federal workforce

Local Congressmen Sponsor Federal Leave Bill

By ARLnow.com

Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) is among the local congressional sponsors of a new bipartisan bill that allow federal employees to donate unused sick days to “sick leave banks.” The banks would then serves as a way to help federal employees who are suffering prolonged illnesses.

Below is the press release from Rep. Moran’s office.

Today, Representative Jim Moran (VA-08) introduced the “Federal Employees Leave Transfer Act of 2011” to allow federal employees to voluntarily transfer unused sick leave to agency-wide leave banks. Joining Moran as original cosponsors are Representatives Frank Wolf (VA-10), Chris Van Hollen (MD-08), Gerry Connolly (VA-11), and John Sarbanes (MD-03).

The legislation builds upon current annual leave banks in most federal agencies and is expected to be nearly cost neutral. Once enacted, federal employees will be permitted to donate their excess sick leave to agency leave banks, augmenting currently established annual leave banks.

“This legislation provides an equitable way for federal workers to help out fellow employees in times of prolonged illness,” said Congressman Jim Moran. “The success of this policy in the Federal Aviation Administration and in the private sector should be replicated throughout all federal agencies.”

“This legislation increases the pool of available leave days for those federal employees who are, for example, welcoming home a newborn baby or caring for a sick family member. It carries virtually no cost, but will help the federal government remain competitive when attracting new employees,” said Congressman Chris Van Hollen.

“This is a proven policy in the private sector, and I witnessed its success firsthand during my years with Fairfax County, which has a similar policy. If the Federal Government is going to continue recruiting and retaining highly-qualified employees, this must be part of the menu for a competitive benefits package,” said Congressman Gerry Connolly.

Currently, federal employees can apply accrued sick leave towards their retirement annuity calculation in full year or month blocks. Employees nearing retirement must then “use or lose” any remaining sick leave, a practice that once lead to an estimated $68 million in annual lost productivity.

The Federal Aviation Administration is the only federal agency that allows employees to donate both annual and sick leave. FAA employees donated over 22,000 hours of sick leave in FY 2010 alone.

DEVELOPING STORY — Federal Shutdown Could Have “Severe Impact” on N. Virginia

By ARLnow.com

On a conference call today, Rep. Jim Moran (D) said he believe the odds of a federal shutdown at the end of the week is about 50/50 — a dark omen for Arlington and other Northern Virginia jurisdictions whose economies rely heavily on federal employment.

If such a shutdown were to happen, Moran says he believes that furloughed federal employees would not be reimbursed for their time off due to Republican opposition to such a move. A shutdown could last several weeks and have a “severe impact” on the local economy, Moran warned.

“This is very, very, serious,” Moran said. “Federal employees need to understand that this is not 1995, when we closed down… and [employees] were fully reimbursed.”

“About a million federal employees will not be working, and it is highly unlikely they will ever be reimbursed,” Moran continued. “Not only is this going to hurt the overall economy in the metropolitan Washington area that I represent, but it is going to have a very severe impact on employee’s abilities to make their mortgage payments, their car payments, etc.”

“Every private sector element in my district’s economy is going to be adversely affected,” Moran added.

Others on the conference call pegged the number of federal employees who would be furloughed during a shut down at around 800,000 nationwide, including Department of Defense civilians. Moran said the impact would likely to extend to government contractors.

“If this continues I think there’s going to be a number of smaller contractors that will simply go out of business because the [federal agencies] aren’t giving them the kind of cash flow they need to survive,” he said. Backing up that suggestion, Moran’s office pointed out that 20 percent of government contracts in the D.C. area were adversely affected during the 1995 shutdown.

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Federal Gov’t, Arlington Schools to Close Two Hours Early

By ARLnow.com

With Arlington salt trucks gearing up to tackle this afternoon’s potentially dangerous snowfall, Arlington schools and the federal government have both announced early closings.

Arlington Public Schools will close two hours early today, the school system has announced. All evening and after school activities are canceled.

Meanwhile, the Office of Personnel Management has announced that federal employees will be dismissed two hours early today.

Update at 1:00 p.m. — All Arlington Public Library branches are closing at 5:00 p.m.

Update at 1:15 p.m. — All non-emergency Arlington County Government facilities will close at 5:00 p.m. Evening activities are canceled.

Stick with ARLnow.com for continuous breaking news coverage of tonight’s winter storm. We’ll be providing up-to-the-second updates through midnight tonight on the blog and on Twitter.

Moran Blasts Federal Pay Freeze

By ARLnow.com

Presiding over a congressional district with one of the highest concentrations of federal workers in the country, Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.) has consistently been an unabashed supporter of federal employees and federal spending.

It’s little surprise then that Moran is criticizing President Obama’s decision to freeze the salaries of two million federal employees for the next two years.

Moran released the following statement yesterday evening.

This move will only embolden the opponents of civil service, those who got elected claiming the federal government is broken and will now set about trying to break it.

Unilaterally freezing pay for civil servants separate from a comprehensive, deficit reduction package unfairly asks federal employees to carry a burden that should be shared by all. This freeze strikes at the heart of pay parity, penalizing civilian federal employees in the Defense Department, CIA and other agencies who work side-by-side with our active duty service men and women overseas.

A two year freeze also threatens to exacerbate the brain drain from our federal agencies as the baby boomers reach retirement. It flies in the face of the basic fact that federal employees, particularly those in the management sector, are already underpaid when compared to their private sector counterparts.