FederalDaily - July 20, 2005
Troubles with DoD Pay
The Department of Defense’s (DoD) military compensation system has
become an increasingly complex and piecemeal accretion of pays, allowances,
benefits and special tax preferences, according to a new Government Accountability
Office (GAO) report. The report says DoD leaders have expressed concern that
rising compensation costs may not be sustainable in the future. GAO said it
is time for a review of all federal programs to ensure that they are successful,
including DoD. Programs that aren’t successful should be cut or reformed
to save money. For now, DoD cannot (1) identify the total cost of military
compensation to the U.S. government or (2) assess the allocation of total compensation
investments to cash and benefits. But GAO did say in fiscal year 2004, it cost
the federal government about $112,000, on average, to provide annual compensation
to active duty enlisted and officer personnel.
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TSP Lifecycle Funds Available Aug. 1
The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board announced on July 18 that Thrift
Savings Plan (TSP) Lifecycle Funds will be made available to participants beginning
August 1, 2005. Lifecycle funds are asset allocation portfolios with investment
mixes tailored to a participant’s target time horizon. The target horizon
is the time when the participant intends to withdraw the funds. As the withdrawal
date approaches, the lifecycle fund’s investment mix automatically becomes
more conservative (i.e., less risky). Participants who select lifecycle funds
do not need to reallocate their account assets to achieve this result; the
lifecycle investment models automatically reallocate the accounts for the participants.
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Liaison Program for Air Traffic Controllers Terminated
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) and the International
Federation of Air Traffic Controllers’ Associations (IFATCA) are upset
over a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) decision to end the Controller
Liaison Program. The program was established in 1997 to give FAA employees
a way to provide the agency with their input. But on June 28, Joseph N. Miniace,
FAA’s deputy assistant administrator for Strategic Labor Relations, sent
NATCA a letter saying the liaison assignments are terminated effective July
29 because of budget constraints and the implementation of a new organization
called the Air Traffic Organization. “We are no longer able to justify
a need to continue liaison support,” Miniace wrote. IFATCA issued a statement
saying it condemns FAA’s action.
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Studying Deployment-Related Illnesses
The House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats and International
Relations held a hearing on July 19 to assess Department of Defense (DoD) efforts
to collect and analyze Occupational and Environmental Health Surveillance data
for deployed forces. The hearing focused on the findings of a new Government
Accountability Office (GAO) report, which can be read at www.gao.gov/new.items/d05632.pdf.
Past GAO work determined that DoD efforts to determine the cause of deployment-related
illnesses have been hampered by: incomplete medical surveillance, limited information
on troop location, lack of data on the extent and duration of specific exposures
to environmental hazards and the accuracy of recordkeeping on health status
before and after deployment.
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