Purchase Card Oversight, Health Benefit Adjustment and More

Politicians use the sentence structure so often, the aphorism has become cliché: 99 percent of federal employees are good and hardworking, but…

In the most recent example, the “but” refers to federal workers who abuse their government purchase cards. House lawmakers recently introduced companion legislation to a bill that already cleared the Senate in December and would crack down on those who misuse the perk for non-government acquisitions.

“The vast majority of federal workers are honest, hardworking public servants trying to safeguard taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars,” said Rep. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who introduced the House bill. “But recent misconduct by unscrupulous employees underscores the need for us to improve oversight to better rein in waste, fraud and abuse on taxpayer-funded credit cards.”

The Saving Federal Dollars Through Better Use of Government Purchase and Travel Cards Act would require agencies to boost the use of data analytics and strategic sourcing to limit improper purchases by federal workers with their government cards. The bill would also force agencies to work together to share information on questionable transactions and create an “interagency charge card data management group” to develop best practices on limiting them.

The House will not have the opportunity to consider the legislation for several weeks, as Congress continues its recess for the party conventions and its usual August break. At their conventions, each party has ratified their respective platforms to set the policy agenda for the next four years.

Federal employee advocates were banking on Democrats to support their causes -- such as more generous pay and benefits and due process assurances -- but the party mostly declined to take up those issues in the document. At least one group is voicing its displeasure with Democrats for their failure to stand up for the federal workforce.

William Dougan, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, called the platform “discouraging.”

“At a time when federal employees are under constant attack from a hostile Congress, we need real allies ready to stand with us in our fight,” Dougan said. “Unfortunately, the 2016 Democratic Platform largely misses the mark federal employees need.”

NFFE and other groups, like the American Federation of Government Employees, deplored the Republican platform, which called for cutting feds’ compensation while making it easier to fire them. NFFE president Dougan added that he was still optimistic a Democratic White House would deliver on issues his group values.

“We remain hopeful that a Clinton presidency would recognize the importance of America’s civil servants and work to undue the steep cuts and sacrifices federal employees have made in recent years,” he said.

And it remains clear federal labor groups have not become completely disillusioned with the Democratic Party. The hack of Democratic National Committee employees’ emails exposed by Wikileaks, which caused a stir this week, revealed AFGE’s director for political and field mobilization Tucker McDonald pledged to give $60,000 as part of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s convention fundraising efforts. Documents showed McDonald donated $30,000 in 2015 and pledged the same amount this year for a package of access perks at the DNC.

In the defense world, Military.com is reporting Tricare will cut one of its regions, meaning the health insurance benefit will, by 2017, have one contract for the east and another for the west. Currently, Tricare has three regions: north, south and west. The new contracts -- for Humana in the east and Health Net in the west -- are worth nearly $60 billion, but the change should not affect the set-by-statute health benefits of military members and their families.