Expert’s View

The portion of the federal workforce covered by the Civil Service Retirement System continues to dwindle. A subset of that …More

In my last two articles, I focused on the survivor annuities provided to children who meet the necessary criteria, including …More

Last week I described the benefits provided to the children of current or retired federal employees who have passed away. …More

In my last two articles, I wrote about the survivor annuities provided to the spouses of deceased federal employees and …More

Talking about death isn’t a comfortable topic. But it’s an important one if you are either married or will be. …More

Last week I spelled out the rules governing when you can retire and when your annuity begins. In short, FERS …More

Mid-year is when many federal employees start doing some serious thinking about retiring, often eyeing the period around the end …More

Are you thinking about retiring? I mean really thinking about doing it within a foreseeable time frame, as opposed to …More

Last week I wrote about the Windfall Elimination Provision and pointed out that the argument for keeping it on the …More

Pardon me for not getting excited, but bills have once again been introduced to repeal or modify the Windfall Elimination …More

Every time Congress tries to save money, as the House of Representatives now says it wants to do, there seems …More

I recently received an email from an employee who will soon be eligible to retire. He will have the correct …More

In my last column, I talked about the choice employees face if they had left the government, withdrawn their retirement …More

As Yogi Berra once said, “This is déjà vu all over again.” Recently I got an email from an employee …More

Last week I pointed out that the allowable uses of sick leave have expanded over the years. Now I want …More

While the original purpose of sick leave was to allow you to take off from work when you weren’t well, …More

In this series of articles, I’ve walked you through the Federal Employees Health Benefits program as it applies to both …More

In my last two articles in this series on understanding federal insurance benefits I wrote about the Federal Employees Health …More

Even during unsettled times, there are always a steady stream of new employees coming into the federal workforce. While some …More

I’ve received a number of emails recently from Federal Employees Retirement System retirees who are confused about the special retirement …More

During the open season that ended a month ago, federal employees, retirees and survivors made their choices for Federal Employees …More

If you work for the federal government, are married, and die while still on the payroll, your surviving spouse will …More

When you joined the government, you filled out a lot of papers. Among them was likely a designation of beneficiary …More

Here’s a quick memory test. Question: When were you first covered by the Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance program? Answer: …More

Over the last three weeks I’ve spelled out what you, your agency and OPM have to do to move you …More

In my last two articles, I described the first two steps in the retirement process. First was your filing a …More

Last week I said that this is a remarkable year to retire. That’s because the leave year ends on December 31. …More

Isn’t it a little late in the year to be talking about preparing for retirement at year’s end? Normally, I’d …More

The end of the year is just around the corner and employees are peppering me with one question. When is …More

This year’s Federal Employee Health Benefits Open Season will run from November 14 to December 12, 2022. If you are …More