People

Feds brace for return of Trump personnel policies

Federal employee unions sought to balance reassuring members that they will fight the return of measures undermining feds’ civil service protections with asserting their commitment to nonpartisan service.

People

What Trump’s win means for the federal workforce

The Republican former president has vowed to remake the civil service in his image with the reinstatement of Schedule F.

People

Employee group urges centralized response to increase in doxxing and threats against federal workers

The Department of Justice Gender Equality Network urged department leadership to create a centralized “triage” team to better tackle instances where members of the public doxx or threaten employees online.

People

OPM moves to standardize General Schedule, blue collar locality pay areas

For years, federal employee unions have bemoaned that the pay systems’ differing maps of high-cost regions created pay inequity within agency workforces.

People

Lawmakers file discharge petition to repeal controversial tax rule affecting federal retirees

The Social Security Fairness Act has broad bipartisan support both in Congress and among federal employee unions.

Policy

Trump vows to establish an 'efficiency commission' with Elon Musk at the helm

The former president said the Tesla CEO has “agreed” to head up a task force aimed at cutting federal programs.

People

Biden formally announces 2% average pay raise for feds in 2025

The president each August must declare an “economic emergency” to prevent large automatic increases to locality pay from taking effect, in accordance with the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act.

People

Trump calls federal workforce 'crooked,' vows to hold them 'accountable'

In an interview with a right-wing Youtuber, the former president seemingly alluded to reviving Schedule F and other Trump-era policies aimed at making it easier to fire federal employees.

Digital Government

Teleworking feds are spending 60% of their time working in person, OMB says

In a congressionally mandated report, the Office of Management and Budget rebuffed many common complaints by congressional Republicans about the popular workplace flexibility.

People

OPM’s retirement backlog continued to creep higher in July

The Office of Personnel Management processed nearly 500 fewer retirement requests than it received last month, causing its backlog to inch up for the second straight month.

People

Cassidy ties proposed 30% pay and benefits cuts to federal telework

The Louisiana Republican has introduced bills to bar federal workers from receiving locality pay if they telework at least once per week and excising locality pay from all future feds’ pensions.

Modernization

Senators take another crack at solving over-classification

The bipartisan Classification Reform for Transparency Act would establish a new task force to narrow the criteria for classifying documents and make it harder for agencies to exempt records from automatic declassification.

People

'Fire every single mid-level bureaucrat': Vance on federal employees

Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, has been at the center of GOP efforts in Congress to “dismantle” diversity, equity and inclusion programs at federal agencies, and has suggested that if Trump wins re-election, he should fire “every mid-level bureaucrat” in government.

Policy

Feds are still slated for a 2% average pay raise in 2025 per House appropriations bill

The House Appropriations Committee advanced legislation Thursday that failed to override President Biden’s 2025 pay plan.

Modernization

OPM’s retirement backlog hit an 8-year low last month

Efforts to streamline the processing of departing federal workers’ retirement applications continue to pay dividends, as the inventory of pending claims hit the lowest point since 2016.

People

Senators’ latest telework legislation could imperil remote work

A new bill from Sens. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., would cap all telework at 40% of an employee’s work hours, potentially endangering the federal government’s nascent remote work program.

Defense

Deal will allow military spouses to telework from overseas

The move to allow federal employees to telework while overseas with their service member spouses is part of a larger effort to boost recruitment of military spouses.

Modernization

OPM reduces the retirement backlog by one-third in 2023

The federal government’s HR agency’s work on improving the retirement application process for federal workers led to the agency shattering yet another longstanding record last month.

Modernization

OPM retirement backlog hits six-year low for third time this year

The number of pending federal employee retirement claims fell under 16,000 for the second time since 2017 in November.

People

Debate over federal telework fumes in House subcommittee

Agency HR officials defended their approach to workplace flexibilities and highlighted budgetary issues as bigger drivers of poor customer service.