Federal employees would be able to contribute more to the Thrift Savings Plan under legislation approved Tuesday by the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee's Civil Service Subcommittee. But other provisions of what once was touted as an omnibus civil service reform package fell victim to union lobbying and partisan politics.
Up until a week ago, the Civil Service Improvement Act that the subcommittee was considering contained 40 different provisions, including measures that would have raised the cap on overtime pay for managers, prohibited managers from using pass/fail systems to evaluate employees and restricted employees' use of official time to conduct union business.
Employee unions, however, were not pleased with the proposal. "We believe this bill on the whole is far off the mark," American Federation of Government Employees President Bobby Harnage testified at a subcommittee hearing in June.
House members representing large numbers of federal employees were quick to respond. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and Rep. Constance Morella, R-Md., joined forces to oppose the omnibus measure, and subcommittee chairman John Mica, R-Fla., canceled a markup of the bill scheduled for July 16.
For Tuesday's session, Mica agreed to mark up only the four proposals with unanimous support of subcommittee members. "We still have under discussion a number of other reforms that we cannot agree on," Mica said at the hearing. "If we don't find some solutions now, they may be offered in other forms of legislation."
Other provisions left by the wayside include: removing employees' right to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board when managers deny them within-grade increases, allowing more agencies to develop personnel demonstration projects and giving more weight to performance evaluations during reductions-in-force.
Under the only major remnant of the Civil Service Improvement Act left in the bill, federal employees would, however, be able to contribute up to $10,000 a year to the Thrift Savings Plan and new employees will be able to begin participation upon hiring. According to current rules, employees under the Federal Employees Retirement System can only contribute up to 10 percent of their salaries to the TSP, while Civil Service Retirement System employees can contribute up to 5 percent.
"To say this bill is popular is an understatement," Morella said. "This is a sensible way to encourage federal employees to save for their retirement."
The subcommittee also passed a provision that would allow agencies the flexibility to use salary and expense appropriations to subsidize employee child care.
"Parents need safe, affordable and accessible child care," Cummings said. "When parents feel comfortable that their children are in a safe environment, they are more productive."
Noting that the government should lead by example, the subcommittee passed a provision that allows federal employees to take seven days of leave to donate bone marrow and 30 days of leave to donate an organ.
"It's important that we do whatever we can to encourage people to donate organs," Morella said.
A full committee markup of the provisions is scheduled for Thursday.
NEXT STORY: Daley defends Census plan, employees