• Open Season is not until this fall, but some feds may want to start looking at their health care early. A special enrollment period starts today for Postal Service annuitants. USPS retirees who are eligible for Medicare Part B, but do not have it, can sign up between now and September 1 without having to pay a penalty. The USPS is covering the cost of the penalty for any annuitants who do choose to sign up. The special enrollment period comes ahead of the launch of the brand-new Postal Service Health Benefits program for plan year 2025. And for everyone else, Open Season will run Nov. 11 to Dec. 9.
  (Postal Service Health Benefits program - Office of Personnel Management)
• Nearly a two-year effort has concluded with agencies receiving their first update to the standards for collecting federal data on race and ethnicity in more than 25 years. The Office of Management and Budget's Chief Statistician Karin Orvis said the interagency working group made several significant changes to the standards, including adding Middle Eastern or North African as a new minimum category. Agencies are to begin updating their surveys and administrative forms as quickly as possible and must submit an agency action plan for complete compliance within 18 months. Orvis said the working group reviewed 20,000 comments and held almost 100 listening sessions as part of its effort to finalize the new standards.
  (OMB updates standards to collect federal data on race, ethnicity - White House)
• The Defense Department has established the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy. The new office, officially launched on March 20, will oversee all cyber-related policy issues at the Pentagon. That includes certifying the department's cyber operations budget and overlooking cyber workforce development programs. Ashley Manning will serve as the official performing the duties of the assistant secretary until the Senate confirms an official for the position. President Joe Biden nominated Michael Sulmeyer, who is currently serving as the principal cyber adviser to the Army Secretary, to serve in the new role.
  (Establishment of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Cyber Policy - DoD)
• There is a new section to the FAR and it may be the most important change in decades. Get used to hearing about FAR Part 40. It's the new consolidated section of the Federal Acquisition Regulations for all things cybersecurity and supply chain security. The FAR Council issued the final rule today establishing this new section, bringing together clauses and regulations covering broad security requirements for most acquisitions. The new FAR part will provide contracting officers with a single, consolidated location to find these requirements. While the new FAR section does not create any new requirements or contract clauses, the council currently is reviewing three rules that would be added to Part 40 when finalized.
  (FAR Council formally established new cybersecurity section - Federal Register)
• Senate lawmakers are pushing to bring federal record-keeping practices into the 21st century. Agencies would need to make sure employees back up their texts and other digital chats used for official business under the Strengthening Federal Records Act of 2024. Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) are co-sponsoring the bill. They say the Federal Records Act needs to keep with rapidly changing technology. The bill would also strengthen the role of the National Archives and Records Administration in holding agencies accountable to record-keeping rules.
  (Senate bill aims to bring federal records law into the age of ‘WhatsApp’ - Federal News Network)
• The Navy has created a sort of one-stop-shop of efficiency when it comes to Navy Culture. A new initiative dubbed Culture of Excellence 2.0 aligns several Navy programs and concepts, allowing the leadership to better understand the needs of its sailors. New materials released as part of the initiative include a playbook on mental health and a suicide-related behavior response guide. The women’s initiatives team and the new policy for the assignment of pregnant sailors also fall under the umbrella of Culture of Excellence 2.0. And there will be a new tool for commanders to better understand the risk of destructive behaviors within their commands.
  (Navy updates its culture campaign - U.S. Navy)
• A new leader has taken the reins at the National Security Agency’s Cybersecurity Directorate (CSD). Dave Luber formally took over as CSD Director on Friday, replacing Rob Joyce, who had led the directorate since 2021. Luber previously served as CSD’s deputy director. He is a longtime veteran of the intelligence community, having also served as executive director at U.S. Cyber Command and in various positions throughout the NSA. The Cybersecurity Directorate is responsible for helping to secure defense industrial base networks and issuing public advisories on cyber threats.
  (New NSA CSD director - X)
• When candidates go online to apply for a federal job, they will see a brand new look. USA jobs.gov has updated its homepage design and some key features of the website. There is now a "search tips" option for anyone who might need help narrowing down a search. A link at the top of the homepage will take users to a list of upcoming hiring events and information sessions. And there is info about what career fields are hiring right now, and how the federal hiring process works.
  (Website homepage update - USAJobs.gov)

The post Medicare Part B special enrollment period for USPS annuitants begins today first appeared on Federal News Network.

• Agencies continue to struggle with giving too much money to citizens when doling out benefits. New data from the Government Accountability Office shows 74% of all improper payments in fiscal 2023 resulted from overpayments. These are payments made to people who have died or who are no longer eligible for government programs. GAO found agencies reported about $236 billion in improper payments last year, down about $11 billion, as compared to 2022. The Medicaid program reduced the amount of improper payments it paid out by $30 billion, while the Labor Department's unemployment insurance program saw an increase of $44 billion in payment errors last year.
  (Improper payments dropped by $11B in 2022 - GAO)
• The Education Department is getting pushback over its latest return-to-office plans. All bargaining unit employees at the Education Department will soon be expected to report to work in person at least five days per pay period. Secretary Miguel Cardona made the announcement to employees in an all-staff email Thursday morning. Cardona noted that the changes are subject to bargaining obligations with the agency’s union, the American Federation of Government Employees. But AFGE local president Sheria Smith said the announcement came as a shock to some: “We received at least 100 messages from employees saying, ‘Hey, I want a reasonable accommodation — I moved — am I supposed to come back now?” The change for employees will take effect May 20.
  (Announcement on increasing in-person presence of agency employees - Education Department)
• Top officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs said the latest rollout of a new Electronic Health Record is a step in the right direction. Under Secretary for Health Shereef Elnahal said the VA’s recent go-live at the James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago is the most successful rollout so far. “We’re going to watch this closely, and we’re going to be on top of it, not just in the next few weeks, but in the coming months," Elnahal said. A successful EHR rollout would give the VA the chance to move on from problems that have hampered the project since 2020. A recent inspector general report found a scheduling error with the Oracle-Cerner EHR in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to the death of a veteran in 2022.
  (Recent VA EHR rollout ‘most successful’ so far, but IG outlines recent problems - Federal News Network)
• A new roadmap to improve the cloud security authorization process is out. The first piece of the Federal Risk Authorization and Management Program’s overhaul is out. The program management office released a new roadmap for the cloud security program outlining four primary goals, six initiatives and 28 near-term priorities. FedRAMP will take on several pilots over the next 18 months to lower the cost and to speed up the authorization process. One pilot program will support machine-readable “digital authorization packages” through automation using the Open Security Controls Assessment Language framework. The new roadmap comes before the Office of Management and Budget finalized its updated FedRAMP guidance, released in draft in October. OMB is current reviewing more than 285 comments.
  (FedRAMP’s overhaul begins with 28-near term initiatives - Federal News Network)
• The Defense Department wants its vendors to be more cyber secure, and it already has a lot of tools to help them. But as of now, they are a bit of a scattered mess. That is one of the things DoD wants to fix via a new Defense Industrial Base Cyber Strategy. The Pentagon published the strategy yesterday. DoD also wants to significantly expand the number of companies that can take advantage of its free cyber defense services. That eligibility will expand under a new rule set to take effect in a few weeks.
  (DoD seeks single point of entry, new governance to boost vendors' cyber defenses - Federal News Network)
• Data analytics tools used to fight fraud in COVID-19 emergency programs might be redeployed to look at more government spending. The Government Spending Oversight Act would preserve analytics tools built by the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), and would require their use to uncover more fraud in federal spending. The bill would create a Government Spending Oversight Committee to manage those tools. PRAC said its tools have flagged nearly $2 billion dollars in pandemic fraud so far. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) introduced the bill.
  (Peters and Romney introduce bipartisan bill to strengthen oversight of government spending - Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee)
• The Army’s Innovation Exchange Lab is up and running. The new lab will allow companies to test their solutions within the Army’s Unified Data Reference Architecture (UDRA). The Army is particularly interested in solutions serving as data catalogs within the framework of UDRA. The lab is accessible to all industry partners. Companies can include a detailed description of their product during registration. The Army is in the midst of the implementation phase of UDRA, an effort that will allow the service to build out a data mesh across all of its programs.
  (Army implementing new data architecture, launching innovation exchange lab next month - Federal News Network)
• The Army has opened a central office to manage the relocation of military families with special needs. It is called the Exceptional Family Member Program, which provides support to soldiers whose family members require special medical or educational assistance. The program is mandatory for all active-duty families with special needs. The program staff works with military and civilian agencies to provide medical, housing and educational services to over 40,000 enrolled families.
  (New Army office will provide centralized support for families with special needs - U.S. Army)
• A bipartisan pair of senators is calling for more oversight of the Federal Employees Health Benefits program (FEHB). Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) introduced the FEHB Protection Act, which would require the Office of Personnel Management to verify eligibility before adding new members to the health care program. If enacted, the bill would also require an audit of FEHB to remove any invalid members who are currently enrolled. The bill comes in response to a recent report showing that ineligible FEHB members are costing the government up to $1 billion each year.
  (FEHB Protection Act - Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.))

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Join us for Federal News Network’s 2024 Open Season Exchange on Nov. 12. During this exclusive event, Federal News Network reporters and editors will sit down with agency and industry experts to share details about what to consider when making your 2025 FEHB selections during Open Season.

Our 2023 Open Season Exchange event featured speakers from the Office of Personnel Management, Defense Health Agency and Consumers’ Checkbook.

Register today to save the date on your calendar and receive updates!

The post Federal News Network’s Open Season Exchange 2024 first appeared on Federal News Network.

Starting in January 2025, about 1.9 million USPS employees, annuitants and their families are expected to be enrolled in a health plan within the upcoming Postal Service Health Benefits (PSHB) program.

Ahead of the new plan year, Postal employees and annuitants are getting a better idea of what options will be available to them. For 2025, Postal Service employees and annuitants will tentatively be able to select from 32 different carrier options.

OPM approved the couple dozen options this week — but their finalization is still contingent on upcoming negotiations of the specific benefits and rates each carrier will offer.

Similar to the FEHB options, offerings in the new PSHB will mostly be health maintenance organization (HMO) plans, with a couple fee-for-service plans mixed in as well. HMO plans use an existing network of medical providers and coordinate services for enrollees. Fee-for-service plans are more traditional — the carrier will either pay a medical provider directly, or reimburse an individual who has paid a provider and then filed an insurance claim.

Some PSHB plans will be specific to geographic areas, while others will be available to USPS employees and annuitants nationwide.

2025 PSHB carrier options

Information courtesy of the Office of Personnel Management. Chart created by Federal News Network.

The new health care program for USPS is a requirement stemming from the 2022 Postal Service Reform Act. The law mandated OPM to set up a health insurance program specifically for USPS with a tight timeline of launching in January 2025.

“I want to thank the carriers for their interest in supporting the health care needs of our federal workforce,” OPM Director Kiran Ahuja said in a statement. “This program improvement is only possible thanks to carrier participation and the tireless work of USPS and our OPM team.”

Postal employees and annuitants will have the opportunity to enroll in PSHB for the first time ever during the upcoming Open Season this November and December, OPM said. This year’s Open Season will offer both PSHB and FEHB enrollees the chance to adjust their health care options for the 2025 plan year.

In most cases, Postal employees and annuitants will be able to pick a health plan that’s comparable to their current plan in the FEHB. In cases where there isn’t an equivalent option available, OPM will automatically enroll individuals into the cheapest, no-fee, non-high-deductible plan that’s available in PSHB.

Ahead of implementation, certain Postal employees and annuitants will also be able to enroll in Medicare Part B during a special enrollment period between April 1 and September 1.

Additionally, for Postal annuitants, OPM will be requiring PSHB carriers to provide prescription drug coverage through Medicare Part D. Because of the upcoming requirement, it’s likely that most FEHB carriers will also offer Part D prescription drug coverage in 2025 as well.

Of course, launching such a large program comes with a price tag too. OPM initially received $70.5 million in appropriated funding to go toward the start-up costs for the PSHB program.

Now, for fiscal 2025, OPM is seeking another $24 million in funding for administering and maintaining the PSHB program over the next year.

“OPM is taking an enterprise approach to delivering this ambitious and modernized approach to providing health benefits under extremely tight deadlines,” OPM said in its 2025 congressional budget justification. “In addition to bringing together program offices across the agency, OPM is working collaboratively with USPS on communicating to employees about the changes and partnering with agencies across government to provide the necessary data integration to determine eligibility.”

OPM said solid funding for the agency’s inspector general office is also crucial to effective oversight of the new program — with the goal of ensuring it’s secure, effective and efficient. OPM is requesting $2.6 million for oversight of the PSHB program for 2025.

“The PSHB program risks annual losses of millions of taxpayer dollars due to fraud, waste or abuse as the program begins enrollment and disbursing benefits,” OPM said. “It faces similar risks as the FEHB program of health care fraud schemes and improper payments.”

A 2023 report from the Government Accountability Office showed that OPM spends up to $1 billion each year on ineligible enrollees in FEHB.

OPM said it is planning to use the PSHB’s launch as a litmus test for possible changes to the FEHB program moving forward. It’ll be especially important as the agency works on ways to better identify and remove ineligible members from the program.

This year’s Open Season will run from Nov. 11 to Dec. 9. During that time, both FEHB as well as new PSHB enrollees can view and make changes to their health care options for plan year 2025.

The post USPS health care program will have 32 carrier options in 2025 first appeared on Federal News Network.

After months of negotiations, the Transportation Security Administration has reached a milestone agreement with its union, the American Federation of Government Employees.

Now with a newly ratified seven-year collective bargaining agreement, TSA and AFGE are aiming to expand employee rights and workplace conditions for transportation security officers at airports across the country.

Coming after a pay increase TSA employees received in July 2023, the new contract will replace the previous agreement between TSA and AFGE.

The contract itself has significantly expanded as well. There were just 14 articles in the previous agreement — now, there are 37.

TSA employees will see a streamlined process for grievance and arbitration, expanded official time, fewer restrictions on their sick leave policy, and collective bargaining options at the local level — as just a few examples of what’s included in the new agreement.

Even seemingly smaller items in the contract — like letting TSA employees wear polo shirts and shorts on hot summer days — can make a significant impact for the workforce.

“It’s more flexible for the employees, their work-life balance, and the ability for them to make their shifts work well for them,” Johnny Jones, secretary-treasurer of AFGE Council 100 representing TSA employees, said in an interview. “There will be better communication, hopefully, between the union and management to resolve issues in the workplace.”

The union ratified the new collective bargaining agreement Monday. It now heads to agency leaders for a final review and sign-off before implementation begins.

“TSA is eager to partner with AFGE on the new collective bargaining agreement,” a TSA spokesperson said in a statement. “The agency has and continues to work closely with AFGE in support of our Transportation Security Officers around the country.”

The spokesperson said TSA could not comment on any specifics of the agreement until the agency head review is complete.

House Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said he’s “pleased” with the new agreement between TSA and AFGE.

“The improvements in this agreement, along with the boost in pay TSA’s frontline workforce began receiving last year, represent the most significant advancement for the workforce ever,” Thompson said in a statement.

Streamlined processes for grievances, arbitration

Under one notable provision of the new collective bargaining agreement, TSA officers can now file a grievance with TSA management for more types of adverse actions — including removals, involuntary demotions, and suspensions over two weeks, AFGE said in a press release Monday.

An employee can file a grievance, for example, when they take issue with a performance-based or adverse action that an agency manager has taken. And if an employee’s case doesn’t get resolved in the grievance process, AFGE can now move into the arbitration process to try to reach an agreement using a third-party arbitrator.

It’s a relatively complex part of the new contract, but Jones said it’s extremely important — it can protect TSA employees who may face challenges with management while on the job.

“Most people don’t understand the arbitration component until you’re actually in a situation like this,” Jones said. “It helps enhance the employee’s ability for the job protection because it becomes a fairer process, whereas it was so one-sided in the past. Now, it’s going to open up that ability for employees to check the balance of management’s powers.”

The future of the TSA pay raise

The new bargaining agreement dovetails with another recent, major change for TSA employees. The workforce received a major pay increase in July 2023, which brought their salaries on par with the rest of the federal civilian workforce. The TSA pay scale now mirrors the General Schedule.

The pay increases were first funded through the fiscal 2023 Homeland Security appropriations bill, which cleared Congress in late 2022. After the change, some TSA employees received as much as a 31% pay boost.

Since then, TSA attrition has declined by 11%, as the agency makes gains in retention and begins mitigating what has historically been high staff turnover. But because it was appropriations that made the pay raise possible, there’s always a chance the funding could be reversed in the future.

“Under the continuing resolution, the agency is having to rob Peter to pay Paul to keep everybody getting paid, because that’s the way the bill was set up,” Jones said. “It’s important to get the pay set up right, so we can get the full funding for it. We haven’t had that yet.”

At least for the next couple years, the pay equity initiative appears to be here to stay. The minibus appropriations package for fiscal 2024, signed into law last week, maintained the higher pay rates for agency employees.

And in the White House’s 2025 budget request, TSA would receive an additional $1.5 billion to continue funding the pay equity initiative.

“The TSA workforce deserves to be fairly compensated at rates comparable with their peers in the federal workforce,” the budget request said.

A push for Title 5 at TSA

For AFGE, there is more work ahead to fully solidify changes for TSA employees. For instance, Jones said, there are still concerns around overtime scheduling for TSA employees, who are often told to work overtime hours with little to no advance notice.

Currently, there’s no process in the bargaining agreement for managing or scheduling those extra hours.

“That was one of the biggest issues for employees, and that process is deemed non-negotiable by the agency,” Jones said. “There’s a lack of planning, which has an impact on the workforce. It’s last minute. The employees are tired of mandatory overtime. There has to be a better way.”

Additionally, AFGE is continuing to push for TSA to be moved into Title 5, the personnel system that sets pay, benefits and performance standards for the vast majority of federal employees. When Congress first created TSA in 2002, it specifically excluded agency employees from the General Schedule pay scale and the Title 5 personnel system.

Improvements to the arbitration process, for instance, could be taken another step further, Jones said, if TSA moved into Title 5.

“The way our arbitration process works, it’s a lot better than it was, but it’s not exactly 100% like other agencies would have,” Jones said. “It’s a great contract — we got a lot of what we would like to achieve. But we still have other issues that are a long ways from being resolved. We have to get what we can, when we can, and lock it in for as long as we can — until we can get Title 5. That’s the most important part.”

Federal News Network’s Justin Doubleday contributed to this report.

The post TSA, AFGE aim to expand workforce options in new 7-year contract first appeared on Federal News Network.

Under a new memorandum of understanding (MOU) between SSA and the American Federation of Government Employees, signed March 1, employees can now request “episodic telework” — or extra work-from-home days — when unexpected personal circumstances arise.

The new flexibility, which took effect March 4, gives SSA employees the option to occasionally request taking an extra day of telework in extenuating circumstances. That’s instead of having to take time off or dip into annual leave.

“It may seem so small, but it means so much to a workforce who is really starving for flexibility, peace of mind and the ability to be able to care for their family and still meet the needs of their job,” AFGE Council 220 President Jessica LaPointe said in an interview.

The MOU applies for all AFGE bargaining unit employees working at SSA nationwide. LaPointe said she hopes the new MOU will have a positive ripple effect of better workforce productivity, and by extension, better agency services.

Even through relatively small tweaks like episodic telework, the ultimate goal is to address the simultaneous challenges of overworked employees and a rapidly growing number of Social Security beneficiaries.

In a larger turn of events, SSA recently got its first permanent, Senate-confirmed commissioner in years. AFGE officials have said the changes since Martin O’Malley stepped into the top agency role have been palpable, even just a few months after his confirmation.

“The commissioner heard us — he recognized that that would be a way to decrease absenteeism and allow employees to stay productive,” LaPointe said.

Agency spending levels are the next challenge SSA will face. To try to improve services and morale at SSA, AFGE is proposing a supplemental funding package of $20 billion over the next 10 years.

The highly anticipated budget proposal from House and Senate appropriators, which has a deadline of March 22, is unlikely to yield the results AFGE is hoping for.

“We’re severely underfunded in our operating costs, and current budget talks aren’t signaling that we’re going to get much money this year,” LaPointe said. “So, we’re really getting creative.”

Right now, SSA can make small tweaks such as the recent MOU without any budget changes, LaPointe said. But bigger, more impactful changes will require permanent and stable funding for the agency.

“Overnight, the morale shifted in a more positive direction as a result of this deal,” LaPointe said. “We’re just looking forward to seeing what other base hits we can get.”

How will the MOU work?

Episodic telework is different from the agency’s overall telework policy. The flexibility was already an option in infrequent cases where a special work project might necessitate a day of working from home. But the new MOU now allows employees to use personal situations as a rationale for episodic telework.

“Maybe they have a school-aged child that had to come home sick for the day so the employee can do agency work while the child may just need an adult in the household to monitor the situation — or maybe your car broke down on your way to work, and you can’t get into the office,” LaPointe said.

SSA managers will have to approve any episodic telework requests. The MOU states that a manager must decide on the request within five working days. If the answer is no, managers have to submit a written statement explaining why they made that decision.

As another part of the MOU, SSA employees can also opt to split up their workday hours between in-person work and telework — on occasion, and with approval from management.

That flexibility can be beneficial, for instance, when employees have an unexpected event arise in the middle of the day that pulls them away from work for a short time. With a split shift option, employees can then telework afterward, rather than spending time commuting back to the office, LaPointe explained. She called the new flexibility a “win-win.”

“It allows the employee to feel like they have more workplace flexibilities, and then it allows managers to have more employees available,” she said.

Who teleworks at SSA?

A vast majority of SSA’s roughly 59,000 employees is eligible for telework. About 60% of SSA employees teleworked three days per week, and about 32% worked one or two days per week, during fiscal 2022 — the most recent data available from the Office of Personnel Management.

Like many agencies, SSA recently announced an increase of in-office work for certain components starting April 7. Despite the changes for some, SSA employees stationed at field offices, teleservice centers and hearing offices will continue their current balance of in-person work and telework.

Many agencies are mandating higher in-office presence for federal employees. But during multiple congressional committee hearings, agency leaders said continuing telework will be essential to recruitment, retention and satisfaction of federal employees.

More flexibilities — even seemingly small ones — could be part of what sways a federal employee to continue working at an agency. Telework can also lead to cost savings, and employees being able to work effectively, OPM has said.

“It costs more to replace a worker when they leave the agency, based on the sunk costs of all the training and investment that we put into a worker,” LaPointe said.

After the tweaks to episodic flexibility, there may be more changes ahead for SSA employees as well. But the biggest workforce pivots likely can’t happen without stable funding.

“The Senate confirmed the sort of Babe Ruth of rehabilitating government,” LaPointe said. “We really need Congress to fund us, so he can start to hit the home runs.”

The post SSA adds ‘episodic’ telework flexibility for agency employees first appeared on Federal News Network.

December seems like a long way off, but next year’s Federal Employee Health Benefits Plans are already coming into view. That info is from the Office of Personnel Management’s recent annual call letter to health insurance carriers. For more, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Federal News Network’s Drew Friedman talked with the editor of the Checkbook Guide to Health Plans for Federal Employees, Kevin Moss.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin And just a quick question. This call letter that comes out every year, this is not like a dear colleague letter. You’re in trouble. But it’s more routine than that.

Kevin Moss It’s very routine. It comes out every spring or early spring or late winter, every year where OPM puts together their initiatives, what they want to see from health plans for the upcoming plan year, and if there are any new policies or new options that are now allowed by the FEHB plans. This is kind of the first notice to FEHB carriers on what those priorities will be for the upcoming plan year.

Drew Friedman And last year’s call letter to carriers from OPM. I know one of the big things there was about Medicare Part D. Are we seeing any similar size changes this year or anything with Medicare Part D that is changing for 2025?

Kevin Moss Yes. So part D was a huge story last year, and I think it’s going to be even a bigger story this year. One of the details in this call letter, we start getting some indication of how the PSHB program is going to work. This is the Postal Service Health Benefits program, which is launching for planned year 2025. So this upcoming open season will be the first year for postal employees and a new attempt to enroll in new PSHB plans. One of the requirements for PSHB is that if you’re in a new attempt, that you receive part D prescription drug coverage. So this is how postal annuitants will actually receive their prescription drug coverage. And every PSHB plan will have to have a part D plan in order to provide that prescription drug coverage. Now, last year was the first year that these supplemental part D plans were allowed by OPM. There are only 17 FEHB plans that offered a part D plan. My expectation is, since many of the PFP plans will offer PSHB plans, that part D bundling that we’re going to see in PSHB is also going to happen for FEHB. And so I expect almost every FEHB plan will have part D prescription drug coverage available to annuitants this year.

Drew Friedman Is that something that’s going to be more of a benefit for participants then? What change does that really mean for those who are enrolled?

Kevin Moss I think most federal new annuitants and postal annuitants will benefit from Medicare Part D coverage. So one thing is next year, the part D laws says that there’s a $2,000 out of pocket limit for all prescription drug costs. So if you have anywhere from about $167 or more per month throughout the year, that adds up to above 2,000, obviously, that catastrophic protection could save you quite a bit of money. OPM says that the coverage from these party plans should be as good or better, so that your out-of-pocket costs will be the same, or in some cases, it might be slightly less. But there are a few situations that you still need to watch out for that you still need to pay attention to make sure that you will benefit from this part D coverage.

Tom Temin Does the fact that there is this out-of-pocket limit for these participants also mean that certain drugs that might be newer or certain drugs that are expensive will be left out of the plan? I mean, what kind of control do people have for, say, some of these emerging weight control types of drugs? Some of these things are expensive. They’re kind of luxury drugs.

Kevin Moss Yeah. Well, Tom, you’ve actually hit on one of the big things that people need to pay attention to. OPM requires every FEHB plan to cover a GLP one weight loss drug. These are becoming very popular. They’re getting more widely used. These are brand names like Ozempic and Wegovy that you may have heard of. Every FEHB plan has to cover at least one of those weight loss drugs. However, Medicare currently does not provide coverage of weight loss drugs. And the way this part D plan works is that OPM allows the carriers to auto enroll FEHB plan members with Medicare on to these party plans. So you will receive notice from your plan that your auto enrolled. And if you are currently taking one of these GLP one drugs from your FEHB plan, that part d plan, as we sit here right now is not going to be covered by Medicare. So you will lose access to that drug. Now that’s a very strong reason for you to opt out. And if you are in an FEHB plan and you get enrolled in a part d plan, you have to be allowed to opt out, and losing access to the GLP one drugs would be one of the strongest reasons why you would want to opt out. Because, as you said, Tom, these are quite expensive. If they’re not covered by your health plan. We’re talking about out of pocket costs anywhere from like $15,000 a year, or maybe even more than that.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Kevin Moss. He’s the editor of The Checkbook Guide to Health Plans for Federal Employees. And that’s kind of a side issue, because these drugs are not generally for people that want to lose 5 or 10 pounds. This is for the morbidly obese or people that have a deep seated health problem because of their weight.

Kevin Moss Yeah, I think that’s right. A lot of them are prescribed for type two diabetes and sometimes prescribed off label like Ozempic, for example, has FDA approval for type two diabetes. But many doctors are prescribing an off label for weight loss. But as you say, it’s mostly for the morbidly obese, not someone looking to lose 5 pounds for their beach trip.

Tom Temin What are these drugs for in the first place? I see endless ads for them, but what are they supposed to do? What’s their primary use? Just out of curiosity.

Kevin Moss I can’t answer that one, Tom.

Tom Temin I’ll have to turn the sound on for the ads one of these days to hear about them.

Drew Friedman In the call letter to carriers from OPM mentioned at least some of the recent priorities they’ve had gender affirming services and maternal health, fertility benefits. Was there anything new in the call letter that spoke to some of those recent priorities from OPM?

Kevin Moss So they mentioned that all those priorities still exists, and they quickly reference previous call letters or letters to carriers to remind carriers that all these things are still present. There is one new thing that I saw this year, OPM is committed to reducing and preventing opioid misuse, so they’re encouraging carriers to offer non-pharmacological therapies and medications to treat pain. And all FEHB plans have to have one opioid rescue agent available without cost share. So it’s a kind of a broader definition of preventative care and more education about the issue of opioid misuse.

Tom Temin That’s the opioid equivalent of the EpiPen, you might say, to have that available.

Kevin Moss Yeah.

Drew Friedman Another part of the call letter references fraud, waste and abuse that might exist in the FEHB program. There was a report from the Government Accountability Office in 2023 that showed that OPM might be spending up to $1 billion a year on ineligible participants in FEHB. Did OPM mention anything about why that is occurring, or how they’re planning to try to address that huge amount of money?

Kevin Moss I think there’s two ways that OPM is looking to control ineligible family members on FEHB plans. I think one, they’re asking carriers to verify eligible family members. So if you add a family member, if they’re asking, the carrier to verify that new family member is actually an eligible family member. And then also, with the creation of the Postal Service Health Benefits Program, OPM is building a central enrollment platform where they will be verifying both employees and a new attends and family members in a more centralized fashion, which should reduce the number of ineligible family members that are currently on FEHB plans.

Tom Temin Yeah, waste, fraud and abuse is specifically called out in the call letter, so they’re on to it, I guess.

Kevin Moss Yeah, they definitely are.

Tom Temin And what about mental health services? That’s something that they have been increasing emphasis on and an expanding coverage on. I guess gender affirming types of work is also maybe under the mental health issue, anything new coming beyond what they’ve added for the current year?

Kevin Moss I think it’s the same priorities that we’ve seen in previous years. Obviously, it’s a very important issue. But OPM, to their credit, it has been really early on making sure that FEHB plans are providing the coverage that federal employees and a new intense need for mental health.

Drew Friedman And we’ve talked about it a little bit already, but the Postal Service Health Benefits Plan, that’s going to be something very huge this year and into next year. There’s a special enrollment period coming up. Anything that was mentioned about that or just the progress of that program as they’re trying to stand it up.

Kevin Moss A few things about Postal Service Health Benefits. One is that the Postal Service Reform Act specifies that year, one, which is going to be this upcoming open season for plan year 2025, that if you are an FEHB plan that offers a PSHB plan, that the benefits from that FEHB plan must be the same in that PSHB plan. So for example, let’s say it’s Blue Cross Basic, which is a popular FEHB plan. If there is a Blue Cross basic in PSHB those benefits and cost shares are going to be the same year one. Of course, the rates are going to be different because the Postal Service Employees annuitants, are going to be their new coverage entity away from all other federal employees in annuitant. And we don’t yet know what impact that will be. We do expect that those rates will be different, but we don’t know are they going to be higher or are they going to be lower? So that’s one aspect of PSHB that we know. We talked about the part D requirements that if you are a USPS annuitant on Medicare, that you’re going to be getting your prescription drug coverage through part D, we expect less plans. You have to have about 1500 covered lives. That’s what the law says in order to be able to offer a PSHB plan. There are some FEHB plans that are in some more rural areas around the country where there might not be 1500 postal lives. And so we do expect probably a smaller amount of PSHB plans year one with respect to the special enrollment period. So if you are a current postal annuitant and you do not have Medicare Part B, you have a six month window that starts April 1, that in Sept. 30, where you can sign up for part B, this is for part B coverage in year 2025, and that Postal Service will pay any late enrollment penalty which you normally would be subject to, which in theory could be quite high. Because that enrollment penalty is 10% for every year that you could have had Medicare Part B coverage and don’t. And so the Postal Service is covering that. So really every postal annuitant has to do their homework in the six month period to see if Medicare Part B is the right choice for them. Because once this six month period is over, if they ever decide that they want part B after this special enrollment period, they will be subject to that late enrollment penalty.

Tom Temin And just a question. You touched on this briefly, not really related necessarily to the the letter. But is it possible to discern what the population of providers might be in ’25? A couple of big plans dropped out from ’23 to ’24. And so that limited choice in some areas any way of telling.

Kevin Moss It’s a large market, Tom. We’re talking about 1.2 million USPS employees in annuitants. Again, and we do expect fewer plans. A lot of that is based upon the geography of some of these smaller regional HMO plans. It’s too soon to know. We don’t have any plan details yet in terms of which plans will be in PSHB. We won’t know that until September at the earliest, but obviously this is a big deal. Every Postal Service employee in annuitant has to proactively choose a new plan this open season. And so we do expect, though, that a lot of the existing FEHB plans will be there for PSHB with the comfort of knowing that the benefits that you’ve grown accustom, at least year one, are going to entirely match your existing FEHB plan.

Drew Friedman This is a huge change, 1.2 million postal employees, and they’re all going to have to change their health insurance. Not all of them are experts. Where can they get their questions answered? And what if they do have some confusion coming up?

Kevin Moss Yeah, the Postal Service has a lot of educational resources available. So if you’re a postal annuitant, keeping posted.org is the postal website for annuitants. They have a lot of education materials. They should go there. If you’re a current USPS employee you want to go to lightblue, that’s the hub. That’s the main HR hub for all USPS employees. And there are a lot of resources there for you to go to and to learn more and to explore your options.

The post Next year’s federal health insurance plans already taking shape first appeared on Federal News Network.

It is not every day the Veterans Affairs Department comes up with a new insurance program. In fact, last year was the first time in 50 years. For a progress report and what it took to launch it, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with Dan Keenaghan, the executive director of the insurance service at the Veterans Benefits Administration.

Interview Transcript: 

Dan Keenaghan So the VA, or the Veterans Affairs has launched Veterans Affairs Life Insurance, or as we like to call it, VA life. And it’s open to all service connected veterans aged 80 and under with any level of service connected disability 0% to 100%. And for veterans who are age 81 and older, they need to apply for a service connected rating before they turn age 81. And then they have a two year timeline to request enrollment.

Tom Temin So basically anybody under 80 can have this life insurance.

Dan Keenaghan Correct. Anyone with a service connected rating. We launched this program in response to a call from veterans and veterans service organizations who were looking for a life insurance program that didn’t have time limits to sign up and had higher levels of life insurance coverage available than what we had currently offered. This one is a whole life insurance program that goes up to $40,000 in increments of $10,000.

Tom Temin Got it. And when you say they have to have a veteran’s rating, what does that mean exactly?

Dan Keenaghan So when uniformed service members separate from their uniformed service, they have an opportunity to apply to the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans Benefit Administration for a service connected rating on a disability that may have been incurred during their service. And we provide the life insurance that supports veterans who have these service connected ratings. We also provide life insurance for those who currently serve. And we have 11 different programs that provide life insurance, including service members group life insurance and veterans group life insurance, which totaled about $1.5 trillion of coverage across 5.6 million lives.

Tom Temin This new program, though, is only for those with some degree of rating.

Dan Keenaghan Correct.

Tom Temin Because everybody is insured at some point in their military career. I remember when my father passed away at 92, long after serving in World War Two, just a few years ago, we got a check from Veterans Affairs for $5,000. Everybody’s got that.

Dan Keenaghan Yes. It’s tremendous because our insurance service has existed for over 100 years and dates back to World War one, and in each era, World War One, World War Two, Korea, Vietnam. And now today, we have introduced different life insurance programs in order to meet the needs or the changing needs of our veterans and their survivors. And it’s unique because service connected veterans aren’t always eligible for commercial life insurance. And VA provides this as a means of protection to provide insurance at a rate that is commensurable with what you can find in the private sector without any additional costs due to the service connected nature of their disability rating.

Tom Temin Right. That was my question. This is something that is hard to obtain for those with a rating commercially, because commercial don’t want to insure people that they might have to pay out for.

Dan Keenaghan In general, we find that our actuaries look at what’s available in the private sector, and then how can we provide something that meets or is better than the value that’s provided to honor not only the service of the service member, but to be able to help them see it as a benefit that they’ve earned through their service.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Dan Keenaghan. He’s the director of the insurance service at the Veterans Benefits Administration. And this was in reaction to a congressional statute, a law passed to create this program a couple of years ago.

Dan Keenaghan Yes, the law was enacted in 2022. And we work with the Congress in order to implement it in a way that provides a superior customer experience. We’ve seen automation of the application process and levels that are higher than 93% this calendar year alone, and we’ve integrated it with VA profile in order to ensure that veterans don’t have to put in unnecessary information, and veterans are known customers and we can be able to meet their needs. We’ve had some veterans who sign up saying this is the easiest benefit they’ve ever applied for with the VA, and we’ve found that veterans are very responsive to the online tool. Especially when it comes to updating their beneficiaries for life changing events. And we appreciate the support of the Congress as this was, as you mentioned, part of the Johnny Isaacson and David Ro Veterans Health Care and Benefits Improvement Act of 2020.

Tom Temin And how many people have signed up so far?

Dan Keenaghan We’ve had over 34,000 veterans sign up for this. And it’s really exciting because just after one year of the program being available, we’ve achieved over $1 billion of coverage.

Tom Temin Ok. And you called it whole life. And that’s an instrument that you don’t find that much anymore, commercially. Almost like a savings that has value at the end and it accrues, I guess you’d call it equity over time. Those are not very common anymore in the commercial market.

Dan Keenaghan We offer both term life and whole life, and we work with veterans service organizations and veterans in order to provide an education as to how insurance can complement their overall financial planning. Whole life is a way for veterans to be able to invest in their future, because VA life builds cash value after the first two years. It also, unlike term life insurance, has fixed premiums, which means the younger you are when you sign up, that is the premium that you will pay for the rest of your life. Unlike term life insurance, when costs often increase in five year increments. And then finally, the real value is that there’s a cash component to this. And so veterans like to know that there might be some longer term value. There’s an interest earned against that cash value. And then not yet for VA life, but for our existing programs. Veterans are able to take loans against that cash value, or when the policy matures, they actually get that cash value returned to them as a matured endowment. And so it’s part of an overall financial planning picture for veterans. That is an alternative to term life.

Tom Temin And how does it work for Veterans Benefits Administration? That is to say, do you simply offer this, but there’s a commercial outfit that’s actually operating it in the background? Or is VBA its own insurance company. And if so, how come you don’t have a 100 story skyscraper somewhere?

Dan Keenaghan So I’m really pleased to say we have a few more than 300 VA employees who work primarily out of Philadelphia, who service all these policies. We have our actuaries, we have our financial team, we have our policy holder services, we have our own phone center, and we run it efficiently enough that we’re able to provide it at at a value that meets or exceeds what’s available in the private sector. Unlike the private sector, we don’t need a 100 story skyscraper in order to let people know we’re here. But we find veterans and survivors really appreciate the customer experience that we give them. And we’re really seeing positive returns through trust scores, through what we call B signals, which is our customer experience data. And veterans are really trusting VA to provide high quality life insurance, just like when they were in uniform. We previously provided their life insurance coverage.

Tom Temin And within VBA then, is there a fund of dollars somewhere so that when you do have to pay out a benefit, a death benefit, that it’s there?

Dan Keenaghan So based on our actuarial determinations, we build up a cash reserve. And so this program was designed in order to be fully self-supporting. And so that means the more veterans that sign up, the better it is going to support other veterans over time. And we’re very efficient and effective in being able to deliver benefits that the veterans are able to count on and trust the VA to have that value there.

The post After a year, the VA is calling its new insurance program a success first appeared on Federal News Network.

Incoming federal employees will soon get access to the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program slightly quicker.

To try to avoid potential gaps in health care benefits for new hires, the Office of Personnel Management proposed a tweak to the FEHB program that deals with enrollment processing.

The wait for new feds to start getting coverage through FEHB can sometimes take several weeks. But after OPM finalizes its proposal, newly eligible enrollees will see “first day” FEHB coverage, once they are on their agency’s payroll.

“Permitting health insurance coverage to become effective at the start of employment could reduce the risk of new employees enduring coverage gaps and potentially costly medical bills associated with such gaps,” OPM said in a proposed rule, published to the Federal Register on Feb. 1. “[It can] also act as an attractive recruitment tool in building a well-qualified, robust workforce.”

Gaps in health care insurance for newly hired feds can stem from processing times at OPM or an employing agency. Currently, new hires have 60 days after their start date to enroll in the FEHB program. But even if they enroll within their first few weeks — or even days — on the job, they typically have to wait until the start of the next pay period to qualify.

Even if short-lived, gaps in health care coverage can have negative, if unintended, consequences. If a new fed has immediate or existing health care needs, they may face financial burdens between jobs if they experience a break in insurance. The gaps can also create barriers to feds who are looking to access mental health services, vaccines or contraceptives.

OPM did not immediately respond to Federal News Network’s request for comment on why the agency decided to change the policy. But in the proposed rule, OPM said the change would help the government align its FEHB policies with promising practices in both the private sector and the Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance (FEGLI) program.

“Health insurance is an influential factor on employee recruitment, retention and satisfaction, and is a benefit offering critical coverage, in sometimes life or death circumstances,” OPM said.

The mechanics of the proposed rule are somewhat complicated. But, as an example, say a new employee requests to enroll in FEHB during their first two weeks on the job. As the rules stand right now, if OPM didn’t receive the FEHB enrollment request by the end of the same pay period, then the new employee would have to wait until the following pay period for their benefits to kick in. That can create a gap if the employee didn’t still have insurance from, for instance, a previous employer.

Under the proposed rule, OPM would extend health care benefits to new hires on their first day in “pay status,” rather than having them wait until the following pay period. If OPM hasn’t yet processed the enrollment, the employee will receive coverage retroactively.

The proposed rule could have very broad impacts, since an estimated 230,000 new federal employees enroll in FEHB each year. Employees who are newly eligible for FEHB are in most cases new hires in the federal workforce. But a smaller portion of new enrollees also include those who switch positions from a federal job that doesn’t have access to FEHB, to one that does have access.

Kevin Moss, editor at Consumers’ Checkbook Guide to Health Plans for Federal Employees, said he sees OPM’s proposed change as a positive one, as it aligns with other efforts OPM has already made to try to increase access and create equity in the FEHB program.

“OPM should be applauded for keeping tabs on benefit best practices in the private sector and using those learnings to improve FEHB,” Moss said in an email to Federal News Network. “In recent years we’ve seen OPM push for enhanced fertility benefits, improved access to mental health treatment and expanded maternal health coverage. This proposed rule would eliminate the possibility of having a gap in health insurance coverage when joining the federal workforce, easing the transition to federal service.”

For now, OPM’s proposed rule only applies to FEHB, and does not include either the Federal Employees Dental and Vision Insurance Program (FEDVIP) or the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program (FLTCIP). But OPM said it’s opening to hearing feedback on whether the agency should additionally change the policy in the same way for dental and vision benefits.

OPM is accepting public comments on the proposed rule for the next two months, until April 1. Given the potentially complicated nature of implementing the changes, OPM said agencies will have 18 months, once OPM finalizes the regulations, to update their policies.

The post FEHB to give new hires ‘first day’ health care coverage under OPM proposal first appeared on Federal News Network.

With labor and management leaders preparing to sit down at the bargaining table, hundreds of employees at the Federal Housing Finance Agency may soon see changes in their workplace.

Pay equity, employee engagement and the creation of a clear grievance procedure are top of mind for Nathan Watkins, president of the nearly brand-new bargaining unit under the National Treasury Employees Union.

“It was almost exactly two years ago that a small group of employees, including myself, reached out to a couple of national unions trying to form a chapter at FHFA,” Watkins said in an interview. “We wanted, first and foremost, to give employees a voice.”

The organization campaign for FHFA, a small financial regulatory agency with a staff of a little over 700 employees, culminated in an overwhelmingly majority vote to unionize in August 2023. FHFA employees voted 254-24, or 91%, in favor of the union’s establishment. Currently, the bargaining unit represents about 500 employees.

“It was a wonderfully affirming, encouraging, uplifting result — but then there was so much work to do,” Watkins said. “All of a sudden, we’re bargaining the impact and implementation of certain policy changes and merit increases for the year.”

The next steps for the new NTEU bargaining unit are to sit down with FHFA management to negotiate and eventually sign off on the first-ever collective bargaining agreement for the agency. The upcoming contract will cover many areas that directly impact the workforce, including pay, benefits, work hours and other employment conditions. It is expected to be finalized sometime this year.

It’s a lot of work on the plate of what Watkins said is a “very small shop” of bargaining unit leaders.

“I’ve forgotten the rhythm of ‘9-to-5,’” he said. “It might be a bit of a pipe dream, but getting a good night’s sleep every night for a week would really show that we’ve pulled it off.”

The creation of a bargaining unit has been a long time coming. Over the last few years, FHFA has experienced a decline in employee engagement, according to the results of the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS) and the Partnership for Public Service’s Best Places to Work rankings. Satisfaction with pay, similar to federal employees at many other agencies, has also been declining for several years.

“Despite there being such a high morale drop, we saw a rapid climb to the top of response rates by agency,” Watkins said. “We still don’t believe that we’re being heard by the agency.”

Bob Stanton, FHFA’s branch chief of performance management and total rewards, said having FEVS results on hand — including the spike in response rate — is crucial to making improvements going forward.

“We’re looking forward to the upcoming FEVS, to be honest with you,” Stanton said in an interview. “We want to continue to learn from our employees, and we want to continue to learn from the union and have that collaborative relationship with them.”

There are other ways FHFA has been trying to gather feedback from employees. In addition to FEVS, the agency has “engagement ambassadors” who meet regularly to discuss ideas to better engage employees. Staff members can also use an online platform called “idea scale” to bring their suggestions for improving engagement up to the leadership level, said Debra Chew, FHFA’s director of the Office of Equal Opportunity and Fairness.

“Through that process, we were really intentional in making sure that we were listening to the workforce and receiving their input,” Chew said in an interview.

In response to feedback, FHFA has offered “wellness” time off, which includes three hours of leave per pay period, and one full workday a year. Additionally, Chew said the agency offers full-time telework during the month of August, which can be difficult for employees who have kids at home returning back to school that month.

But in cases where there are further concerns from employees, Watkins said establishing an administrative grievance process is necessary as part of the collective bargaining agreement. It’s a way for employees to formally file concerns with management to then be addressed and resolved.

“We also want to really fill the void that is there right now, where employees can receive information from the agency about policies or resources that are available,” Watkins said. “It will give employees a voice so that their concerns, even if they’re not formal grievances, can be heard and acknowledged by the agency. That exchange of information to and from employees is one of our top priorities. I hope that the agency will hear us and acknowledge our appetite to speak up, to be heard and to work with us.”

Chew and Stanton expressed support for the establishment of an official grievance process, saying that it’s a benefit to the agency as much as it is to employees.

“We need vehicles and mechanisms to hear employee concerns and have those concerns help inform how leadership responds to employees, and help inform our policy development process,” Chew said.

One of the perhaps most notable collective bargaining topics Watkins will focus on in negotiations is establishing better pay equity at the agency. FHFA is a non-appropriated agency, which means the FHFA director has discretion in setting pay rates for employees, rather than deferring to the General Schedule. The agency uses a “pay for performance” system, in which employees receive annual salary increases based on their individual performance, and are eligible for performance-based annual bonuses.

There are also legal requirements for FHFA to keep on track with the pay rates of other federal financial regulators, including the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

Despite that, Watkins said FHFA pay has been lagging for some employees, as salary history holds a lot of weight.

“A lot, if not the majority, of employees who join FHFA come from the private sector or other financial regulators,” Watkins said. “Their salary upon hire generally sets their salary trajectory at the agency.”

FHFA pay satisfaction over time

The Biden administration has picked up on concerns around salary history as well. The Office of Personnel Management just finalized a rule barring agencies from considering salary history in the hiring process, which OPM Director Kiran Ahuja said can exacerbate preexisting inequalities, and disproportionally impact women and workers of color.

“Salary history is not necessarily a good indicator of worker value, experience and expertise, and it also may contain or exacerbate biases,” OPM said in the Jan. 29 final rule. “Pay setting based on salary history may be inequitable, can perpetuate biases from job to job, and may contribute to a pay gap between the earnings of men and women.”

By this October, agencies will no longer be able to set new or returning federal employees’ pay based on their private sector wages. Still, federal employees who have already been working at an agency, such as FHFA, may not see many changes as a result, since the final rule from OPM generally applies only to new or returning federal hires.

“Employees who may have joined FHFA earlier in their careers, being very competent and successful at FHFA, nonetheless make less than their peers at the same level without any chance of increasing their salary,” Watkins said.

Stanton and Chew said the agency is conducting a compensation study to better understand where there may be existing pay gaps — and how to correct them.

“It’s our first time being in the union environment,” Stanton said. “Our collaboration really began with listening to the concerns of the union and working with them. Now we are focusing on the future, and solutions that are beneficial to the bargaining unit and workforce. We all share the same goal — we want FHFA to be the best place to work.”

Watkins said “heavy-handed” management practices as well as a culture of fear and retaliation that he and his colleagues experienced was what first led to the decision to embark on creating a union at FHFA. Still, Watkins added that he’s optimistic about negotiations for the first-ever collective bargaining agreement. He said he’s hoping establishing clear policies on pay, benefits and a grievance procedure will reverse the current downward trend in employee engagement.

“I’m completely confident that management and senior leaders, when we get to the table with them, will recognize that we are all humans and colleagues working toward the same goal,” Watkins said. “I hope that by the end of contract negotiations — as difficult as the process will be — we’ll really have that mutual benefit that unions provide for federal agencies. I’m hopeful that we’ll work hand in hand with the agency in the future.”

The post Federal Housing Finance Agency to kickstart negotiations for first-ever union contract first appeared on Federal News Network.

Pay, child care, housing, health care and spousal employment all remain major issues impacting the military’s recruitment and retention goals, the Defense Department officials told House Armed Services Committee (HASC) members during a panel hearing Wednesday.

Despite high agreement that changes are necessary, it will likely still be years before Congress and DoD can fully address the military’s quality-of-life challenges through the appropriations process.

HASC first stood up a temporary panel in June 2023 designed to focus exclusively on quality-of-life issues for military members. The panel, composed of 13 Congress members, has held hearings over the last several months to consider various personnel challenges, as well as possible solutions. House officials have said an upcoming report based on the discussions during those hearings will inform changes to be included in the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Increasing military pay, improving housing conditions and adding more child care options are all possibilities still on the table for the 2025 NDAA.

“Providing acceptable quality of life is the very least we can do,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), the panel’s chairman, said during a hearing Wednesday. “The work of this panel has revealed an alarming erosion of military quality of life that, if not addressed quickly, will place the very existence of our all-volunteer force at risk.”

Of the five quality-of-life issues the panel has been considering, Bacon asked each DoD official to say what they felt were the top two for their branch. The answers were varied, ultimately appearing to show that each of the five issues is equally vital.

“That’s an incredibly complicated and complex question that has a lot of interconnectivity between each one of those,” Sergeant Major of the Army Michael Weimer said.

Some problems, however, require more immediate action. The DoD officials took the opportunity to bring attention to issues of compensation for military personnel — especially for junior members. Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Joanne Bass reminded the panel that Congress has not given military members a targeted pay raise since 2007.

“A couple of these problems are so big that if we don’t start taking immediate action on them now, we’re going to miss the curve in the future,” Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy James Honea added. “Military pay and compensation reform is going to be one of those big problems that we need to start taking a bite at today.”

In another major challenge, poor living conditions for military members is severely undermining DoD’s ability to recruit and retain members. The Government Accountability Office released a scathing report in September 2023 providing details into the subpar housing. Some military barracks do not meet even the most basic living conditions, as members have to deal with sewage overflow, mold and mildew, inoperable fire systems and broken air conditioning units — just to name a few issues.

The September report made 31 recommendations, and although DoD concurred with most of them, GAO officials have told Congress that turning some of the recommendations into law may be the best route — DoD has at many times in the past agreed to implement fixes, but the problems continue to worsen.

Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps Carlos Ruiz agreed that creating a better strategy and maintaining sustained funding is necessary, but he added that there has been at least some progress to improve military housing conditions, in what he called “quick wins.”

“I’ve seen refurbished barracks — we have quite a few of them,” Ruiz said. “We’ve done 30 of them in two years, and we plan on doing more.”

The DoD officials at Wednesday’s panel hearing said consistent appropriations will be crucial to improving not only military housing, but all the quality-of-life issues under the House’s close watch.

“There was an express concern about the planning out to do that modernization,” Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force John Bentivegna said. “A stable budget is critically important to plan that out. That’s where we need help.”

Child care, another top concern for both DoD leaders and members of Congress, will also require major improvements. Defense officials said improving staffing numbers at child care centers has been promising, but added there must be continued and broader improvements going forward.

For the Marine Corps, staff turnover at child care facilities has dropped from 48%, now down to below 20%. Similarly, staffing for the Air Force’s centers has increased from 65% to 81% in the last year. As a result, the Air Force’s waitlist for child care services has also shrunk by 31%, Bass said.

Ultimately, it will require a holistic approach with adequate funding and attention to make improvements in the long term, the DoD officials said. But the current continuing resolution is hampering DoD’s ability to adequately address the major quality-of-life issues.

“We’re going to tackle this the best we can,” Bacon said. “We may not be able to pay for everything in one budget cycle, but we’re going to work hard with our appropriators and come up with a strategy to get this right.”

The post Defense officials ask Congress for support with military pay, housing, but it will likely be years in the making first appeared on Federal News Network.

VA, following in the footsteps of the Defense Department, announced plans to undo a health care policy that advocates have said discriminates against LGBTQ+ and unmarried veterans.

By lifting requirements for veterans to be married and to provide their own eggs and sperm to qualify for coverage of IVF procedures, more veterans will soon be able to access this type of care through VA’s health care program.

The update from VA comes after DoD announced plans to update TRICARE’s policy on IVF, in effect giving access to active-duty service members who are either unmarried or in same-sex marriages.

“Given VA’s continued commitment to aiding veterans in starting families, VA has determined that it will also amend its IVF policy to align the coverage it provides with that available under the forthcoming amended DoD policy,” VA said in a joint letter on Jan. 25.

The changes come in response to a lawsuit first filed in August 2023, which alleged that the strict requirements from both VA and DoD to qualify for coverage of IVF discriminate against LGBTQ+ and unmarried veterans and military members.

Part of VA’s latest decision to update its IVF qualifications was due to its health care policy being intertwined with the Defense Department’s policy.

“DoD recently determined that it will change its policy regarding IVF benefits, and the legal authority governing VA makes DoD’s policy change relevant to VA’s policy,” VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes said in a statement to Federal News Network. “To fulfill VA’s commitment to aiding veterans in starting families, VA will continue to review potential changes to our policy, taking into account any changes to DoD’s policy.”

Veterans can also get other infertility treatment benefits through VA’s health care program, including assessments and counseling, lab tests, ultrasounds, X-rays, surgical correction, medications, artificial insemination, egg freezing and sperm cryopreservation.

VA did not offer a specific timeline on implementation, but DoD said it expects to finalize the details of its IVF policy change by the end of February. DoD will then begin implementing the changes this spring.

“DoD is currently in the process of determining the exact contours of the policy amendments,” the Jan. 25 document stated.

Leaders at the National Organization for Women–New York City (NOW-NYC) — the organization that first filed the lawsuits against DoD and VA — said while they commend the plans to remove requirements and make IVF coverage more accessible, it’s not the end of the road.

“We will continue to advocate for service members because there are other requirements to be fully eligible for reproductive health care that have to be changed,” Sonia Ossorio, executive director of NOW-NYC, said in a recent interview with Federal News Network.

Both DoD and VA have another requirement for members and veterans to qualify for IVF coverage: The infertility they experience must be proven to have stemmed from a service-connected disability, or a serious injury or illness that resulted from military service.

NOW-NYC, in the August 2023 lawsuit, said the policy is discriminatory, and that it excludes many couples — like LGBTQ+ couples who cannot conceive without IVF, and those whose IVF needs stem from other injuries and disabilities.

“As such, NOW-NYC will continue to challenge both DoD and VA to remove all unlawful and prohibitive restrictions on IVF care,” NOW-NYC said in a statement.

Additionally, Ossorio said, the current requirements are both an extremely high bar, and simply unfair.

“The obstacles really are very difficult,” Ossorio said. “We have to make sure that this eligibility requirement of serious illness and serious injury related to duty is changed. Otherwise, it’s policy not in practice, but mostly only in words. Our service members deserve more.”

The post VA to broaden coverage of infertility benefits for veterans first appeared on Federal News Network.

DoD plans to update TRICARE’s policy for coverage of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures, in effect giving access to active-duty members who are either unmarried or in same-sex marriages.

The policy change comes in response to a 2023 lawsuit alleging DoD’s policy on IVF coverage through TRICARE is discriminatory and offers very narrow access to the treatments. DoD’s current policy only covers legally married service members who are able to provide their own sperm and eggs for the procedure — or in other words, married couples of opposite sexes.

In practice, that policy excludes LGBTQ+ members, as well as unmarried members, from accessing the infertility treatment, according to the National Organization for Women–New York City (NOW-NYC), which first filed the lawsuit in August 2023. The Yale Law School is representing NOW-NYC in the suit. Sonia Ossorio, executive director of NOW-NYC, called DoD’s planned policy update in response to the lawsuit a “big win.”

“This is going to be so meaningful to our active military members who have been denied access to IVF treatments,” Ossorio said in an interview with Federal News Network. “This is a really big day for the military, for the Department of Defense, to recognize this and to change these policies. Up until now, you could not apply to get IVF treatment covered if you are in a same-sex marriage, even eight years after the Supreme Court made same sex marriage legal. It did not add up.”

DoD will soon end the current requirement for members to be married to qualify for IVF coverage. The department also intends to remove the current ban on the use of donor eggs and donor sperm for service members insured through TRICARE to get IVF covered. The DoD policy, as it was originally written, would still not allow members to qualify for IVF coverage even if they paid for donor sperm and donor eggs out of their own pocket.

The limitations made it extremely difficult for active-duty service members and those who get their care through TRICARE to get access to infertility treatments, said Barbara Collura, president and CEO of non-profit advocacy group the National Infertility Association.

“This is going to help more people get care and build their family, and I take that as a win,” Collura said in an interview with Federal News Network. “How many? I don’t know. But if it’s one, if it’s 10, if it’s 100, that’s a win. That’s another family that has the opportunity to build their family and get their care where they should be getting it, in this case from DoD.”

DoD is expected to formalize the policy changes by the end of February and provide further details at that time, according to a Dec. 26 court document. At that point, DoD will begin formally implementing the policy changes.

Ossorio said despite the positive change, there is still more work ahead. The August lawsuit is not limited only to DoD or active-duty military members enrolled in TRICARE. NOW-NYC additionally filed a lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs, saying the VA’s policy for IVF coverage similarly precludes unmarried veterans and those in same-sex marriages.

“This is really a big victory, but we’re only halfway there,” Ossorio said. “We need the VA to recognize this policy and do the same thing that the Department of Defense has done.”

Although VA has not announced any changes to its current IVF coverage, VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes said the department will continue to review potential changes to its policy. It will take into account the changes to DoD’s policy, since the legal authority governing VA makes DoD’s policy change relevant to VA’s policy as well.

“While we do not comment on ongoing litigation, one of VA’s top priorities is to provide needed reproductive health care to veterans — and we continue to strongly advocate for expanded access to assistive reproductive therapies, including in-vitro fertilization, for single veterans, those in same-sex relationships and those who need donor gametes and/or embryos to build their families,” Hayes said in an email to Federal News Network.

VA does provide certain fertility treatments to veterans enrolled in the VA health care system, such as assessments and counseling, lab tests, ultrasounds, X-rays, surgical correction, medications, artificial insemination, egg freezing and sperm cryopreservation.

DoD and VA, however, both have another requirement to qualify for IVF coverage: Military members and veterans must prove that their infertility is related to a service-connected health issue. The plaintiffs of the August lawsuit allege this policy is also discriminatory, and that it excludes many couples — like LGBTQ+ couples who cannot conceive without IVF, and those whose IVF needs stem from other injuries and disabilities.

“A serious injury or illness related to being in the military is not only an extremely high bar, it’s also unfair,” Ossorio said. “It doesn’t represent the reasons why military service members have such high rates of infertility.”

It’s also difficult in many cases to show that fertility issues are directly linked to military service, said Briana Thompson, a law student intern in the Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School and prior active-duty Air Force officer.

“Service members who delay child-rearing and need IVF because of basic demands of military life, like deployments and permanent changes of station, are ineligible for care,” Thompson said in a statement Wednesday.

NOW-NYC said it’s continuing the litigation over VA’s IVF policies, as well as both DoD’s and VA’s continued requirement of an injury or disability to qualify.

For even further change, Collura said one of the best ways forward is through encouraging more active-duty service members to speak up and share their stories.

“We have many, many people who share their stories, and it really makes a huge difference,” Collura said. “And we need many, many more. This is an issue that transcends a lot of organizations, and we need more voices and more people advocating for change.”

The post Military members in same-sex marriages set for better coverage of infertility treatments first appeared on Federal News Network.

Leaders on the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board saw 2023 as a relatively successful year of progressing toward long-term strategic goals for the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP).

Perhaps most notably, more TSP participants than ever are now contributing enough to their retirement accounts to receive a full match from the government.

Currently, 86.8% of feds in the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), as well as 84.9% of active-duty military members in the Blended Retirement System (BRS) are putting at least 5% of their biweekly paychecks into the TSP. Contributing at least 5% to the TSP is the amount required to receive the maximum 5% matching contribution from an employee’s agency or a military member’s branch of service.

Additionally, the TSP now has $845 billion in total assets — another record-high for the government’s 401(k)-esque retirement savings program for federal employees. And setting yet another record, 36% of the now roughly 7 million total TSP participants have Roth balances.

“These numbers tell me that 7 million current and former federal employees in both civilian and uniformed services have trusted us with $845 billion of their hard-earned money,” Ravi Deo, executive director of the FRTIB, said during a board meeting Tuesday. “It is a trust we must continue to earn.”

Jim Courtney, director of FRTIB’s Office of Communications and Education, has credited the growing number of participants who receive the full matching rate to the FRTIB’s switch in 2020 to auto-enroll participants at a 5% contribution rate, rather than the previous 3%.

The improvements during 2023 also show progress in the goals FRTIB set in its strategic plan for fiscal 2022 through 2026. For the past couple of years, the board has been aiming to provide more information to participants to help them make the most informed decisions possible about their investments and retirement savings.

One of the steps toward the strategic goal is encouraging best practices for savings, FRTIB said, including contributing enough to receive a full matching rate.

“TSP funds, when combined with regular savings and an employer match, can improve retirement security for millions of families with a TSP participant in their ranks,” Deo said. “And the $845 billion [in total assets] does have one big benefit — it allows us to provide our services at an extremely low cost, allowing our participants to keep more of their money.”

Over the last year, the FRTIB also learned of slight changes in participants’ views of their own financial wellness, and their confidence in their goals for retirement savings.

Currently, a little over half of TSP participants are confident they are on track for retirement, according to a survey the FRTIB conducted during June and July 2023.

The last time FRTIB conducted a financial wellness survey was in 2020. In the past couple of years, participants who are still employed but who have separated from public service have become noticeably less confident in their retirement goals.

With the survey now complete, National Association of State Retirement Administrators (NASRA) Executive Director Dana Bilyeu, a TSP board member, turned her attention to what comes next.

“What do we do now that we have this great information from our folks?” Bilyeu said during the board meeting. “What do we do to create action plans in the next year, two years, five years — however we’re going to do it — to address those areas that they feel most vulnerable?”

Tom Brandt, FRTIB’s chief risk officer and director of planning and risk, said the goal is to use the survey and new information when considering any changes, decision-making and communications going forward.

“It’s also used by the training team as they’re looking at what additional training might be appropriate, or perhaps when we want to make some adjustments,” Brandt said. “As we look through this data, we can see some areas where there might be some benefits from making some adjustments, making some enhancements, or perhaps adding some new components to our training and communication elements.”

In addition to improving communications and resources for FERS participants in the TSP, the board is also trying to adjust the way it reaches younger military members who are newly enrolled in BRS.

“They’re young, they’re transient, they’re hard to find,” Brandt said. “They have the hardest time at that age imagining retirement.”

The BRS is a relatively new retirement system, which many military members got access to as part of the fiscal 2016 National Defense Authorization Act. BRS offers a “blend” of two major sources of retirement income: a traditional retirement pension and a TSP account.

In addition to automatic enrollment into the BRS for new military members, TSP ensures that participants are enrolled at the 5% matching rate, and that they’re enrolled in the right lifecycle (L) fund for their age. In September 2023, for the first time since the launch of the BRS program in 2018, the number of BRS participants surpassed the number of participants in the military’s legacy retirement system.

Similar to the FRTIB’s goals for FERS participants, the board tries to communicate and inform BRS enrollees as much as possible.

The Defense Department “has identified 14 milestones in the career of a uniformed services person — touch points where they have to teach them something,” Brandt said. “We make sure that our TSP materials are part of those touch points.”

Deo said while enrollment in the BRS is certainly not the end of military members’ savings toward retirement, it’s a step in the right direction of trying to create good habits early on.

“To the extent that we can take someone who is spending 12 hours a day figuring out how they get really good at something that is completely unrelated to the TSP — whether it’s Army, Navy, Air Force — we stick them in automatically, we give them the match,” Deo said. “If they do nothing, they will reach the age of 22 better off than most 22-year-olds in America … We are — hopefully — pushing the boulder down the hill and we will continue to roll fast.”

The post Number of TSP participants receiving a full match reaches record high first appeared on Federal News Network.

• Like a lot of other people, feds sometimes get temporarily assigned to do work that is technically above their pay grade. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is proposing new rules to make sure they get paid accordingly. As of now, agencies can tell employees to work on things that are supposed to be done by more senior workers. While that is happening, they can also earn higher pay, but only for four months. The new rule would remove that 120-day cap. The proposed regulation is in today’s Federal Register. OPM will take public comments through the end of February.
  (OPM issues proposed rule for time limited promotions - federalregister.gov)
• Nearly two years in the making, GSA is giving industry a second look at its new governmentwide cloud contract. The General Services Administration (GSA) is finally out with its revised and much-anticipated ASCEND cloud services blanket purchase agreement This second draft Performance Work Statement (PWS) details almost two-years of analysis for how best to create a new governmentwide contract for cloud services. GSA is seeking feedback on its Pool 1 PWS for infrastructure-and platform-as-a-service cloud services. It also offered general ideas for Pools 2 and 3, software-as-a-service and IT professional services. Comments on the draft performance statement of work are due by Jan. 30.
  (GSA issues draft PWS for ASCEND cloud BPA - SAM.gov)
• Agencies need to do a better job of working together to address cyber threats to medical devices, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office. GAO said cybersecurity vulnerabilities in medical devices can pose a risk to hospital networks and patients. But the auditors found the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), have not refreshed their cybersecurity coordination plans in more than five years. CISA and the FDA agreed with GAO’s recommendations to update their information sharing agreements.
  (GAO report on medical device cybersecurity - Government Accountability Office)
• The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) wants to take advantage of advances in machine learning. The Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate is working on a new machine-learning platform for CISA. It is called the CISA Advanced Analytics Platform For Machine Learning (CAPM)for short. The platform is envisioned as a multi-cloud, multi-tenant environment for testing new software and tools, and developing complex machine-learning capabilities. The DHS S&T Directorate put out a request for information on the project earlier this month, with responses due by Jan. 15.
  (RFI on CISA Advanced Analytics Platform For Machine Learning (CAP-M) project - SAM.gov)
• The Smithsonian will expand internationally, thanks to a multi-part agreement with Foggy Bottom. Smithsonian scientists will join the State Department's Embassy Science Fellows program. Other Smithsonian staff members will help preserve traditional crafts in Mexico. Still others will become part of an international exchange program for sharing best practices for inclusive museums. Secretary of State Antony Blinken says the agreement will support three foreign policy priorities: education, the environment and cultural preservation. The Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Smithsonian Lonnie Bunch, signed the memorandum of understanding shortly before Christmas.
  (Department of State and the Smithsonian Institution Renew Partnership Through Expanded Memorandum of Understanding - State Department)
• The annual defense policy bill that was signed into law last week will require the Pentagon to set departmentwide standards for livable military housing. The Defense Department will have to establish standards for floor space and the number of service members allowed to live in barracks. It will also have to develop health-and-safety standards, as well as fire-and-electrical-safety standards, in an effort to improve the conditions service members are living in. Lawmakers have been calling on Pentagon officials to fix military housing, as evidence of dire barracks conditions mounted over the past year. Earlier this year, a Government Accountability Office report documented poor conditions service members have been living under for decades, including mold, no heat in the winter or air conditioning in summer.
  (NDAA directs Pentagon to set standards for livable barracks - Congress.gov)
• The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is out with the first iteration of the Periodically Listing Updates to Management(PLUM) website, but it is far from complete. OPM, which is fulfilling some of the requirements of the PLUM Act of 2022, will update the portal in 90 days to confirm the completeness, accuracy and reliability of the information. Once fully updated and content-verified, OPM said the website will improve government transparency by giving the public a more up-to-date look at leadership in federal agencies, including the administration’s top leaders, political appointees and other senior positions in the federal civil service.
  (OPM releases initial PLUM website - Office of Personnel Management )
• The federal government is looking to industry to address workforce challenges within the Submarine Industrial Base. The General Services Administration is looking for an industry partner to develop solutions to the submarine industrial workforce problem at the local, regional and national levels. The submarine industrial base has been struggling to recruit a skilled workforce to meet its production goals. The Navy said it needs 100,000 new trade workers in the submarine industrial base over the next decade to keep up with production. The agency posted the request for proposal on Dec. 12, and companies should submit their proposals by Jan. 16.
  (GSA looks for industry partner to address submarine workforce shortage - SAM.gov)
• The Army is seeking to consolidate its legacy systems and programs into a single-user interface to provide a common operating picture. The Program Executive Office Command, Control and Communications-Tactical (PEOC3T), is looking to industry to develop solutions for the next generation of command post capabilities. The office is looking for technology to extend the basic capabilities of the government software designed to provide warfighters with real-time data and situational awareness. The service is possibly interested in executing a competitive development iteration with industry in fiscal 2024 and the prototypes may be moved to production. Companies interested in participating have until Feb. 2 to inquire.
  (Army is looking to modernize its command posts - SAM.gov)

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