves that make it difficult for military spouses to find steady work, and an internal culture of self-sufficiency “leaves many reluctant to speak about their difficulties, for fear they will be regarded as irresponsible,” the Associated Press reported.

Although many soldiers rely on base dining facilities to supplement their and their families’ meals, during the pandemic those facilities closed. Much like how schoolchildren could not access lunch programs, affected service members had to look elsewhere, as Army Col. Danielle Ngo, another CSIS military fellow, pointed out.

She added the same goes for families who relied on child care providers — another scarce resource, pandemic or not — to serve daily meals. Ngo said that when she was stationed in Hawaii, she went through 11 child care providers in one year while waiting for a child development center to open. She was a brigade commander at the time but did not want to skip to the front of the line because she knew other soldiers could not afford off-base providers.

“So I looked off base to try to find child care, and it’s really hard to find qualified people who you trust to take care of your children and who will feed them a good healthy diet,” Ngo on the panel. “So it’s really important, good child care, so families don’t have to worry, soldiers don’t have to worry about how their children are being taken care of.”

Implications for military mental health

Food insecurity could have links to a separate concern in the military: mental health and suicide prevention. A separate survey of more than 5,600 respondents at a “major U.S. Army installation,” conducted by the U.S. Army Public Health Center and the Agriculture Department’s Economic Research, found that nearly 33% of respondents were marginally food insecure. The study authors said they were prompted by a commanding officer’s call to the Public Health Center to investigate a perceived increase in suicidal behavior and preventable deaths in 2019.

“Marginally food insecure” refers to individuals who report any indications of compromised economic access to food among themselves and their families.

“The mediation analyses showed that marginal food insecurity was significantly related to mental health outcomes (anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation) which were related to intentions to leave after the current service period (full mediation). These results indicate that by addressing food insecurity, there will be subsequent positive effects for mental health and for reductions in intentions to leave the Army after the current service period,” the study authors wrote.

Last summer, Federal News Network reported the Defense Department would pilot a food insecurity assessment tool for military family counselors, to use in their meetings with military families. Patricia Montes Barron, deputy assistant Defense secretary for military community and family policy, said the reason was that food insecurity can be a hard conversation to have, even with a question as simple as “Did you eat well today?”

During CSIS’s panel on Tuesday, Reid said the stigma around food insecurity could be linked to the fact that that service members are essentially given everything they need to do their jobs when they enter the military, whether at a station or deployed, including tools, equipment, directives and uniforms. Then when they cannot provide food for themselves or their families without assistance, it takes a psychological toll and hinders readiness.

The Transportation Security Administration is hiring a chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer to spearhead the work of an inclusion action committee, as some lawmakers express frustration with lack of diversity among the agency’s senior ranks.

TSA Administrator David Pekoske says the chief DEI officer will be a member of the senior executive service and join the agency within the next month. The agency’s Inclusion Action Committee recommended TSA create the new position.

Pekoske said the official will be charged with acting on other recommendations in the committee’s December 2021 report. TSA created the action committee in the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020.

“They put forth some excellent recommendations as to how we can address this from a very strategic level within the agency,” Pekoske said during a May 26 House Homeland Security transportation and maritime subcommittee hearing.

While the majority, about 55%, of TSA’s approximately 60,000 employees are persons of color, 53 out of 66 Federal Security Directors are white and 54 are men, according to Subcommittee Chairwoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.).

“I’m frustrated by the lack of TSA’s progress in diversifying its senior ranks,” she said.

Pekoske acknowledged that TSA’s senior management should reflect the diversity of TSA’s entry-level workforce. He committed to staying on top of diversity metrics, in particular at the supervisory and management levels.

“When you look at just the senior level, you really have to look down a couple to see how much diversity do you have in the in the middle management that will become your senior leaders in a few years,” Pekoske said. “And so I think it needs to be a very holistic approach across the agency.”

D&I ‘understaffed and under resourced’

Beyond the establishment of the chief DEI officer, the action committee’s 2021 report lays out multiple recommendations aimed at strengthening and sustaining TSA’s “inclusive culture,” and removing barriers to a diverse leadership.

The report urges adequate funding for TSA’s new Diversity and Inclusion Division, noting that the agency’s existing D&I program is “severely understaffed and under resourced.” That has led to “critical issues” in managing, measuring, supporting and sustaining diversity and inclusion initiatives, according to the report.

The report also identifies inconsistent disciplinary and attendance policies, respectively, as barriers to diverse leadership.

It additionally urges TSA to overhaul its promotion policies, including the adoption of a blind review process combined with the requirement to use a diverse interview panel.

“The IAC received consistent sentiment from colleagues at all levels within the agency that highlights the inconsistencies with the promotion system that has led many to believe, ‘it’s not what you know, but who you know,’” the report states. “This recommendation focuses on the application of several new requirements to reinforce a more transparent process.”

The report also recommends requiring “inclusive diversity leadership training” for all supervisory K band positions up through transportation security executive service roles. Additionally, it recommends diversity training for selecting officials “to mitigate biases and develop a tool/checklist guiding selecting officials through the selection process.”

During last week’s hearing, Pekoske said the December report is not the last word from the Inclusion Action Committee.

“That Inclusion Action Committee is not just a one-shot committee,” he said. “This is going to be a continuing committee within the agency, we just solicited for a new slate of members to come in. So we’ll change out the members on a rotating basis over the course of the years.”

TSA pay equity push

During the hearing, Pekoske also reiterated that achieving pay equity for TSA employees is his top priority.

The House passed the Rights for the TSA Workforce Act earlier this month. The legislation would bring TSA employees under the same personnel system as other federal employees under Title 5 of U.S. Code, including the General Schedule pay grade.

But the bill passed with virtually no Republican support, and it faces an uncertain future in the Senate. Lawmakers also have to separately approve the funding to grant TSA employees pay raises in fiscal 2023.

Pekoske said 81% of transportation security officers make less than equivalent employees at other agencies who are paid under the General Schedule. Meanwhile, 51% of the agency’s non-TSO workforce is paid less than their counterparts at other agencies.

The Biden administration is proposing to fund the pay increase by ending the diversion of passenger security fees to pay off the federal deficit. Instead, TSA would be able to keep an additional $1.5 billion in fees in FY-23

Pekoske said TSA delivered the legislative proposal for ending the diversion of the fees to Congress on May 2.

He noted the imperative to ensure TSA’s workforce stays stable and grows as travel is projected to return to pre-pandemic levels starting this summer.

“If these long standing pay challenges are not fully addressed in fiscal year ’23, I am concerned that it would lead to even higher rates of attrition and significantly undercut our recruitment efforts,” he said. “We can’t let this happen because this is a time where we need to grow.”

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Like every other industry, the government has a continuing need for new talent.  For some new ideas on how the federal government can stay in the competition, Federal Drive with Tom Temin  turned to Bill Eggers, the executive director of Deloitte center for government insights.

Interview transcript:

Tom Temin: Now, this newest study kind of looks at both how the world of work itself has changed, and therefore, it’s changed the rules of the game with respect to recruiting and retaining people. That’s the basic thesis here?

Bill Eggers: Absolutely. That workplace of today is very different even than the workplace of three years ago, as we read about on a daily basis in the news.

Tom Temin: All right, so first of all, how did you go about kind of coming up with your recommendations for the government in the first place?

Bill Eggers: Well, I think it’s first just to understand what the main issue is. In the war for talent, the government is finding itself outgunned right now. When you talk to public managers looking to hire professional technical talent, we just always hear the same story, you can’t hire them, you can’t keep them. And this is at a time when the public sector is facing a whole slew of complex challenges from climate change to cybercrime that require these very highly skilled workers. And while it’s always been difficult for government to sometimes attract that top talent, especially young tech savvy professionals today, it often feels close to impossible in this sort of job market that we’re in which I haven’t seen anything like this and decades and decades. You know, most people don’t realize it, but from January 2020 to January 22, government lost more than 600,000 workers more than manufacturing, wholesale trade and construction combined. And when you look at the federal workforce, only 8% is under the age of 30, compared to close to 25% in the private sector. And at the same time, we are starting to see a lot of retirement eligible employees are accelerating retirement plans, the highest percentage at the state and local level since the survey actually began in 2009. So government has a lot of headwinds facing right now as it’s trying to attract talent in this area where they dramatically need to increase the workforce component of those in the Gen Z and millennials.

Tom Temin: And heading your list of ways for the government to attract and retain talent is flexibility in where, when, how, people work. And that seems to be the government’s weakest spot, because it’s the most rigid in many ways, work environment of all.

Bill Eggers: When you look at job postings, when you look at all this survey data, it’s really clear that for Gen Z, millennials, flexibility across all dimensions is really table stakes, it’s the most important thing. They’re looking for jobs that work for them, which means better compensation, better work-life balance and an environment where they feel a sense of belonging. And if you have jobs that say that you’re going to have to come into the office five days a week, and there’s no flexibility there, the amount of job applications you’re going to get is dramatically, dramatically lower than other sort of positions that offer more flexibility. And a couple other major aspects of this generation of workers is that they’re increasingly prioritizing their physical and mental health well being and seeking employers who are going to do the same. 73% are seeking mental health coverage, 72% say health and wellness stipends are critical, and they also just want a job that makes a difference. So this notion of well being, flexibility, pay. And of course, there’s always purpose and impact, which has always attracted  people to government. But there’s these other factors now that in all this survey evidence show they are just as important, and government’s going to have to compete in those areas.

Tom Temin: It looks like government agency by agency is beginning to show that flexibility, at least with respect to where and when people work. In terms of the hours they choose to work or the location, almost by default, because they have no other choice, even with the employees.  And this is in the absence of any congressional mandate here or any even White House kind of overarching policy, except it seems to be, do what works best for you.

Bill Eggers: Yeah, and I think that is critical. And I will say that the questions we get the most often around this area are how do you make hybrid work actually work? It’s more difficult to do hybrid environment than an all remote or an all in-person, as we found when we tried to do hybrid meetings and so on. And you have to focus on all those elements, a culture of respect and inclusion, belonging, and also how do you do mentor in this sort of environment? How do you replace those water cooler conversations? How are you intentional about where work actually happens when you actually do need to bring people together? And I also think there’s a big piece of this just around opportunities. We’re seeing a very entrepreneurial generation that they want to seek opportunities to do entrepreneurial work at work. And one of the ways that governments can do this is encouraging workers to pursue diverse projects. So investing in resources like internal talent marketplaces. And these are forms where employees can look for rotations, projects, new roles within the organization to really provide this mechanism for engaging in projects that they’re passionate about. They’re gaining experiences in new roles. We see this at NASA, with their talent marketplace, the armed services now have talent marketplaces, as does the Department of Energy and the Canadian government has something called the free agent model. And those are all examples of offering people diverse kinds of experiences while working in government, which is actually one of the biggest benefits that governments can really sell to employees as an attractive place to work.

Tom Temin: We’re speaking with Bill Eggers, he’s executive director of Deloitte’s center for government insights. And many of those measures can be done at the discretion of federal managers and executives, if only they’ll choose to do that. But there’s one on the list here, individualized rewards and non-traditional benefits. And that gets into the area of title five, and so forth. And you just can’t hand out bonus checks willy nilly, maybe at the state and local level, but at the federal level, is there any pathway toward that kind of individualization?

Bill Eggers: Absolutely. The key thing is that there are lots of different ways of going about this. It’s not just a one size fits all sort of thing. You know, by allowing employees to choose their rewards, you can boost satisfaction. So one employee, for example, might value a childcare stipend or voucher points to use for grocery delivery, while another might prefer a retail card or others might be really interested in making sure that they have very good mental health coverage and encouraging conversations on the topic. So you can foster trust in that way. But there are, you know, a lot of examples where governments are beginning to do this. The issue governments have is that the private sector is moving really, really rapidly towards offering kind of unprecedented benefits in a lot of these areas, and certainly around well being, and so forth. And so that’s an area, I think that it’s important for government, as an employer who’s also trying to model good behavior for the private sector, to be more at the cutting edge and less a laggard in this area going forward. And you know, the thing we haven’t talked about so far is just the whole pay issue, which is, it’s very apparent that pay matters and compensation right now, by Gen Z is the most important factor behind their employment choices, decisions to switch jobs. And so we’re going to need more of what we’ve seen at the Department of Homeland Security with their cyber talent management system, which is more flexible ways of having competitive pay and time pay increases to mission impact instead of just tenure or recognition payments. Unlike the general schedule, the DHS cyber system doesn’t beat your automatic pay increases, it offers a lot more of this sort of flexibility and for especially these highly technical sort of areas, that’s going to be really, really critical for government to be able to recruit people out of grad school or from other sorts of positions, which are really, really crucial right now for government to meet its mission impact.

Tom Temin: That’s right. There are a lot of flexibilities in the system now. In terms of hiring, I think the number varies. 125 job flexibilities and you see these reports from time to time that agency managers only use a handful of them. But there’s probably tools that are just simply sitting in a bucket. If someone wanted to exercise them, they could pull them out and loosen them up and probably try it.

Bill Eggers: No, absolutely. I think that’s what you will hear often from OPM and OMB is that agencies have a lot more flexibility in this area than they’re actually looking. You know, and on the good side of things the OPM’s recent strategic plan pledged to make the federal government a model employer and transform OPM into a leader in human capital management. And that plan included a bunch of hiring objectives in terms of increases in military spouses, 10 percent increase in early career employees. And over the long term, OPM is really focused on a government-wide policy and coordination with the CHCOs throughout the federal government, so that they can make a lot of this happen. But I think it is going to require managers who are hiring people in the human capital shops, really understanding all of those flexibilities and understanding that it’s absolutely going to be critical to use all the flexibilities they have and and then additional flexibilities they might need to ask for them. At the state and local level, there’s actually fewer flexibilities oftentimes than you see at the federal level. And so that might actually require legislation at the state level or city council level to give more of this sort of flexibility, which has become table stakes in today’s workplace.

Tom Temin: Bill Eggers is executive director of Deloitte center for government insights.

As a kid growing up in downtown D.C (locals rarely say Washington) we didn’t have much money. But my pals and I had the best playground anywhere. We had at our disposal dozens of museums, galleries and other venues. They were also — most still are — free! Even when we skipped school we often headed for one of the Smithsonian museums, or the National Geographic. So even while playing the truant and goofing out it was hard not to learn stuff. One of my favorite school week vacation spots was the National Archives on Pennsylvania Ave. Chock full of interesting, historic documents. And a great gift shop.

One thing that puzzled me was the giant words “What’s past is prologue” chiseled in front of the building. Weird. At the time! It was years before I learned it was Shakespeare (what isn’t?) or its very deep meaning. That is, people and events tend to repeat history. This is definitely true year-after-year in the federal workforce. Now back to reality, the 2023 federal pay raise and the January inflation-adjustment for retirees…

By law retirees get COLAs (inflation catch-ups) each January. Working feds usually get a pay raise based on political and fiscal conditions. This coming increase, for both feds and retirees, could be the biggest in years. And retirees are likely to score a bigger percentage increase than active duty folks. And every time this happens, dozens, hundreds, maybe thousands of about-to-retire feds try to figure out how they could get at least some of the new COLA even while their unused annual leave and final salary includes some or all of next years’ raise. So we asked the world’s leading authority on federal benefits, Tammy Flanagan. She agreed to be on our Your Turn radio show (today at 10 a.m. EDT) to explain why it is impossible to get full shares of both, but possible to get a piece of the action, if your timing is right. She sent us this preview of what’s happened in the past. The prologue part is up to you. Here’s how she explains it using this year’s COLA and raise, as an example:

The difference between the raise and the COLA most years prompts some workers to put in their retirement papers in December. The idea was to tack some or all of the COLA onto their starting annuity benefit while getting paid for unused annual leave (vacation time) at the new higher rate. Great in theory. But it falls short in practice. In fact, if you think the 2023 COLA will be much bigger than the proposed pay raise, there is still time to act. But not much time. And the longer retirement is delayed the less the reward. In fact, to get the full 2023 COLA you should have left months ago.

Here’s the deal:

While people retiring at the last minute can and do get some (or all) of their annual leave payment at the new higher rate, they can’t (and won’t) get credit for being retired while they were still working. In fact, to get the full amount of the January COLA, either 5.9% or 4.9%, they would have had to retire no later than December of 2020. When the final numbers came out, we heard from half a dozen angry or perplexed workers who learned, too late, they couldn’t turn back the clock. One said “…why does it matter when you retire? If inflation is up they are going to have to live with it, so they should get the COLA that reflects it.”

Regardless of what people think should happen, the law is the law. So how does it work?

For more on the pay raise vs. COLA issue we turned to Tammy Flanagan. She is the ultimate federal benefits expert (after years with Uncle Sam) who now advises federal clients on how to get the most from their benefit package. She’s also a columnist for Government Executive. She can be reached at: Tammy@retirefederal.com. Here’s the timetable chart she provided:

She provided us with this chart showing how the COLA is pro-rated, based on when an individual retires. It isn’t the year that matters, but the month of the year that you decide to retire. So if you’ve got a friend hoping to take advantage of a higher COLA tell him or her that the clock is ticking. Here’s the magic formula:

*Your FERS annuity will be increased for cost-of-living adjustments, if:

• You are over age 62; or
• You retired under the special provision for air traffic controllers, law enforcement personnel or firefighters; or
• You retired on disability, except when you are receiving a disability annuity based on 60% of your high-three average salary. This is generally during the first year of receiving disability benefits; or
• Your retirement includes a portion computed under Civil Service Retirement System rules.
• FERS retirees under age 62 who do not fall into one of the categories above are not eligible for cost-of-living increases until they reach age 62.

If, and this is important, you’ve been receiving retirement benefits for less than one year and are eligible for a cost-of-living adjustment, you’ll get a percentage of the cost-of-living increase. The percentage depends on how long you were receiving your annuity before the effective date of the increase.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By David Thornton

Checking your phone is contagious, for the same reason yawning is.

Source: Smithsonian Magazine

The less than good news is that workers and retirees will need every penny of the near-record raise and COLA. Maybe plus some, just to keep pace with inflation reflected in everything from gasoline and rent to bagels and baby food. For a variety of reasons everything from luxury items to basics — eggs, cereal, medicine and cars — is going up.

So while it’s too early to be forecasting the precise 2023 final numbers, it is very likely both will be the highest in years. And that’s mixed good news, as always, because the inflation rate (currently 8.3%) is going to eat into whatever percentage amount federal, military and Social Security retirees get next year. The inflation-adjustment for retirees (FERS, CSRS, Social Security and military) COLA is likely to be higher — as a percentage — than any federal civilian or military pay raise. For some it will be one step forward, two steps back. For others it will be a financial exercise in treading water.

The White House proposed a 4.9% increase for all feds except those capped at different steps of GS-15 in many cities. House Democrats are pushing for a 5.1% pay raise next January. As always the final amount will be a political-fiscal decision.

The January inflation catch-up will be determined by the official rate of inflation. That’s as determined by the Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index for urban wage earners based on the rise of living costs from the current third quarter (July, August and September) over the third quarter for the previous year. That will be computed and announced in early October. Currently some specialists who track it say the COLA could come in around 6%. But this is now, and based partly on the fact that the year to year increase dropped from 8.5% in March to 8.3% in April.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By David Thornton

The Mary River turtle is a cloacal ventilator, meaning it breathes oxygen through its anus.

Source: Australia Zoo

A perennial effort to increase pay and benefits for Transportation Security Administration employees took a major step forward this week after the House passed the Rights for the TSA Workforce Act of 2022 on Thursday.

The bill would bring 60,000 TSA employees, including transportation security officers, under the same personnel system as other federal employees under Title 5 of U.S. Code. That includes full collective bargaining rights, access to an independent third party for dispute resolutions and the General Schedule pay system.

Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), one of the leading sponsors of the bill, called it “the right thing to do” in a statement released after the bill passed the House. The bill would eliminate the special personnel authorities that have governed workplace conditions for TSA employees since the agency’s inception two decades ago.

“It’s long past time that we place this critical workforce under Title 5 to provide better pay and full collective bargaining rights,” Thompson said. “Doing so will reduce attrition, boost morale and improve and professionalize the TSA workforce.”

The House passed the bill 220-201, almost entirely along party lines, with four Republicans joining Democrats in voting for the measure.

Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member John Katko (R-N.Y.) declined to support the bill. He said he supports increasing pay and benefits for frontline TSO’s, but not for the rest of the TSA workforce.

“If the bill was limited to just them, I would support it,” Katko said on the House floor. “Why do we have to make it for everyone else?”

Katko said he thinks the bill will be “dead on arrival” in the Senate. Republicans also objected to giving TSA employees full collective bargaining.

But Katko said he will support increased appropriations for TSA to raise the salaries of the frontline screening workforce. The Biden administration has proposed a fiscal year 2023 budget for TSA that would finance the agency’s pay equity plan, including a 30% average increase in base pay for TSO’s.

Meanwhile, the American Federation of Government Employees applauded the House passing the bill, and called on the Senate to quickly pick up the legislation.

“TSA officers have been treated as second-class citizens for far too long,” AFGE President Everett Kelley said in a statement. “Despite the unfair pay and treatment, they continue show up for their country each and every day. They have worked for no pay during government shutdowns and put their health at risk throughout the pandemic to ensure the traveling public is safe.”

In the Senate, similar legislation was introduced last year by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.). It was referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, which has yet to take further action on the bill.

‘Many positive effects’

The Biden administration has backed the legislation, and in a Jan. 19 letter to Thompson, TSA Administrator David Pekoske laid out the agency’s analysis of the bill. 

“Our analysis indicates we will see many positive effects from this important legislation; the ability to achieve pay equity for our Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) chief among them,” Pekoske wrote.

Specifically, the entire TSO workforce would see an average 30% pay increase if the bill was fully enacted, according to the document. The average annual salary for transportation security screeners nationwide was $44,920 in May 2020, according to the latest available data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, although wages vary across geographic regions.

According to Pekoske’s letter, 75% of TSA employees are paid less than the minimum pay that a federal employee with equivalent experience would receive under the General Schedule wage system.

“Limited pay progression, due to budget constraints in recent years, has resulted in
inequitable compensation for our workforce compared to our federal counterparts,” Pekoske wrote. “It also has made recruiting increasingly difficult and resulted in relatively high attrition rates, particularly for TSOs.”

Meanwhile, TSA’s law enforcement workforce would see an average 21% pay increase if the legislation is fully enacted and funded, according to the agency’s analysis.

Ensuring equitable pay for its employees is a “critical step in positioning TSA for long-term success,” Pekoske wrote.

“Over time, these steps may reduce the high levels of attrition in the TSO workforce as well,” he wrote.

GAO reviews and air marshal assistance

The House-passed bill would also direct the Government Accountability Office to review implementation of the new personnel processes within 60 days of TSA employees being converted to Title 5.

Additionally, it would direct GAO to review TSA’s efforts to recruit veterans, members of the armed forces, and their dependents, including recommendations on how to improve those processes.

It would also encourage the TSA administrator to work with organizations that represent federal air marshals to address mental health, suicide rates, and morale and recruitment issues. TSA oversees the Federal Air Marshal Service.

“Data from the Air Marshal Association show that air marshals are at high risk for extreme fatigue due to the long hours they spend on planes and their irregular sleep schedules,” Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.) said on the House floor. “Many marshals also report mental health issues and a reliance on medications and alcohol to fall asleep.”

The bill would also direct a one-time $3,000 bonus payment for hazard duty to TSA employees who had substantial contact with the public during the pandemic. It would additionally direct the TSA to work with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to ensure employees have proper protection from COVID-19 going forward.

Top priority

The legislation would codify into law efforts already underway by the Biden administration to raise pay and benefits for TSA employees. Biden also recently re-nominated Pekoske to serve another five-year term as TSA administrator. Pekoske has called supporting the workforce his “top priority.”

Last June, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas directed TSA to expand collective bargaining rights for TSO’s, negotiate an agreement to bring appeals before the Merits Systems Protection Board, and develop a plan to pay screeners in line with the General Schedule.

In September, TSA and the MSPB reached an agreement that allows TSOs to appeal some firings, demotions and long-term suspensions before the board.

Meanwhile, AFGE has called on TSA to expand collective bargaining for TSOs immediately. But TSA told the union it needs additional funding to hire staff that can support an expanded labor framework.

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The inspectors general for two intelligence agencies were each overpaid by tens of thousands of dollars between 2016 and 2020. That’s according to an internal Defense Department memo a whistleblower supplied to Empower Oversight, an outside watchdog group. There’s no clear evidence anyone intentionally did anything wrong. There’s also no evidence the money’s been repaid or whether the matter has been properly investigated. Jason Foster is founder and president of Empower Oversight. He spoke with Federal News Network’s Jared Serbu on the Federal Drive with Tom Temin about what we know and don’t know.

Interview transcript:

Jason Foster: The memo was provided to the DoD inspector general’s office and it walks through the relevant legal authorities for inspector general pay because inspector general pay is set by statute. And inspectors general are senior officials who are subject to a pay freeze and so the memo went through and concluded and reported findings to the DoD IG that these two inspectors general at NSA and NRO had been, according to this official at DoD, overpaid the amounts of approximately $18,000 total for one of the IGs and approximately $150,000 total for the other IG. And this is over a multiple-year timeframe.

Jared Serbu: And you’re fairly confident at this point that that memo is authentic, even though it was not provided to you from an official source of any kind?

Jason Foster: Yes, so we attached a copy of the memo to our FOIA requests to all the agencies that we asked about it. And in our FOIA request, we explicitly said that we had received it from an anonymous source and couldn’t independently authenticate it. However, since we sent those FOIA requests we were contacted by multiple other sources, who did authenticate the memo who we know who they are, and they are in a position to know that it’s an authentic memo.

Jared Serbu: And I believe you’ve seen a response from the NSA IG that basically just indicates this was a clerical error that he knew nothing about at the time. Anything similar from NRO, so far?

Jason Foster: No, we’ve had no contact from NRO. And I would note just that the amount for the NRO IG, the total amount of the alleged overpayments is much higher, it’s much more significant than with the, in one case, it was just the NSA IG got a cost of living increase that the DoD memo says he wasn’t entitled to. However, with the NRO IG, you’re talking about overpayments of over $40,000 a year for several years totaling about $150,000.

Jared Serbu: Yeah, can you unpack that one, maybe a little bit more? Because that one, it looks as, for one thing it spans over more years than the NSA IG overpayments did. But also it looks in that case as though the official started at a higher salary than would have been entitled to under law and then continue to get increases year after year after that.

Jason Foster: Yeah, that’s exactly correct. So we lay out the numbers from the memo in our FOIA request. And, you know, this is, again, the these are approximate and we don’t have access to the underlying records. We just have the summary memo that the DoD provided to the DoD IG. And you know, according to that memo, the overpayments were about $5,000 in 2016; about $20,000 in 2017; about $38,000 in 2018; about $40,000 in 2019; and about $45,000 in 2020. I mean, this is significantly above the level at what an executive level, I think it’s executive level three, I think is the pay cap for a presidentially appointed inspector general.

Jared Serbu: I know you said you’ve not gotten any official responses from NRO yet, but is there any document in your possession or anything that you’ve seen that would lead you to come up with some reason why this might have happened in that case?

Jason Foster: I mean, I have a little bit of insight, again, from sources who contacted me after we sent the FOIA request as sort of what the backstory was. When this memo came over to the DoD OIG, they then referred it to the Council of Inspectors General Integrity Committee (CIGIE), which is sort of the self-policing body for inspectors general, to see if there was any potential investigation that body ought to do. I don’t know whether they also informed the White House or Congress or anyone else, but it’s because the DoD IG is the one who referred it to the integrity committee, there were concerns about potential retaliation if, because the NSA IG is the nominee to be the new DoD IG, right? And so it’s the office that he would be taking over where people had, just doing what they thought was their duty, referred it for potential inquiry. And we raised questions about why the integrity committee didn’t look at it, and how can this not have been elevated to responsible people in the political branches, either in Congress or the White House and sort of how, it’s just sort of perplexing, like, how could this happen without anybody knowing, and without it being public? You don’t have accidental pay raises going to other IG’s and I don’t know if it’s because they’re national security components. And so there’s just not as much transparency or what the explanation is.

Jared Serbu: Let’s unpack that CIGIE piece a little bit, I think the allegation in your original whistleblower communication was not only was CIGIE aware that these overpayments had happened and didn’t really do any kind of investigation, but may have also alerted the people who would have been the subjects of the investigation. Is that right?

Jason Foster: That’s correct. So the source who provided the memo to us also alleged that in CIGIE meetings, there was essentially a heads up to the other IGs and said, “Hey, this is something that came in to the integrity committee, and you should double check and make sure your houses there in order, right? Basically, there’s going to be scrutiny on this.” So there was, like I said, essentially, a heads up to everyone to make sure that they weren’t in a similar position.

Jared Serbu: I want to stress I don’t think there’s really any hard evidence at this point that there was any impropriety on the part of CIGIE or, frankly, anyone else at this point because we just haven’t seen the documents yet. But does this kind of structure give you any kind of pause just in terms of how inspectors general are overseen? It is really, as you said, really just a self policing body where the inspectors general themselves are really the only oversight they have other than each of their respective agency directors, or am I missing something?

Jason Foster: Right, and Congress, right. I mean, and technically CIGIE, there’s an OMB official who is part of CIGIE by statute. So that’s supposed to be the line of oversight to the White House. But again, with my background and working years and years on issues around the IG community from Capitol Hill, my concern is there needs to be transparency and oversight and questions being asked from Capitol Hill about these things. I mean, this is ultimately, the structure, as you said, it is largely a self-policing structure. The integrity committee itself, the NSA IG was the vice chair of the integrity committee at the time this report came in and so had to recuse himself. My understanding is he did properly as I would expect, he recused himself from any consideration of this particular matter. But the standards are very opaque and vague as to what the integrity committee will open an investigation on and what it won’t open an investigation on. And there has been a lot of dissatisfaction on Capitol Hill over the years with the integrity committee’s performance. It seems to be either too aggressive in some cases for some reasons and not aggressive enough in other cases. And there’s no sort of coherent explanation for why they will open up an investigation on some and not open investigations on others. And my argument from the time even from when I was on Capitol Hill as a staffer dealing with CIGIE and its leadership was you need to manage this situation, when you have a problem like this, that has the potential to tarnish the reputation of the inspector general community writ large. You need to show some leadership and and make sure that it’s raised to the political branches to deal with, and that folks on the Hill and the folks in the White House know when there’s an issue and can step in and resolve it one way or the other.

Jared Serbu: To the best of your knowledge, is anyone on the Hill actively looking into this?

Jason Foster: We published an update to our press release that included questions for the record from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who had asked the NSA IG about the overpayments in the course of his confirmation proceedings, because he’s the nominee to be the new DoD inspector general. And so that’s the only one where I know we were provided a copy of the answer that the NSA inspector general provided to Sen. Hawley’s office in response to that question for the record. But I know that that nomination hasn’t moved forward in the last several weeks and that there were attempts to hotline it, and to have it passed by UC and that that hasn’t occurred yet.

Jared Serbu: Just one more question on transparency. Beyond transparency around policy, is what you call it opaque a second ago, what else could or should CIGIE be doing to make the whole process that they run more transparent, and as you said, increase that or maintain that level of trust that everybody needs to have in the IG community?

Jason Foster: Well, we tried to impose some of that transparency back in 2016, when I worked on the IG empowerment act, and we had, there were dissatisfaction then on both sides of the aisle about the speed with which integrity committee investigations were being completed. And we passed at that time, a reporting requirement that said that when the integrity committee has an investigation on an IG that’s open for more than 180 days, that then you have to send a report up to Congress with an explanation. Well, since I’ve been off the Hill and I’m now in this role in an outside watchdog organization, we actually FOIA’d a whole bunch of those reports. They’re not routinely made public. The statute didn’t require them to make public so if Congress doesn’t post them or put them out, then nobody sees them. And when we got them, we were sort of shocked by how little information is actually in them. So they’re constantly punting on these investigations. They stay open for extremely long periods of time, and then they send these perfunctory reports up to Congress technically satisfying the statute, but really not telling you much about why it’s taking so long. There were some people who wanted, who had argued for actual caps with requirements that look, you got to finish this investigation within X amount of time or something, some kind of consequence occurs. But they fought that, and we sort of had this compromise of the reporting requirement. But it doesn’t seem to be doing much. So I know that there’s talk among good government groups on the outside across the ideological spectrum about readdressing integrity committee reforms, because nobody seems to be happy with the progress on either side.