The culture of government has changed in the past 20 years and these changes have impacted how Uncle Sam selects its higher graded employees. Federal employees in GS grades 12 – 15 used to be selected from within the existing workforce. But, just as the Edsel, the hula hoop. and the “company man” have faded from American life, so has the practice of always using internal promotions to fill higher graded positions.
The Social Security Board of Trustees today released its annual report on the financial health of the Social Security Trust Funds. While the key dates for program costs exceeding tax revenues and Trust Fund exhaustion remain unchanged, the 2008 Trustees Report shows improvement in the projected long-term financial status of the Social Security program.
In the wake of recent privacy-violating probing of presidential candidates’ passport files and earlier losses by agencies of computers or hard drives containing sensitive employee data, it appears the risk of nosy feds, political paparazzi, curious contractors and others getting personal personnel info may be at an all time high. What’s going on?
“Some aggrieved federal employees like to sue co-workers and supervisors in their individual capacity. In most cases this is basically a waste of time.”
A settlement agreement between HUD and federal employee unions on the application of the Fair Labor Standards Act to agency employees will result in a payment of $24 million.
Given a short time to make an unpleasant decision about whether to resign or receive a proposed notice of removal, an errant federal manager opted to resign but then filed an appeal. Unlike MSPB Member Sapin, the court had no problem with the short period of time to make an unpleasant decision as the agency could have just issued the notice of proposed removal.
If you come through a job interview without messing up and damaging your chances you are going to be ahead of most of your competition. Here are some of the most common mistakes made by job applicants during an interview.
There are changes on the horizon for federal travelers. The change in the mileage reimbursement rate is already in place but other changes that will be significant for some readers are in the proposal stage.
A temporary employee applied for a permanent job and was selected–even though the announcement indicated the job was not open to temporary employees. She lost the job as a result so the employee filed an appeal contending that since she was now in a permanent job, she now had full appeal rights. The case went to federal court as the former temp tried to expand the coverage of the federal employee appeal process but the court did not buy the argument.
A recent notice in the Federal Register is the latest step by the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board to clamp down on frequent trading in TSP funds. The notice makes the argument that the restrictions are necessary to protect the interests of the majority of TSP investors whose financial investments are being put at risk by the actions of those trying to time the market and forcing all TSP participants to accept additional financial risk they did not anticipate. A press release from a group opposed to the changes states that the cost of trading for each TSP shareholder has declined despite the market timing activities of some TSP participants.
