Federal Employees

The Justice Department's secret review of Associated Press telephone records gives advocates for federal employees one more reason to doubt the Obama administration's full commitment to protecting whistleblowers, particularly those in national security agencies. Revelations about the department's broad prying into the work, home and mobile phone records of AP journalists in Washington, New York and Hartford, Conn., sent a chill through news organizations. Perhaps that was the point.

The Justice Department's secret review of Associated Press telephone records gives advocates for federal employees one more reason to doubt the Obama administration's full commitment to protecting whistleblowers, particularly those in national security agencies. Revelations about the department's broad prying into the work, home and mobile phone records of AP journalists in Washington, New York and Hartford, Conn., sent a chill through news organizations. Perhaps that was the point.

The "average" federal employee salary is nearly $78,500, an amount that has risen by about $1,800 in the past two years despite a general freeze on salary rates, according to the Office of Personnel Management. As of September, OPM reported last week, the average salary for a full-time, permanent, non-seasonal position was $78,467. The comparable figure for December 2010 was $76,701. The latest available median salary is $74,714, up from $69,550 in 2010. Federal employees did not receive the traditional across-the-board January raises in 2011, 2012 or 2013.

The federal government has an innovation problem — or does it? The answer depends on whom you ask. Federal employees surveyed over the past three years have had a declining view of government innovation. But that doesn't mean Uncle Sam doesn't have pockets of creativity, as highlighted by Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. The bad news first: Less than 40 percent of federal employees felt that creativity and innovation were rewarded in their agency — a 2.5 percentage point drop from 2011.

Your article about the effects of the sequester on federal employees left readers with a misleading impression of its effects by not mentioning the IRS ("Agencies in Maryland dodge furloughs - for now," March 30). The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents IRS employees and more than 35 other federal agencies, represents over 1,000 employees at various posts in Maryland, including Baltimore City, Annapolis, Salisbury, Wheaton and Frederick. In addition, there is a huge IRS office in New Carrollton.

Appealing to a constituency at the center of the debate over federal budget cuts, Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin told a large crowd of federal employees that Maryland's lawmakers will fight for them as Congress begins making spending cuts required by the new debt ceiling law. "We're going to stand up and defend what you do every day," the Maryland Democrat told a few hundred employees who gathered in the library of the U.S. Census Bureau. "We know the sacrifices that you've made. We know the abuse that you take.

Even as Congress and the White House appeared to be at a standoff over the fiscal cliff last month, lawmakers and the president were able to agree on at least one thing: an update of the Hatch Act. The 1939 law prohibits federal employees and certain state and local workers from engaging in partisan political activity on the taxpayer's dime. Violators typically have faced two types of penalties - both severe. Congress passed bipartisan legislation in December that broadened the range of penalties and loosened the rules so that most state and local government workers - including those in the District of Columbia - can run for partisan elective office.

It's been a worry for many years: What happens when older federal workers retire and take decades of institutional knowledge with them? "The last thing any manager or any organization or company wants is for folks that are ready to retire to just walk out the door," said Kenneth J. Zawodny Jr., associate director of retirement services at the federal Office of Personnel Management. With the aging of the workforce, the challenge has grown urgent. More than 40 percent of federal employees in 2010 were 50 or older.

Current and retired federal employees who have been on the offense against the Defense of Marriage Act can't taste victory yet, but its scent is growing stronger now that the Supreme Court has decided to review the law. Federal workers and retirees have been on the vanguard against DOMA. Yet, though the court did not choose one of their cases, the one picked this month certainly will have implications for the federal workforce. DOMA defines marriage for federal purposes as a union between a man and a woman.

Seven senior federal employees and four employees' groups filed a federal lawsuit Thursday to stop their agencies from posting their salaries, stock portfolios and other assets online. Congress required federal agencies to post the data by Aug. 31 as part of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, which bans insider trading by members of Congress, their staff members and other high-level federal employees. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland by the Senior Executives Association, the American Foreign Service Association, the Assembly of Scientists, the National Association of Immigration Judges and seven individuals.

Details of financial transactions by members of Congress and thousands of high-level federal workers were supposed to be posted online last month for anyone in the world to see — a key step, supporters of the move said, toward greater transparency in government. What happened instead was President Barack Obama signed a law that once again made the financial information of public employees — useful for identifying insider trading or conflicts of interest — difficult to find.

The "average" federal employee salary is nearly $78,500, an amount that has risen by about $1,800 in the past two years despite a general freeze on salary rates, according to the Office of Personnel Management. As of September, OPM reported last week, the average salary for a full-time, permanent, non-seasonal position was $78,467. The comparable figure for December 2010 was $76,701. The latest available median salary is $74,714, up from $69,550 in 2010. Federal employees did not receive the traditional across-the-board January raises in 2011, 2012 or 2013.

In the Sunday Baltimore Sun, there was an article entitled "Some lawmakers to give back pay" (April 7). It claims that President Barack Obama is showing solidarity and shared sacrifice with the federal employees who are about to be furloughed. What a joke and an insult! President Obama will give back 5 percent of his salary or $16,667. Furloughed employees will be giving back 21 days of pay, about 13 percent of their salaries. If Mr. Obama really wants shared sacrifice, as he states, he would give back 21 days of pay or $32,308.

Labor unions representing federal employees reacted angrily to the $3.8 trillion budget unveiled Wednesday by President Barack Obama, who proposed trimming $20 billion from federal retirement benefits - reopening a debate many Democrats felt had been resolved last year. The 2014 spending plan - which arrived months late - would reduce annual budget deficits by an additional $1 trillion over a decade, according to the administration's estimates; raise the federal minimum wage to $9; curb Social Security spending; increase the federal cigarette tax and close tax loopholes the Obama administration has pursued for years without success.

Your article about the effects of the sequester on federal employees left readers with a misleading impression of its effects by not mentioning the IRS ("Agencies in Maryland dodge furloughs - for now," March 30). The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents IRS employees and more than 35 other federal agencies, represents over 1,000 employees at various posts in Maryland, including Baltimore City, Annapolis, Salisbury, Wheaton and Frederick. In addition, there is a huge IRS office in New Carrollton.

A month after across-the-board federal spending cuts began, there are signs that one of the most troubling potential consequences for Maryland — the furloughing of federal employees — might not be as widespread as initially feared. But the state has not gone unscathed by the $85 billion in cuts known as sequestration, and some of the first tangible changes in the Baltimore area are beginning to emerge as federal services are trimmed. Fort McHenry in Baltimore and the Hampton National Historic Site near Towson plan to cut hours this summer, limiting visits by tourists.

Congressional action to avert a "fiscal cliff" of higher taxes and across-the-board federal budget cuts means that government agencies will avoid many dreaded spending reductions — at least for now. But "now" is no more than two months. The future remains uncertain for federal employees because the legislation, passed less than 24 hours into 2013, delays the budget reductions known as sequestration only until early March. "Really, do we have to go through that again?" asked an exasperated Gregory J. Junemann, president of the International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers.

Florence P. Haseltine knows the power of scientists meeting face to face. The former researcher at the National Institutes of Health notes a list of milestones achieved through networking and collaboration at conferences, such as the deliberations that led to advances that helped slow the spread of HIV. Now Haseltine, former director of the Center for Population Research of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Rockville, worries...

When Congress and the White House failed to make a deal on budget cuts March 1, sequestration went into effect, requiring federal agencies to identify $85 billion in required cuts. The looming reductions, which will be spread across agencies - with the exception of safety-net programs such as Medicaid - has federal employees and those who benefit from federal dollars concerned about how and if they will be affected. Laurie Proietti, the acting director of Laurel Advocacy and Referral Services, said she's concerned about how the sequestration cuts will affect her agency and the residents it assists.