College credit

Federal employees weary of making monthly student loan payments should take heart. The Senate passed a bill last week increasing the amount agencies can spend repaying an employee's student loans.

Agencies have had the authority to repay employees' student loans since 1990, but authorizing language implementing the law wasn't published until 2001. Currently, agencies can pay up to $6,000 a year in student loan payments for each employee, but the total amount per employee cannot exceed $40,000. Under the Federal Employee Student Loan Assistance Act (S. 926) introduced in late April by Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, agencies could pay up to $10,000 a year in student loan payments for an employee, and as much as $60,000 total for an employee. Employees who participate in the student loan forgiveness program must remain with the agency for at least three years, and must pay the money back if they are fired or resign.

The bill now heads to the House for consideration.

As the cost of education rises and more students are forced to take out loans to pay for college, student loan forgiveness has become an increasingly attractive recruiting tool. According to the Partnership for Public Service, the average cumulative amount borrowed for undergraduate education in the 1999 academic year was $19,785, and the average cumulative amount borrowed for graduate education was $36,976.

Last year, 16 agencies offered student loan repayments, with the State Department, General Accounting Office and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission helping the most employees repay their school loans in fiscal 2002. Many agencies have hesitated to use the program because of budget restraints, according to the Office of Personnel Management's annual report on the student loan program, but this year NASA, and the Justice and Energy departments have set aside money for the program.

House lawmakers introduced another bill in March, the Generating Opportunity by Forgiving Educational Debt for Service or GOFEDS bill, which would relieve federal employees from paying income tax on the money federal agencies have provided them to repay their student loans. Legislators hope the two bills will strengthen the ability of agencies to attract students to public service, students who might otherwise choose better paying private sector work because of the burden of repaying school loans.

For more information about the student loan repayment benefit, employees should check their agency's Web site, talk with their human resources personnel or visit OPM's Web site.

Job Seekers

On Monday, the Office of Personnel Management launched the upgraded USAJOBS Web site, the federal government's central jobs Web site.

The new Web site now includes a user-friendly resume builder and allows federal officials to search through a database of resumes to find eligible candidates for job openings.

"The new USAJOBS simplifies the process of locating and applying for federal jobs," OPM Director Kay Coles James said. "It is a major milestone in our efforts to advance the President's Management Agenda and it will help fix a cumbersome and confusing hiring process. It will save job seekers time and frustration as well as making the federal hiring process more efficient."

According to OPM officials, the revamped Web site numbered more than 309,000 visits on Monday, more than eight times the usual traffic to the site.

"We encourage users to contact us with suggestions and feedback," said Norm Enger, OPM's e-government program director. "OPM is constantly monitoring and responding to Web site feedback from users and human resource managers from other agencies to make sure we offer them the most effective and efficient job-seeking tool. We are especially interested in feedback as we move ahead on schedule to implement the third module this fall."

The overhaul of the USAJOBS site is one of five e-government projects that OPM took on under the Bush administration's e-government agenda.