FEDweek

The proposed rules include increasing the frequency of training from once every three years to annually.

The emphasis on ground transportation is part of the Delivering for America Program. Image: Karolis Kavolelis / Shutterstock.com The Postal Service has achieved some savings from an emphasis on ground transportation over air transportation but an air cargo contract it entered in 2024 as part of that effort “is not aligned with volume trends and network changes,” an inspector general report has said.

Senate Dems said the reviews would turn federal grants into a cudgel for the President to advance a partisan agenda and punish political rivals. Image: Maria Dryfhout/Shutterstock.com Separate letters from groups of Senate Democrats have added to previous objections to the Trump administration’s plans to require federal employees to sign a new nondisclosure agreement and to require political review of agency grant-making.

The SSA can impose “administrative sanctions” based on a determination that an individual has committed fraud, but those cases are rife with errors. Image: Dmytro Mykhailov/Shutterstock.com An inspector general audit has found errors in three-fourths of a sample of cases in a program in which the SAA may reduce or cut off benefits and recover overpayments, pointing to shortcomings in both the agency’s systems and in how employees use them.

For many federal employees nearing retirement, the challenge is no longer accumulation - the challenge becomes coordination. Image: jokerpro/Shutterstock.com Most federal employees spend decades hearing the same retirement advice: Max out the TSP. Defer taxes. Save aggressively. Push taxes off as long as possible. And during working years, that advice often makes complete sense. But one of the biggest retirement planning mistakes we see is that many people never stop to ask what happens later.

One principle addresses actively monitoring claims and utilization for potential fraud and waste, which OPM says was the motive behind a proposal to gain more access to patient records.

Long-term care is primarily assistance with daily living, not medical care, and the benefits for such care under either FEHB/PSHB or Medicare are extremely limited.

Federal law requires agencies to reimburse a portion of your professional liability insurance premium. Image: Dennis MacDonald/Shutterstock.com One form of insurance often overlooked is liability insurance. However, given the potential costs of legal judgments, it is prudent to have that coverage in one or more forms.

The performance of non SES supervisors will not be evaluated based on the ratings they issue to their subordinates, OPM clarified. Image: alice-photo/Shutterstock.com In finalizing rules changing a range of policies on federal employee performance evaluations, including new provisions for forced distribution of ratings, OPM said that the distribution of ratings a supervisor assigns to subordinates will not be used in the supervisor’s own ratings.

Several of the suits filed against other agencies resulted in court orders in favor of the unions which later were stayed by higher courts. Image: Ritu Manoj Jethani / Shutterstock.com The AFGE and NFFE unions and affiliates have filed a suit against their exclusion from DoD/DoW as ordered in April, the latest in a series of actions by them and other unions against a variety of agencies that have done the same.