Federal Daily - May 16, 2008
Sick Leave Use Accelerates near Retirement, Treasury Says
As they near retirement, IRS employees are likely to use up accumulated sick days rather than lose
the time off, according to a new Treasury Department survey of agency sick leave. Approximately 97,000
IRS employees took a total of more than 15 million hours of sick leave in calendar years 2005 and 2006,
the report found, costing the IRS $450 million in salary plus lost productivity. Revenue officers alone
took 959,030 hours of total sick leave, resulting in $256 million in potential lost revenue from uncollected
taxes, the report noted. The study, released this week by Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., provided stark evidence
that workers in the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) have no incentive to conserve annual
sick leave. Workers under the older Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS), however, have an inducement
to save sick leave because it boosts their retirement annuity. Moran has introduced a bill, H.R. 5573,
that would provide FERS employees with an incentive by awarding them a lump-sum payment for unused
leave. “This report confirms that the current ‘use-it or lose-it’ sick leave policy
is failing our federal agencies and our civil servants,” said Moran. “This policy is bad
for employee morale and is costing taxpayers $68 million per year in productivity losses.” To
see more, go to: http://moran.house.gov.
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DoD Names ROTC Language and Culture Grantees
DoD on May 14 announced its 2008 Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) Language and Culture Project
grantees, who together will use more than $3 million in grants to offer ROTC candidates the chance
to study strategically critical languages and cultures. This year’s recipients include Arizona
State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Louisiana State University, North Georgia College & State
University, Texas A&M University, University of South Florida, University of Utah and Virginia
Military Institute. Each university will provide something unique to the two-year-old program, DoD
said in a statement. For example, Arizona State’s Critical Languages Institute offers students
Tadjik, Uzbek, Tatar and Russian, and allows participants to travel to the region for cultural immersion.
Texas A&M University offers scholarships to study Arabic and Chinese abroad. To see more, go to: www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=11924.
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Air Marshal Director Dana Brown to Retire
Dana Brown, the head of the Federal Air Marshal Service (FAMS), will be stepping down at the end of
the year, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Administrator Kip Hawley announced last week.
Brown has served for more than two years as chief of FAMS, which is part of TSA's Office of Law Enforcement.
A former enlisted Marine and Vietnam veteran, Brown joined FAMS in 2003—serving as FAMS Chief
of Staff until his appointment as director in 2006. Brown began his law enforcement career as a police
officer in Fairfax County, Va., and then served for 25 years in the U.S. Secret Service before joining
FAMS. To see more, go to: www.tsa.gov/press/happenings/dana_brown_retirement.shtm.
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