Federal Daily - September 30, 2009

FEHPB Health Insurance Premiums to Jump in 2010

Feds will pay an average of 8.8 percent more for health insurance under the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) in 2010, according to the Office of Personnel Management. Employee unions quickly registered their dissatisfaction. National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) President Colleen Kelley said she was “disappointed” by the size of the average increase in the employee share of premiums, as well as by “the double-digit rate hike for the largest plan in the system,” the Blue Cross Blue Shield standard option, which is used by about 60 percent of those in FEHBP. The employee share of premiums for individual coverage under the Blue Cross Blue Shield standard option will increase by $23.02 per month, and the cost of family coverage will rise by $44.38. Those increases amount to a 15 percent jump in employee cost for self-only coverage and about 12 percent for family coverage. The American Federation of Government Employees also expressed “grave concern” over the hikes. “To add insult to injury, enrollees will not only have to pay much higher premiums, they will have to pay a higher share of premiums, as FEHBP’s formula allows the government to shift an increasing share of costs onto enrollees every time a plan’s premiums go up by more than the average,” AFGE noted. This year, while the employee share will rise by an average 8.8 percent in 2010, the government’s share will increase only by 6.8 percent on average. To see more, go to: www.opm.gov/insure/health/rates/index.asp, or www.nteu.org/PressKits/PressRelease/PressRelease.aspx?ID=1478 or www.afge.org/Index.cfm?Page=PressReleases&PressReleaseID=1050.

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OPM Releases Report on SES Pay, Performance

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) on Sept. 28 released its Report on Senior Executive Service (SES) Pay and Performance System for Fiscal Year (FY) 2008.  The report looked at rating and pay data for 7,467 career, non-career, and limited-term members of the SES, excluding Office of Inspector General SES members. Government-wide, SES members received an average pay hike of 3.7 percent of their base salary, or $5,827, which is slightly more than the pay hike in FY 2007 of 3.6 percent, or $5,475, the report said. The agencies which showed the biggest basic pay hike by percentage in FY 2008 were: the Education Department, 4.7 percent of base salary; the Department of Housing and Urban Development, 4.5 percent; OPM, 4.5 percent; the Office of Management and Budget, 4.3 percent; and the Interior Department, 4.3 percent. The agencies which showed the smallest FY 2008 basic pay percentage increases were: the Labor Department, 2.3 percent; Social Security Administration, 2.9 percent; and the General Services Administration, 2.9 percent. Government-wide, 76 percent of career SES in FY 2008 also received performance awards, which averaged $14,831. To see more, go to: www.opm.gov/ses/facts_and_figures/data_trends08.asp.

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AFGE Backs TSOs Who Screened Lawmaker

Transportation Security Officers (TSO) acted strictly according to Transportation Security Administration (TSA) procedures when they selected Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, for additional screening at the Salt Lake International Airport, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) said in a Sept. 28 statement. The screening occurred Sept. 21 when the freshman congressman was flying back to Washington, D.C., from Salt Lake City International Airport’s Delta Airlines Terminal 2. Chaffetz, who recently voted against a bill that would grant collective bargaining to TSOs, complained that the TSOs had singled him out. There is some dispute as to the sequence of events at the checkpoint. AFGE Membership and Organization Director Sharon Pinnock said that Chaffetz chose to use the security lane with an optional body-image machine. But Chaffetz, who is an outspoken critic of the machines, said he was ordered into the body-image line by TSOs working the checkpoint, according to published accounts. “It does seem odd that Congressman Chaffetz would choose to use an image machine that he would like to see banned,” Pinnock said. “We are hard-pressed to understand his thinking on this.” In a message on his Web site, Chaffetz continued to complain about the machines. “Whole body imaging is as complete an invasion of privacy as there is,” the statement said. “For the federal government to view passengers naked or to pressure or mislead them into believing they must enter an imaging machine before boarding a flight is flat out wrong.” To see more, go to: http://www.afge.org/Index.cfm?Page=PressReleases&Press
ReleaseID=1049 or http://chaffetz.house.gov.

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VA Staffs Survivors Advocate Office

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on Sept. 28 announced it was staffing an office that will serve as an advocate for the survivors and dependents of deceased veterans and servicemembers. The office will monitor VA’s delivery of benefits to survivors, make appropriate referrals to VA offices for survivors seeking benefits and explore new ways to reach survivors who are not receiving the benefits for which they are eligible, VA said. To see more, go to: http://www1.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=1785.

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