House panel backs retirement benefits boost for border officers

Rejecting a White House proposal, a House subcommittee this week approved additional funding for enhanced retirement benefits for Customs and Border Protection officers.

The House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee, taking up the fiscal 2009 Homeland Security appropriations bill, voted to grant $217 million to continue a law enforcement officer benefits program for CBP officers.

The enhanced retirement benefit, created last year and funded at a rate of $50 million, takes effect July 6. The subcommittee's approval of the funding shows its support for continuing the program.

The law passed last year places CBP officers in line for the retirement benefits many law enforcement officers already receive, allowing them to retire at age 50 after 20 years of service, or at any age after 25 years of service. Formerly, CBP officers were placed in the same category as regular federal employees, who are not eligible for retirement until they have 30 years or more of service and are at least 55 years old.

In his fiscal 2009 budget proposal, President Bush proposed repealing the enhanced retirement benefits, requesting no additional funding for the program. The administration claims that CBP officers do not meet the definition of law enforcement officers and therefore should be ineligible for the early retirement option granted to such officers.

But CBP has touted the enhanced benefits as a potential tool to boost recruitment and retention at the agency, which is plagued with low morale and high attrition. In fiscal 2007, the agency aimed to hire an additional 646 CBP officers, but actually had to bring a total of 2,327 on board to offset attrition.

Besides the retirement benefits, the bill also would provide funding for an additional 100 CBP agriculture specialists and 734 more CBP officers -- significantly more than the 539 proposed by President Bush.

Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, said on Wednesday that CBP needed additional agricultural specialists and officers. She pointed to the bureau's most recent staffing model, which identified the need for an 4,000 more front-line employees at the nation's 327 ports of entry.

"Each of these provisions in the subcommittee markup is a major step forward not only for CBP and its employees, but for the security of our nation," Kelley said.

The bill also would limit funding for the implementation of a new personnel system at Homeland Security. A spokeswoman for NTEU said on Friday that details on the amount appropriated for the personnel system would not be available until after the full committee markup next week.

The funding limit for DHS' personnel overhaul -- the Human Capital Operational Plan -- follows similar action by Congress last year. In December, a catch-all funding bill for fiscal 2008 zeroed out funding for the system, providing only $10 million to DHS to help boost morale and other issues identified in a 2006 employee survey.