March 5, 2008

A summary of daily news relevant to the federal workforce produced by the Partnership for Public Service.

1. Submit Your Nominations Today for the 2008 Service to America Medals: Less Than One Week Remaining!
2. Clinton Wins Big, McCain Clinches
3. Federal Diary: Government Buildings to Get Added Protection
4. Union Calls for 3.9 Percent Federal Pay Increase in 2009
5. Uncle Sam Wants You
   

Submit Your Nominations Today for the 2008 Service to America Medals: Less Than One Week Remaining!

The Partnership for Public Service

 

Do you know an extraordinary federal employee who is doing remarkable work on behalf of our country? There is one month remaining to help them receive the recognition they deserve and a chance to win up to $10,000 by nominating them for the 2008 Service to America Medals (Sammies).

 

With your help, the Sammies put a compelling human face on government service and seek to inspire a new generation of Americans to serve.

 

The awards include cash prizes from $3,000 to $10,000 in the following categories:

• Federal Employee of the Year
• Career Achievement (requires 20+ years of government service)
• Call to Service (age 35 or younger, and 5 years or less of government service)
• Citizen Services
• Homeland Security
• Justice and Law Enforcement
• National Security and International Affairs
• Science and Environment

Click here to download the 2008 nominations flyer. Nominations must be submitted online at www.servicetoamericamedals.org by March 10, 2008 (extended deadline). For more information, please send an email to awards@ourpublicservice.org or call Kristin Esham at 202-775-9111.

 

Clinton Wins Big, McCain Clinches

Reuters

By John Whitesides

 

After crucial victories over Barack Obama in Ohio and Texas, Hillary Clinton was optimistic on Wednesday and said she was the best Democrat to beat presumptive Republican nominee John McCain in the November U.S. presidential election.

The victories for Clinton, a New York senator, snapped Obama's presidential winning streak at 12 and defied widespread predictions of defeats in Ohio and Texas that would force her out of the White House race.

The hard-fought Democratic presidential duel now moves to contests in Wyoming and Mississippi and the next major showdown in Pennsylvania on April 22, with Clinton still trailing Obama in pledged delegates who will choose the nominee at the August party convention.

"I think that voters are finally focused on who they think would be the best commander-in-chief and who would be the best president to turn the economy around," Clinton, 60, said in an interview on Wednesday on NBC's "Today Show".

McCain's four big victories in Vermont, Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island drove his last major rival, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, out of the race and gave McCain more than the 1,191 delegates needed to win the Republican nomination.

President George W. Bush will endorse the Arizona senator at the White House on Wednesday, capping McCain's comeback from the political scrap heap last year when his campaign was down in the polls and counted out.

"I am very pleased to note that tonight, my friends, we have won enough delegates to claim with confidence, humility and a sense of great responsibility that I will be the Republican nominee for president of the United States," McCain, 71, told supporters in Dallas.

"The contest begins tonight," the former Navy fighter pilot and prisoner of war in Vietnam said, looking ahead to a match-up with either Obama or Clinton in November.

Clinton's wins marked the third time this year she has dodged a potential knockout blow from Obama. She won in New Hampshire after a loss in Iowa, and split the Super Tuesday contests after a blowout defeat in South Carolina.

Exit polls showed she won big among voters who decided in the last few days, when she questioned Obama's readiness to be commander in chief in a dramatic television ad and cast doubt on the sincerity of his pledges to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement, which is blamed in Ohio for manufacturing job losses.

Asked if she thought voters were having second thoughts about Obama, Clinton said on NBC "I think they are starting to ask some hard questions and I think voters want this race to go on because they are now really concerned about who can best go against Sen. McCain."

BROAD BASE OF SUPPORT

Clinton's win was built with support from a broad constituency of men, women, the elderly, Hispanics, working-class Democrats and rural voters, exit polls showed.

Under Democratic rules allowing the losers in each state to win a proportional number of delegates, Clinton must win many of the remaining contests by big margins to have a shot at significantly closing the gap with Obama in the delegate race.

"The bottom line is, that we are in a very strong position," Obama said on the "Today Show". "Sen. Clinton barely dented the delegate count yesterday...This process is going to ultimately be about who has the most delegates."

An MSNBC count gave Obama 1,307 delegates to Clinton's 1,175, both still short of the 2,025 needed to win the nomination. The final delegate apportionment from Tuesday's contests was still being calculated.

Clinton also captured Rhode Island and Obama scored an easy win in Vermont. Turnout was heavy in all four states, and the campaigns of Obama, 46, an Illinois senator, and Clinton traded accusations of voting problems in both Ohio and Texas.

In his victory speech, McCain took aim at both of his likely Democratic opponents and criticized their pledges to revisit U.S. trade treaties, punish companies that send jobs overseas and withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.

"The next president must explain how he or she intends to bring that war to the swiftest possible conclusion without exacerbating a sectarian conflict that could quickly descend into genocide, destabilizing the entire Middle East," McCain said.

McCain has had trouble winning over conservatives unhappy with his views on immigration, his past opposition to Bush's tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 and his criticism of some religious conservative leaders as "agents of intolerance" during his failed 2000 presidential campaign.

Government Buildings to Get Added Protection

The Washington Post

By Stephen Barr 

 

The police force in charge of protecting most federal buildings, recently criticized as understaffed and demoralized, will soon add officers.

Congress last year directed the Federal Protective Service to have 1,200 full-time employees by July 31 and stipulated that 900 of them must be full-time law enforcement officers, inspectors and agents.

By adding staff, Congress hopes that the police force, a part of the Department of Homeland Security, will be better able to deter terrorist threats. Last month, the Government Accountability Office said understaffing and other problems affect the police force, exposing buildings in the Washington area and elsewhere "to a greater risk of crime or terrorist attack."

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, in a Feb. 28 letter to Congress, said the police force has about 750 of the required 900 law enforcement personnel on board and is working to hire the remaining 150 by the end of July, as directed last year by Congress.

He cautioned that not all of the new hires may be trained in time, delaying compliance with the law until the end of September.

On Friday, officials will post an announcement on USAJobs.gov, the government's recruitment Web site, for the jobs at the FPS. They also plan to highlight the jobs at career fairs throughout the country in coming months.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Rep. David E. Price (D-N.C.), who both head homeland security appropriations subcommittees, asked Chertoff last month for a status report on staffing at the FPS.

The force has 1,062 employees, down from 1,400 three years ago, according to the GAO. The federal officers oversee about 15,000 contract security guards who keep watch at federal buildings.

The decline in the police force has led to fewer patrols around buildings, delays in responding to calls and inadequate oversight of security guards, the GAO testified last month at a House subcommittee hearing chaired by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.).

The FPS is financed through fees paid by tenants of federal buildings, and Chertoff said the force's security fees will go up to pay for the larger staff. "Our success in implementing and sustaining this higher level of staffing is dependent on our customers' ability to pay the increase," he wrote.

Chertoff also said the FPS "has been aggressive in reforming the way it conducts business." It has provided additional training to employees to provide for more timely building security assessments and, with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has trained more than 400 employees in contracting procedures so that they can monitor security guard contracts, he said.

The Postal Service's Digital Delay

The U.S. Postal Service will launch its 31-digit "intelligent mail" bar-code system in May 2009 rather than January.

The bar code will permit business customers -- advertisers, catalogue and credit card companies -- to track their mail, from the drop-off at a post office to delivery at a home or office. It also will permit the Postal Service to check whether mail is being delivered on time.

The plan for intelligent mail was outlined in a Federal Register notice this year, and comments from mail users "were thoughtful and thorough," Postmaster General John E. Potter said in a Feb. 29 letter to companies and others. The comments "also raised a number of implementation concerns that we need to address," he added.

"Many of you told us that January 2009 was too soon," Potter wrote.

He said the Postal Service would publish another proposal for intelligent mail this month and invited mail users to study the proposed rules and provide more feedback. 

 

Union Calls for 3.9 Percent Federal Pay Increase in 2009

Government Executive

By Brittany Ballenstedt

 
The leader of a federal labor union on Tuesday outlined a list of major legislative priorities for 2008, including the approval of a 3.9 percent pay increase for government employees in 2009.

Colleen Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, called on lawmakers to support six major federal employee issues this year, including the pay increase. She addressed an audience of more than 300 NTEU members at the start of a three-day legislative conference in Washington.

Kelley said the union's top priority was securing a higher pay raise for federal workers next year. President Bush proposed a 2.9 percent increase in his fiscal 2009 budget request, but Kelley called the proposal "inappropriate and unacceptable," noting especially its lack of parity with military service members. The president proposed a 3.4 percent raise for the military in 2009.

In the push for fair and adequate pay, Kelley added, NTEU also will continue to oppose alternative pay systems that lack fairness, credibility and transparency. Specifically, Kelley said, NTEU would lobby for a full repeal of the remaining components of the Homeland Security Department's new personnel system. Last month, DHS backed away from its proposed labor relations system, but still plans to implement performance management and pay-for-performance measures at the agency.

Kelley also said NTEU will focus on other issues critical to Homeland Security employees, including upholding critical law enforcement officer benefits passed into law earlier this year for Customs and Border Patrol agents. Bush proposed repealing the benefit for CBP officers in his fiscal 2009 budget request. NTEU will continue pressing for "much-needed" collective bargaining rights for Transportation Security Administration employees, Kelley said.

In addition, NTEU is seeking an increase in the government's share of health insurance premiums as well as a federal contribution to dental and vision plans. The union also is backing the elimination of pension offsets that reduce Social Security benefits some federal retirees are entitled to receive from their spouses.

Other priorities involve fighting White House efforts to repeal restrictions on federal contracting signed into law last year, and supporting passage of legislation that would reinstate and expand labor-management partnerships at federal agencies.

"As important as each of these issues is in its own right, taken together they form just the starting point for an aggressive yearlong legislative effort that includes NTEU chapters and members throughout the country," Kelley said. "Such involvement is critical, given that so much of what impacts federal workers occurs in and through the legislative process."

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., told NTEU members that the federal government will face great challenges during the next four years, especially as 36 percent of the workforce becomes eligible to retire. He called on federal employees and government leaders to focus on two issues -- protecting the benefits of those retiring from federal service and ensuring enough new employees enter the government workforce and receive proper training.

"All of these years of anti-government rhetoric have fueled a sort of disdain among people for the quality of work we're doing," Webb said. "We're going to turn that around."

NTEU did not endorse a presidential candidate at the conference. Kelley said the decision "is not obvious," noting that the two Democratic contenders, Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois, both have 100 percent voting records on federal employee issues.

"This election is different than any other," she said. "We've endorsed in the past before there was a single candidate, but those races were different. Our leaders are probably no different than the American people in who they support."

 

Uncle Sam Wants You

By Elizabeth Pope 

AARP Bulletin 

The federal government--the nation's largest employer--is seeking 50-plus workers to solve a potential brain drain.

For the first time, three U.S. agencies have joined AARP's National Employer Team of 37 employers interested in older workers (www.aarp.org/employerteam). The Internal Revenue Service, the Peace Corps and the Small Business Administration Office of Disaster Assistance have full- and part-time slots to fill, both inside and outside Washington.

Within five years, some 33 percent of the federal workforce will be eligible for retirement, said Max Stier, president of the Washington-based Partnership for Public Service.

"There's an opportunity in the federal government, from astronomer to zoologist, and everybody in between," he says.