The House has passed for the third time this year a set of changes to retirement benefits, most notably including a provision to allow FERS employees to credit unused sick leave toward their retirement benefits. That was attached to the House DoD authorization bill (HR-2647), along with language to allow FERS employees to recapture service time after taking a refund of retirement contributions at separation and then returning, and a provision to repeal a current policy that often reduces retirement benefits for CSRS employees who switch to part-time work. The House earlier passed similar language in a free-standing bill (HR-1804) and as part of a tobacco policy bill. The amendment to the DoD bill also includes language to replace the “non-foreign area” COLA system that primarily affects employees in Alaska and Hawaii with locality pay under the system generally applying to GS employees. The Senate counterpart DoD bill (S-1390) does not include similar language. The Senate considered those provisions as amendments to the tobacco bill but dropped them on grounds that they were not germane to that bill. Meanwhile, President Obama has signed into law (P.L. 111-31) the tobacco bill, which includes several changes to the TSP. The most closely watched of those, a Roth option, could take upwards of two years to implement.
