The defense bill often offers the best and last chance for enactment before year’s end for companion bills. Image: gooutsight/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffSponsors of a range of federal workforce-related proposals have moved to attach them to the annual DoD authorization bill when it comes to a vote in the Senate in the post-election session.
Because it is considered a “must-pass” bill and often moves toward enactment late in a year, as this year, the defense bill often offers the best and last chance for enactment before year’s end of bills that have made some progress; that is especially the case in even-numbered years since the new year will begin with a new Congress.
One significant workforce policy amendment was announced previously in the Senate, to block a future Schedule F from being issued only by an executive order; the House version already contains such language and Senate adoption of a similar amendment would guarantee its passage. More recently, Senate managers agreed to allow consideration of amendments to:
* Increase the death benefit paid to federal employees killed in the line of duty from $10,000 to the $100,000 for deaths in the line of duty and increase that amount annually by inflation; and increase the payment for funeral expenses from $800 to $8,000, also inflation-adjusted.
* Provide that certain conditions are presumed to be caused by employment for purposes of workers’ compensation benefits for federal employees who worked in fire protection activities and that disability or death of the employee is to be presumed to result from personal injury sustained in the performance of duty.
* Preserve the special retirement benefits of federal first responders who become disabled by allowing them to remain under the special retirement provisions for them if they are placed in another federal position outside of that system after returning to work from a work-related injury or illness.
* Expand use of various special hiring authorities such as direct-hire authority, temporary appointments, and hiring of recent college graduates, and to create or expand pilot projects aimed at addressing agencies’ recruitment and retention difficulties in IT fields.
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