Federal Daily - August 12, 2009
OPM Decides to Retain Time-in-Grade Regulation
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) announced in an Aug. 11 Federal Register notice that it would retain the time-in-grade (TIG) regulation, and abandon plans to eliminate it proposed by the previous administration. TIG, which applies to federal employees in competitive service General Schedule (GS) positions grades 5 and above, requires employees to serve for 52 weeks at a position before becoming eligible for a promotion. A rule change proposed in the waning days of the Bush administration last year would have abolished TIG, and employees would have been promoted whenever supervisors determined that they met the qualifications for a new position. In submitting comments, employee organizations noted that without TIG, managers could hire candidates who qualify for higher-grade levels (such as GS-12) to positions at lower-grade levels (GS-5), and then promote them quickly to higher-graded positions without competition. The net effect would be that such employees would obtain a higher-graded position such as GS-12 based on competition at the lower-graded position. The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) applauded OPM’s move. “Many managers are not well-trained,” said NTEU President Colleen Kelley, “and pay or promotion schemes instituted without training, objective criteria and adequate oversight can lead—and have led—to favoritism, nepotism and actual illegal discrimination.” NTEU pointed out that agencies already have the ability to reward employees within the GS pay system, for example through Quality Step Increases for superior performance. OPM said that it would consider revamping the TIG rule at a later date as part of a larger review of the way the federal government pays its employees. To see more, go to: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/E9-19174.htm or
www.nteu.org/PressKits/PressRelease/PressRelease.aspx?ID=1468.
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EPA Orders Staff to Cooperate with IG
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lisa Jackson ordered agency staff to cooperate with the EPA Office of Inspector General (OIG) — effectively reversing parts of an existing internal “gag order,” according to documents posted Aug. 10 on the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) Web site. Jackson’s Aug. 7 email to all EPA employees partially rescinds a June 16, 2008, email distributed throughout EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance warning staff not to respond to outside questions without prior approval. The Jackson memo partially reverses that policy, stating: “It is imperative that, upon request, agency personnel provide OIG auditors, evaluators and investigators with full and unrestricted access to personnel, facilities, records (including, but not limited to, reports, databases and documents), or other information.” Although the Jackson memo lifts the ban on talking with the OIG, it left unanswered whether the 2008 prohibition against speaking to congressional investigators, the Government Accountability Office and the media was still in place, PEER noted. “Unfortunately, the new policy appears to be that EPA employees will be only half-gagged,” said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. “It shows how low EPA had sunk that the administrator must signal as a policy change that employees will now cooperate with their own Inspector General.” To see more, go to: www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=1227.
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Bill Would Expand Veterans’ Use of Medicare Benefits
Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., has introduced a bill that would—if passed into law—allow veterans to use their Medicare benefits to receive health care from the Veterans Health Administration at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The bill, H.R. 3365, the Medicare Reimbursement Act, would require VA to develop a program that would allow the department to bill Medicare for services rendered to vets enrolled in Medicare Part A or B. Under current law, VA has the authority to bill enrolled veterans and their private health care insurers for the treatment of veterans’ non-service-connected conditions. However, current law prohibits VA from billing Medicare, Filner said, thereby barring older vets from using their earned Medicare benefits at VA health care facilities. H.R. 3365 also prohibits setting a reimbursement rate which is less than 100 percent of the amount that Medicare would pay a participating provider, Filner said. Introduced last month, the bill has been referred to the House Veterans Affairs health subcommittee. To see more, go to: http://veterans.house.gov/news/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=461.
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APWU Urges Members to Rally Against Arbitration Amendment
The American Postal Workers Union (APWU) is urging members to use the congressional summer recess to organize grassroots opposition to a Postal Service relief bill amendment that APWU says would ruin the collective bargaining process. Senators left town last week without voting on a final version of the Postal Service Retiree Health Benefits Funding Reform Act of 2009, S. 1507. An amendment sponsored by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., would require arbitrators who rule on postal contracts to take into account the “financial health of the Postal Service.” The amendment would constrain labor negotiators by putting the emphasis on the service’s financial condition, APWU says. In a memo to members posted Aug. 10 on the union Web site, APWU asked that members arrange meetings with senators or their staffs while the lawmakers are back in their home states this month. The union also encouraged union members to help spread the word with fellow workers in break rooms and at union meetings. “I urge every APWU member to make our voice heard by sending letters to their U.S. senators,” said APWU President William Burrus. The main bill, S. 1507, and a House companion bill, H. 22, would reverse a law that requires the Postal Service to “pre-fund” retiree healthcare benefits—a requirement that threatens financial well-being of the Postal Service. To see more, go to: http://apwu.org/news/webart/2009/09-092-s1507-update-090810.htm.
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