The American Federation of Government Employees has warned that the Federal Protective Service’s decision to end group retention benefits for law enforcement personnel at the GS-4 through GS-12 levels risks losing them to local, state or private law enforcement opportunities.
The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and FPS announced the decision in a recent memo following a periodic review of the allowances, introduced in 2002 to damper attrition.
The memo cited an “overall requirement to restructure the FPS workforce driven by ongoing business improvements” as well as ongoing efforts to “identify strategies for FPS to operate within the revenue it collects for mission-essential services provided” and said it would look to a variety of management tools to resolve funding shortfalls.
AFGE, which represents about 1,400 FPS employees, added that FPS officers are subject to staffing shortages, do not get law enforcement retirement benefits, and claimed that the removal of retention pay “has put the final nail in the coffin” regarding morale.
