Senate passes several federal benefits bills

The Senate last Thursday approved three minor benefits bills that would affect injured federal workers, Smithsonian Institution employees and Overseas Private Investment Corporation employees.

One bill, sponsored by Sen. George Allen, R-Va., would boost retirement benefits for federal workers who are injured on the job. Allen introduced the bill (S. 2936) because of Louise Kurtz, a civilian Army employee who was badly injured in the Sept. 11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon.

Kurtz is enrolled in the Federal Employees Retirement System, which provides retirement benefits through a modest pension, Social Security and the 401k-style Thrift Savings Plan. Because Kurtz is out of work on disability payments, she is not making any Social Security or Thrift Savings Plan contributions. The lack of contributions while she is out of work will hurt her retirement benefits.

Allen's bill would boost the pension portion of employees in the Federal Employees Retirement System who have received disability payments at some point in their careers, to make up for the lost contributions.

"The passage of this bill ensures that the pensions of our hard-working federal employees will be kept whole during a period of injury and recuperation, especially now that many of them are on the front lines of protecting our homeland security in this new war on terror," Allen said in a statement.

A similar bill (H.R. 5481) is pending in the House.

Another bill passed by the Senate last Thursday would allow the Smithsonian Institution to offer buyouts of up to $25,000 to its employees. The bill (S. 3149) would let the agency buy out employees even when no downsizing effort is underway. Instead, the Smithsonian could offer buyouts to targeted groups of employees whose skills are no longer needed or whose slots in the workforce could be better used by the agency.

The Defense Department has been able to offer such "workforce restructuring" buyouts since last year, under special legislative authority. The Bush administration is seeking similar authority for all agencies.

The third benefits bill (S. 2527) passed by the Senate would let Overseas Private Investment Corporation employees enroll in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. The corporation runs its own health plan, but doing so has become prohibitively expensive.

The House approved the health insurance change as part of a bill (H.R. 3340) that would let federal workers age 50 and older put more money into their Thrift Savings Plan accounts each year. The Senate has yet to approve that bill.