TSP, Retirement Provisions Advance

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has approved the federal retirement provisions of a bill (HR-1256) that earlier passed another House panel. One provision would allow FERS employees to gain credit in their retirement calculations for unused sick leave, as CSRS employees may do; neither could use sick leave to establish eligibility for retirement, however. Another provision would require the TSP to offer a Roth option, require that newly hired employees make personal contributions to the TSP–presumably of 3 percent of salary–unless they opted out, and allow the TSP to offer a "window" through which participants could invest in funds other than those offered directly by the TSP. The measure also would change retirement calculations for CSRS employees who work part-time in order to remove a disincentive for switching to part-time work later in a career.