Part Time? Not This Time

President Bush's proposal to ease the transition to part-time work for federal employees near the end of their career got lost in the shuffle in the 109th Congress.

Last February, the Office of Personnel Management announced it would ask lawmakers to remove financial penalties on the pensions of employees in the Civil Service Retirement System who switch to part-time hours. CSRS is the older of the two federal retirement systems; it relies more heavily on a traditional, defined pension rather than contributions to a 401(k)-style retirement savings plan.

OPM transmitted the proposal, called the Federal Retirement Improvements Act, to Congress as part of its fiscal 2007 budget. According to an OPM spokesman, Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., who chairs the House Government Reform Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce and Agency Organization, was considering including the fix in a larger federal employee bill. But time ran out and no such bill was ever introduced.

The problem OPM is trying to fix stems from a 1986 law meant to prevent part-time employees from switching to full-time employment for the last three years of service and receiving a fully funded annuity for even the part-time years.

CSRS pensions are based on employees' average salary in their three top-earning years, multiplied by a factor representing their years of service. That law has had the unintended effect of penalizing employees moving from full-time to part-time service, because any pre-1986 service is valued taking later part-time work into account.

The money needed to fix the glitch -- $162 million over 10 years, which administration officials planned to offset by $77 million through two cost-saving personnel moves - will remain unspent, at least for now.

OPM said it expects to pursue the bill again in the 110th Congress, which convenes in January, on both the House and Senate sides.

This year wasn't the first time such a proposal was bypassed. An identical proposition was included in preliminary versions of the 2003 Federal Workforce Flexibility Act, but not in the final version of that law.

OPM Director Linda Springer, however, has made the promotion of less traditional career patterns, including part-time schedules, odd hours and movement in and out of the public sector, a rallying cry. So don't count on OPM giving up.

Days Off for Everyone

If you're planning to keep working full time next year while waiting for the part-time rule change, there are still 10 days off to look forward to. With 2006 almost over, it's time to start planning your 2007 vacation schedule.

The 2007 leave year begins on Jan. 7 and ends on Jan. 5, 2008, for most employees. There are 10 holidays. The last day to schedule your "use or lose" annual leave -- which is any saved-up annual leave of more than 240 hours for most -- will be Nov. 24, 2007. Next year, Veterans Day falls on a Sunday, but will be recognized on a Monday.

Our 2007 Federal Leave Chart is designed to help you plan and track your use of leave in the coming year.