Inching Along
Federal pay and benefits issues haven’t been eclipsed completely by politics this election year.
In November 2007, Janet Kopenhaver, the Washington representative of Federally Employed Women, said she hoped that FEW and other groups supporting legislation to make the Senior Executive Service more diverse would be able to get the bill passed, since it seemed minor in comparison with other issues.
"It seems pretty noncontroversial," Kopenhaver said at the time. "They've [lawmakers] had a lot on their plate. This is not one of these big issues that you read about, but maybe we can get it through on the merits."
She could have been talking about much of the federal workforce agenda. Even as Congress has remained largely unable to act decisively on the Iraq war and has been consumed with passing housing reform, federal workforce proposals have moved inexorably forward, both in the legislative branch and through other channels. Congress could be effectively -- if not officially -- shut down for the year, since the presidential election will consume a great deal of time and attention this fall. But federal workforce issues have thrived in spite of, and perhaps because of, the benign neglect of most policymakers.
This week alone, the Defense Department permanently waived health care deductibles for the families of some Reserve and National Guard members who are on active duty, extending a demonstration project authorized in 2005. And the Thrift Savings Plan continued on its self-improvement course by allowing the plan's participants to create custom user IDs to replace the 13-digit account numbers it issued in 2007.
This speaks well of the agencies and managers overseeing benefits programs. In the absence of serious public discussion about employee benefits and any other outside motivating force, these people are thinking seriously and creatively about how to improve the programs they administer.
Congress isn't giving up the ghost either. The House passed in June the diversity legislation Kopenhaver and others supported, modifying a proposal to have three-person panels including a woman and a racial or ethnic minority review SES appointments. Lawmakers instead recommended that agencies include women, minorities and people with disabilities on executive resource boards and qualifications review boards. That change in language came at the request of the Senior Executives Association -- proof that some employees' voices are heard through the legislative sound and the fury.
In July, the House also moved forward on legislation to automatically enroll employees in the TSP and invest those contributions in a conservative investment fund, an idea that the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board and Employee Thrift Advisory Council have been discussing. And shortly after that, the Senate took notice of 300 Government Accountability Office employees who were excluded under a ratings system that took effect in 2005 and passed a bill restoring their back pay.
All of these bills still need to pass another chamber before they reach President Bush's -- or his successor's -- desk. Not all the legislation will make everyone happy. But in a politically charged season when more controversial issues might have distracted lawmakers, workforce bills are getting time on the legislative calendar.