Retirement Bill Offered, TSA Pay Bill Moves

A reintroduced bill (HR-785) from a group of House Democrats seeks to repeal the higher contributions toward retirement required of federal employees first hired—or rehired after a break in service with less than five years of prior service—after 2012. Under separate laws passed in successive years, those hired in 2013 must pay an additional 2.3 percent toward their FERS benefits and those hired in 2014 and later must pay an additional 3.6 percent. Meanwhile, the House has passed HR-719, to order a review of whether criminal investigators at TSA are spending at least half of their time in actual investigative work,as is required to be eligible for law enforcement availability pay. A 2013 IG report concluded that some who receive that pay, which is worth an additional 25 percent of salary, apparently do not meet that threshold, although it did not specify how many.