Other Proposals Still Have Hope

There is bipartisan agreement in some areas, although most of those issues involve relatively minor tweaks to policies. Among the bills considered the best candidates for approval are one to change the default investment fund in the TSP for newly hired employees to the appropriate lifecycle fund; one to extend through 2017 the option to appeal MSPB decisions in whistleblower retaliation cases to circuit courts other than the Federal Circuit; and the DoD authorization bill with extensions of several special pay provisions for employees assigned to areas of military operations, along with an extension of authority, due to expire later this year, for all agencies to rehire retirees temporarily in certain situations without an offset between their salaries and annuities. Also, bipartisan bills are pending in both chambers to speed hiring by having agencies share more information about job applicants, including current employees seeking to change jobs. Under that plan, when one agency deems an applicant qualified for a certain type of position but the person is not hired, another agency where the person is seeking employment would not have to go through the qualification process again but could use the other agency’s determination instead. There also is a bipartisan support to revamp certain security clearance processes involving both initial investigations and reinvestigations, as well as to tackle the backlog of pending clearance applications. Both chambers also have been moving plans to provide additional flexibilities in paying cybersecurity professionals, especially at DHS. Also having made progress on one side or the other are bills to limit circumstances for paying two types of special allowances for law enforcement employees, administratively uncontrollable overtime at CBP and availability pay at TSA, following audits questioning some of those payments.