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Obama to extend benefits to gay federal workers By PHILIP ELLIOTT WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama plans to extend health care and other benefits to the gay and lesbian partners of federal employees. White House officials say Obama plans to announce decision on Wednesday in the Oval Office. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the president had not yet made the announcement. The move would give partners of federal employees access to health care and financial benefits such as relocation fees for moves. Officials say Obama would detail more details of the decision on Wednesday.

President Barack Obama plans to extend health care and other benefits to the gay and lesbian partners of federal employees. White House officials say Obama plans to announce decision on Wednesday in the Oval Office. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because the president had not yet made the announcement. Snip access to health care and financial benefits such as relocation fees for moves.

The 3.9% pay raise is an average. We have gotten comments from readers complaining that our projected pay rates for 2009 do not show a 3.9% increase for their city or town. An average means that some will get more than 3.9% and some will get less. The base pay rate increase for 2009 is less than 3.9%. The 3.9% average is reached by taking into account locality pay rates. This means that some federal employees in some areas will get less because they are not in a locality pay area.

Is The Presidential Election Close? Very Close According to Latest (and Last) Survey Before the Election Friday, October 31, 2008 The shifting preferences in the American race for president have been volatile this year. We have periodically asked readers their opinion on the candidates. The federal workforce is large, diverse, and pays attention to political issues--and the results of these informal surveys have been consistent with national trends in the election process. In some cases, going back through the last election cycle in 2004, the opinions of our readers presaged similar trends among the general electorate. (cut) Several months ago,...

WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service is trying to collect billions of dollars in late taxes from nearly half a million federal employees. Documents obtained by WTOP radio through the Freedom of Information Act show the federal employees and retirees did not pay more than $3.5 billion in taxes owed last year.

Public service employees -- federal workers, soldiers, nurses, firefighters and others -- will have an opportunity to qualify for student loan forgiveness under a law signed by President Bush yesterday. The law forgives outstanding education debt for public service employees who have made 10 years of monthly payments on their loans while serving full-time in government, public education or other positions related to public service.

In a letter to the Pentagon, Republicans Frank R. Wolf and Thomas M. Davis III and Democrat James P. Moran Jr. said they had been contacted by “numerous constituents gravely concerned” about their 2008 pay raise under the new program, called the National Security Personnel System or NSPS. “We must keep our promises to our employees,” the three wrote in the letter, sent last week. “It would be difficult if not impossible to recruit or retain employees if they knew they could not rely on their promised salaries.” The Pentagon, in a memo last month, said that about 110,000 employees...

  Readers: Criminal Activity Increasing Among Federal EmployeesApril 26, 2006By Ralph Smith URL: http://www.fedsmith.com/articles/articles.showarticle.db.php?intArticleID=896 Has there been a change in criminal activity among federal employees in recent years? No doubt, there are more cases reported about problems with criminal activity involving federal employees. Numerous news reports come out during the year about some activity that inevitably results in enriching the person or people involved in the activity. But is this because there is more news available or is it because more federal employees are involved in criminal activity? FedSmith asked the question because, as some of us are former federal...

I tried to find a current topic where I could post this as a comment. However, I could not locate one that was appropriate; so I took the luxury of making this a Vanity post. This is as I see the issue of the Social Security debate now. I am over the age that any change would even affect me, so I have no gain either way. But I do have a huge concern for my children and grandchildren who will be subject to any decisions. Thus I feel the need and right to express my opinion.

Ten labor unions representing 300,000 civilian employees of the U.S. Department of Defense filed a federal lawsuit yesterday against Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, saying Rumsfeld's department violated the law by refusing to negotiate changes in its labor-management system. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, comes after months of protests by the unions over proposals for a new National Security Personnel System, which Congress authorized for development in November 2003. The unions say the system, which seeks flexibility in hiring and assigning workers for security reasons, is using threats to security as a way to diminish the...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 - Four unions filed suit on Thursday to prevent the Bush administration from carrying out the first phase of a personnel system that would give officials sweeping power to reward, punish and reassign federal employees. The suit was filed by career employees of the Homeland Security Department, challenging rules it issued on Wednesday. White House officials said the new procedures, affecting 110,000 employees, were a model for changes throughout the federal government. The unions asked the Federal District Court here to issue an injunction against the final rules, which will be published on Tuesday in The Federal...

CRAWFORD, Texas - President Bush spelled out in greater detail Thursday the pay raise that takes effect Jan. 1 for federal workers, members of Congress, judges - even Vice President Dick Cheney. Congress passed the pay raises earlier this year, but Bush was required to sign an executive order detailing the pay hikes before the end of the year. He did so Thursday. The president's annual salary of $400,000 is not affected by the legislation. The cost-of-living raise lifts salaries for members of the House and Senate from $158,000 this year to $162,100 in 2005. The measure provides civil servants...

ARIS, Aug. 13 - Finally, instead of dissembling behind ambiguous notions of Gallic joie de vivre, someone in this leisurely land has declared outright that the French should eschew the Anglo-Saxon work ethic and openly embrace sloth.Corinne Maier, the author of "Bonjour Paresse," a sort of slacker manifesto whose title translates as "Hello Laziness," has become a countercultural heroine almost overnight by encouraging the country's workers to adopt her strategy of "active disengagement" - calculated loafing - to escape the horrors of disinterested endeavor."Imitate me, midlevel executives, white-collar workers, neo-slaves, the damned of the tertiary sector," Ms. Maier calls...

The largest federal employee union will work to defeat President Bush in November after endorsing presumptive Democratic nominee John F. Kerry last week. ... Kerry, who has voted with the AFGE 88 percent of the time during his Senate career, also opposes private accounts in Social Security, favors spending more on veterans' health care and would strengthen Medicare and collective bargaining rights, said John Gage, the AFGE president. ... Gage said 5,000 AFGE members have volunteered to work on behalf of the Kerry campaign. The union plans to focus on states whose electoral votes appear to be up for grabs,...

Last month, the General Accounting Office (GAO) made headlines with its report that scores of high ranking employees from eight federal agencies had degrees from bogus colleges or unaccredited schools. Worse yet, a GAO spokesman said, "It's a much larger problem than the evidence we have to date shows." That could be an understatement given that just three of the unaccredited schools the GAO examined revealed that 463 current or one-time students are federal employees. Still, some were unfazed; one wit commented: “I’m not as concerned with whether government workers have degrees as with whether they are working at all.”...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Almost two-thirds of 1.6 million civilian full-time federal employees received merit bonuses or special time-off awards in fiscal 2002, according to an examination of federal records obtained by the Washington Post. Of the 62 percent who got awards, half received $811 or more. The typical bonus amounted to 1.6 percent of salary. The awards ranged from less than $100 to more than $25,000. At some agencies, more than 90 percent of workers in the General Schedule -- the 15-grade government pay system -- collected a bonus. Government-wide, about 2,900 employees received cash bonuses totaling more than $10,000...

<p>Fewer young people are attracted by the idea of a government service career than in the past, according to a survey that found those interested in such careers are more drawn to helping others than to earning good pay and benefits.</p>

Bush administration officials appear to be wrapping up work on an executive order that would authorize the retroactive pay increase for federal employees approved by Congress last month. A draft of the order has been bouncing through various agencies for review and comment and could be put in final form at the White House in the next week or two. "The process of instituting the pay increase is moving forward expeditiously. We expect a final announcement soon," Chad Kolton, press secretary at the Office of Management and Budget, said yesterday. President Bush, on Jan. 23, signed the omnibus spending bill...

WASHINGTON -- Big government is back. Since President Bush took office, the federal government's domestic civilian workforce has increased by more than 79,000 jobs, nearly a 5 percent increase. And the number of government workers paid at least $130,000 annually has tripled. Much of the increase came with the creation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security two years ago. But the nation's war on terrorism does not account for all of the rise. The Department of Health and Human Services, for example, has added 1,445 employees since President Bill Clinton left office. "We are seeing a general growth in...

Statement from the American Federation of Government Employees on the Bush Immigration Amnesty Plan1/16/04 9:06:00 AM To: National Desk Contact: Enid Doggett of the American Federation of Government Employees, 202-639-6419WASHINGTON, Jan. 16 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is a statement from the American Federation of Government Employees on the Bush Immigration Amnesty Plan:"The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) condemns President Bush's immigration plan as a proposal that will overtly exploit some of the poorest workers in America and grant amnesty for millions of people who have illegally entered the country. "The plan does nothing to strengthen protections for wages, benefits...