Bill would help woo former employees back to government

Former federal employees may soon have an incentive to return to the federal workplace. On Tuesday, Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., introduced the FERS Redeposit Act (H.R. 1939), a bill that would let former federal employees who received a refund of their Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) contributions come back and work for the federal government without losing their accrued annuity. According to Moran, federal workers would be able to redeposit their cashed-out annuity when they returned to work for the government. Federal workers under the Civil Service Retirement System already have this option. "Many younger people who were covered by FERS will simply decline to re-enter the civil service," Moran said. "In an economy where people will change jobs many times over the course of their careers, a reinvestment option under FERS will make government service competitive with the flexibility and mobility which are so common in the private sector businesses of the new economy," he said. The American Federation of Government Employees has endorsed the bill and added it to its list of lobbying efforts. "Members of our staff are still reviewing the legislation to gauge its full ramifications, but we are in support of it," said AFGE spokeswoman Magda Lynn Seymour.

The National Treasury Employees Union and the American Foreign Service Association have also endorsed the bill.

Moran contends that if passed, his bill will help attract some former feds back to government service and help offset pending retirements. "Retiring federal employees represent the institutional knowledge and expertise needed to run the government, and we must proactively address this drain on our human capital," Moran said. "Creating incentives for federal employees who left for the private sector to return to government service is one way to address the problem." In January, the General Accounting Office designated "strategic human capital management" as a high-risk area on its biennial list of government programs and agencies vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse and mismanagement. GAO estimates that about 15 percent of the federal workforce will retire in the next five years.