Category: Congress

‘OPM sent a signal’: Still no final regulations on 2017 administrative leave law

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After six years, agencies are still missing the final regulations they need to make significant changes to federal administrative leave policy. Congress gave the Office of Personnel Management 270 days to implement new federal leave regulations under the Administrative Leave Act, a provision included in the fiscal 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. But OPM has missed that deadline by far — at least for some of the more complicated changes to the leave policy. Congress passed the Administrative Leave Act to create three categories of administrative leave, or paid leave…

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This bipartisan bill would give the GSA new cybersecurity responsibility

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A bill before the House would create a new cadre of people to help the government in case of a serious cyber attack. The National Digital Reserve Corps would be managed by the General Services Administration. To learn more about the Corps, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with Texas Congressman Tony Gonzales. Interview transcript: Tony Gonzales First off, I am a retired Navy Master Chief. I spent 20 years and in the Navy as a naval cryptologist, with a top secret SCI clearance. I spent five years in…

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What the FAA messaging system debacle said to all federal contractors

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Few people heard of the FAA’s NOTAM system until it crashed and brought aviation to a standstill earlier this month. The FAA blamed a contractor for accidentally deleting files, such that the system failed to synchronize. The Federal Drive with Tom Temin next guest says the incident speaks to all contractors about the need to supervise their people. Federal sales and marketing consultant Larry Allen joins me now. Interview transcript: Tom Temin Somebody wasn’t watching the watcher or something broke down here in a procedure, Larry, the files were deleted.…

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Democrats reintroduce bill to give feds 8.7% average pay raise next year

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A bicameral pair of Democrats proposed a bill to give federal employees a pay raise in 2024, in what has become an annual tradition in recent years. Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) reintroduced the Federal Adjustment of Income Rates (FAIR) Act in the House and Senate, respectively, to give most civilian employees an 8.7% average pay raise next year. Specifically, the bill includes a 4.7% across-the-board base pay raise, plus a 4% average locality pay increase. The legislation also includes a 4.7% raise for prevailing rate…

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Reintroduced bills aim to fix hiring process, Social Security benefits for feds

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Lawmakers have teed up two familiar bills that differ in their priorities, but that both have implications for federal employees, as well as retirees from the public sector. The first bill, the Chance to Compete Act, aims to revamp longstanding challenges in the federal hiring process. The House passed the bill Tuesday evening in a vote of 422 to 2. The bipartisan legislation would expand the use of shared assessments among different agencies, in effect trying to expand cross-agency hiring. Also under the legislation, subject matter experts (SMEs) would be…

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Boiling the frog: How civil servants are being politicized before our eyes

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Despite herculean efforts by its Democratic sponsors, a statutory ban on the Trump administration’s controversial Schedule F failed in the last session of Congress, and the chances of it passing in the next two years are now less than zero. As many readers know, Schedule F would have made political loyalty to a particular elected official (in this instance, former President Donald Trump) the litmus test for the retention of thousands of career civil servants in the federal government’s Executive Branch. That’s scary, especially to me, and I resigned from…

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