Overtime Pay Cuts, Pay Raises, Suicide Prevention and More

Many Border Patrol agents will soon receive smaller paychecks under a new law that will require significant changes to overtime pay. The House on Wednesday passed S.1691, the 2014 Border Patrol Agent Pay Reform Act, sending to President Obama’s desk a bill that aims to bring stability to the workforce and streamline the way agents are paid when they work extra hours.

The bottom line: Most border agents ultimately will earn less money under the revised system. The law aims to correct a situation that essentially allowed agents to double dip into overtime. Even the union supported it as a reasonable reform for a bloated system.

Government Executive’s Eric Katz explained the bill in September after it passed the Senate:  

The bill would allow Border Patrol agents to choose to work 100, 90 or 80 hours per two-week pay period. Employees who choose the 100-hour option would be paid 1.25 times their normal base pay, but would not receive any extra compensation for their overtime hours. Employees opting to work 90 hours per pay period would earn 1.125 times their normal base pay, while those who work 80 hours would simply earn their normal base pay as determined by their General Schedule rank.

Employees who work more than their agreed upon schedule -- which BP management and advocates have said occurs regularly and allows agents to remain in pursuit of criminals when their shift ends -- would be rewarded through compensatory time off. The legislation would require at least 90 percent of employees at each Border Patrol post to choose the 100-hour schedule. If a sufficient number did not volunteer for that option, the agency would force employees into it.

Customs and Border Protection will have to assess staff and workloads at each station to determine whether a lower 100-hour requirement is appropriate.

‘‘I want to make it clear that no Border Patrol agent is happy about the prospect of losing $6,400 per year,” said Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, at a Senate hearing in June. “We are sacrificing a lot, but in the end, it will prove to be a boon for border security, the American public, the agency and the agents whom I represent.’’

Not all the action on Capitol Hill is bad news for feds this week. After all, Congress did manage to avert another government shutdown. The $1 trillion consolidated federal spending bill lawmakers negotiated late Tuesday—the 2015 CROmnibus, in Washingtonspeak—includes a few things that will even help some feds, including a 1 percent pay raise for military and civilian personnel. 

Some other things we found:

• Health care equity for Peace Corps volunteers
• Additional Defense research funding for Traumatic Brain Injury, psychological health and alcohol and substance abuse
• An extra $20 million for suicide prevention and outreach efforts at Defense

Interested readers may peruse all 1,603 pages of the 2015 Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act for more details. It includes 11 appropriations bills and a continuing resolution maintaining the current rate of Homeland Security Department funding until February 27.

The House also passed H.R. 5059, the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, which would expand and improve mental health screening and suicide prevent programs at the Veterans Affairs and Defense departments. The bill was named in honor of the late Iraq and Afghanistan veteran and veterans advocate Clay Hunt, whose mother, Susan Selke, described for lawmakers in November the bureaucratic hurdles many veterans face when seeking help. Government Executive’s Kellie Lunney reported in November:

Selke described a frustrating process for her son, who encountered delays in trying to obtain education and disability benefits through VA, navigating a bureaucracy that lost his paperwork and made him wait excessively for care. Hunt had received a 30 percent disability rating for his PTS, and appealed that rating – an arduous and often, unsuccessful, endeavor. Eighteen months later and five weeks after he committed suicide, the VA granted his appeal and awarded him 100 percent disability.

The bill would require independent oversight of VA’s suicide prevention programs and increased access to mental health programs as well as capacity at VA to meet the demand.  

VA estimates that 18-22 veterans commit suicide every day. The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration.