Leaders of the Senate Judiciary Committee are pushing back on President Donald Trump’s mass firing of agency watchdogs. Chairman Chuck Grassley and Ranking Member Dick Durbin say Trump didn’t follow the law when he removed 18 inspectors general last Friday. A 2022 law requires the president to give 30 days’ notice to Congress and case-specific reasons when removing an IG. The lawmakers are asking Trump to provided those detailed explanations for each IG removed and to provide a list of acting IG...
Jan 30, 2025•5 min
The Justice Department says it's fired more than a dozen employees who had worked on criminal investigations into President Trump before his election. A DOJ official says the career prosecutors were fired because the acting attorney general doesn't trust them to carry out Trump's agenda, and that it's part of ending, quote, "the weaponization of government." DOJ didn't identify the fired employees, and it's not yet clear whether they'll challenge their terminations under civil service protection...
Jan 29, 2025•6 min
Some federal employees may have seen a test email land in their government inboxes last week. The Office of Personnel Management is looking to open a direct line of communication to the federal workforce. OPM is currently testing a web capability that should let the agency email all civilian feds at once from a single email address. OPM says it will continue testing the email function over the next week. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art...
Jan 28, 2025•7 min
The Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs will no longer hold vendors accountable for promoting diversity, taking affirmative action and engaging in workforce balancing based on race, color, sex, sexual preference, religion or national origin. President Donald Trump revoked these requirements earlier this week in one of several orders. Additionally, contractors must agree that they are complying with all applicable federal anti-discrimination laws and it will factor i...
Jan 24, 2025•6 min
More details are emerging about President Trump’s federal hiring freeze executive order. A memo from the Trump administration confirms that military personnel, as well as hires for many national and public security positions, are exempt from the freeze. But there are some additional exemptions as well. Agencies can still make new hires for the Postal Service, and for federal employees who are up for an internal promotion. OPM says agencies should also review any recent appointments in the Pathwa...
Jan 23, 2025•8 min
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem’s nomination for homeland security secretary is moving forward in the Senate. The Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 13 to 2 on Monday night to advance Noem’s nomination to the Senate floor. Noem will play a key role in overseeing the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement and border security policies. She has also pledged to rein in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s work on mis- and dis-information. The direc...
Jan 22, 2025•8 min
All agencies are under a 90-day hiring freeze with the exception of military personnel of the armed forces or of positions related to immigration enforcement, national security or public safety. The freeze will last until OMB, OPM and the new advisory board Department of Government Efficiency submit a plan to the White House to reduce the size of the government’s workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition. The freeze would lift for all agencies except for the IRS, which would remain...
Jan 22, 2025•8 min
Civilian federal employees just got a 2 percent average raise added to their pay checks. But Democrats are already looking ahead to next year’s federal pay raise. The FAIR Act would give federal employees a 4-point-3 percent pay increase beginning next January. Congressman Gerry Connolly and Senator Brian Schatz have reintroduced the bill each year for about the last decade. But beyond its introduction, the legislation has never seen action in Congress. Still, Democrats say the larger raise in t...
Jan 17, 2025•6 min
Federal employees are facing a familiar bill in a long line of legislation aiming to cut telework options. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer reintroduced the SHOW UP Act this week. The bill would return federal employees to the work arrangements they had prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. In practice, it would largely scale back federal telework. The House passed the bill in the last Congress. But the Senate did not take any action on the companion legislation. During a hearing this we...
Jan 17, 2025•8 min
A record number of Americans hold a U-S passport. The State Department says there are more than 170 million in circulation and that it issued or renewed 90 million passports during the Biden administration. Applicants saw long wait times to apply or renew their passports at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the department says it’s gotten processing times down to four-to-six weeks. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#d...
Jan 16, 2025•6 min
The Office of Personnel Management is finalizing rules meant to bring the wages of blue collar feds more geographically in line with their General Schedule counterparts. Under the changes set to take effect in October, OPM says nearly 15-thousand workers will see higher wages. Around 500, meanwhile will get lower pay under the new wage area boundaries. Most of the affected employees work for the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and Cali...
Jan 14, 2025•7 min
As Inauguration Day approaches, federal employees in the D.C. area should plan to telework all this week, and into next week, if they’re able to. The Office of Personnel Management says preparations for Inauguration Day next Monday will create traffic disruptions and road closures in the nation’s capital. OPM is asking agencies to work in a maximum telework posture to try to ease at least some of that traffic. Federal employees who do have to go into the office should build in extra time for the...
Jan 13, 2025•6 min
Federal employees who telework at least once a week would lose locality pay under a new House bill. Under the Federal Employee Return to Work Act, teleworking employees would receive "Rest of U.S." locality pay even if they live and work in a region with a higher cost of living. Rep. Dan Newhouse introduced the bill. He and Sen. Bill Cassidy led the bill during the last session of Congress. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy...
Jan 12, 2025•6 min
The new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is putting a hold on hundreds of millions of dollars for the State Department and the U-S Agency for International Development. Chairman Brian Mast says the agencies are rushing to spend the money on projects before the start of the Trump administration. Mast says those projects include studying climate change in the Middle East and LGBTQ awareness programs in Zimbabwe. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy ...
Jan 10, 2025•8 min
Political appointees who are resigning on Inauguration Day later this month have some special rules to pay attention to. A new memo from the Office of Personnel Management details how pay, benefits and leave typically work for non-career federal employees resigning at the end of an administration. Impacted appointees will mostly be ending their workdays at noon on January 20th. Because of that, OPM is telling agencies they should only receive a half day of pay. OPM added that resigning appointee...
Jan 09, 2025•6 min
The American Federation of Government Employees filed an unfair labor practice against the Bureau of Prisons for its decision to close seven facilities. AFGE says this decision impacts more than 400 union members in seven states. AFGE says the bureau made the decision to close the facilities without warning or consultation with the union , which violated the terms of its labor-management agreement. In the unfair labor practice, AFGE is asking the Federal Labor Relations Authority to halt the imp...
Jan 07, 2025•6 min
The federal government is only paying out a small fraction of the settlement funds it set aside for victims of the 2015 Office of Personnel Management data breach. A federal court in October 2022 finalized a $63 million settlement for those impacted by the breach. But a recent court filing shows about the federal government paid about $4.7 million to more than 5,000 individuals who could demonstrate harm from the data breach. The OPM breach impacted about 22 million current and former federal em...
Jan 07, 2025•7 min
The 119th Congress begins today and several key Senate committee federal workforce committees have new leaders. At the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, former chairman, Gary Peters, is the new ranking member. Over at the Armed Services Committee, Democrats tapped Jack Reed from Rhode Island to be the ranking member. Senator Richard Blumenthal takes the ranking member reins at the Veterans Affairs Committee while Senator Edward Markey is the new Democratic leader of the Small...
Jan 06, 2025•6 min
President-elect Donald Trump and D-C Mayor Muriel Bowser agree the federal government has more office space than its employees currently need. Bowser says her recent meeting with Trump centered on the federal workforce and underutilized federal buildings. The leaders of a new Department of Government Efficiency say they plan to bring federal employees back to the office five days a week. Trump says he also plans to challenge a new agreement the Social Security Administration made with one of its...
Jan 03, 2025•7 min
Two new bills from Senator James Lankford are aimed to recovering improper payments from two large programs. The first bill, the Fraudulent COVID Funds Recovery Act, would extend the statute of limitations for all pandemic-era programs for five extra years. The new statute of limitations would let law enforcement officials go after fraudsters through 2030. The second bill, the Eliminate Fraudulent Unemployment Insurance Benefits Act, would require states to withhold payments from any claimant it...
Dec 31, 2024•5 min
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is working under a new enterprise strategy to fill workforce gaps. ICE’s 2024 annual report details how the agency used direct-hire authorities to make several hundred job offers in the past year. And ICE also made 185 tentative job offers at the Department of Homeland Security’s June hiring expo. ICE says that recruiting and hiring is a major piece of a multiyear “Enterprise Transformation Initiative” kicked off in 2024. The immigration agency is expected to ...
Dec 27, 2024•6 min
Junior enlisted troops will receive a historic pay raise next year after President Joe Biden signed the annual defense bill into law on Monday. Other service members will get a 4.5% raise beginning January. Junior enlisted service members ranks E-1 through E-4 will see the extra ten percent added to their paycheck beginning April. The bill also increases the income eligibility threshold for the basic needs allowance to 200% of federal poverty guidelines. Congress must still authorize a full fisc...
Dec 27, 2024•5 min
The Thrift Savings Plan board is reminding participants about changes to contribution limits coming for 2025. Generally, TSP participants will be able to contribute a maximum of $23,500 to their accounts next year. But participants ages 50 and up can make additional catch-up contributions of $7,500. Those ages 60 to 63 can make even higher catch-up contributions of $11,250 due to the Secure 2.0 Act. As of December, there are 7.2 million accounts in the TSP, a new record high. About 155,000 of th...
Dec 24, 2024•7 min
A new survey of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation employees finds that a majority feel safe, valued and respected in their workplace. But more than a quarter of the respondents say harassment is common in the workplace. The new survey, from the FDIC inspector general, comes as part of the ongoing investigation into long-standing workplace culture concerns. The IG received responses from more than 26 hundred employees out of more than 62 hundred who received the survey. From the results, ...
Dec 23, 2024•6 min
In today's Federal Newscast, the Senate has cleared the path to a final vote on the Social Security Fairness Act. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .
Dec 19, 2024•8 min
In today's Federal Newscast, the Department of Homeland Security's new AI chatbot, DHSChat, is now available to roughly 19,000 employees. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .
Dec 18, 2024•9 min
In today's Federal Newscast, President-elect Donald Trump promised yesterday to dismiss any feds who don’t come to work onsite full time. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info .
Dec 17, 2024•7 min
Federal agencies are facing a partial shutdown on December 21st at midnight if Congress doesn't pass another continuing resolution or the funding bills for fiscal 2025. Agencies began preparing for a partial government shutdown on Friday as required under Circular A-11, which initiates the process when the expiration of current funding is a week away. House Speaker Mike Johnson, however, said last week that negotiations to extend the current CR are moving forward. The White House asked Congress ...
Dec 17, 2024•6 min
A bipartisan bill in the House envisions a new way for the Department of Veterans Affairs to recruit doctors. The Supporting Medical Students and VA Workforce Act would create a new scholarship program in which the VA pays students to study medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. Students who accept the scholarships would agree to serve as VA physicians after completing their residencies. House VA Committee Ranking Member Mark Takano and Congressman Neal Dunn are le...
Dec 13, 2024•7 min
Department of Veterans Affairs is dealing with a multi-billion-dollar budget shortfall and awarded bonuses to career executives not eligible to receive them last year. Now the top Republicans on the House and Senate VA committees are calling on the department to hold its executives accountable for these issues during their annual reviews. House committee Chairman Mike Bost and Senate committee chairman Jerry Moran say department leaders should consider the role VA executives had in these managem...
Dec 12, 2024•8 min
