FederalDaily - September 9, 2005

Proposals to Move FEMA to Cabinet Level

Several congressmen have sponsored legislation to remove the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) from the Department of Homeland Security and return FEMA to status as an independent agency. The congressmen are calling for the director of FEMA to be a cabinet-level official who would report directly to the president. “Part of the reason for FEMA's slow response to victims of Hurricane Katrina is that it currently exists under the complicated and bureaucratic structure of the Department of Homeland Security,” said one of the legislation’s co-sponsors, Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark. On the Senate side, Barbara A. Mikulski, D-Md., and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. introduced legislation to restore FEMA to cabinet-level, independent federal agency status. On the House side, bill sponsors include John Dingell, D-Mich., and James Oberstar, D-Minn. One of the bills is H.R. 3659.

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NTEU Matches Contributions

The National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said on Sept. 7 that it will match dollar-for-dollar money donated to a special fund established to provide emergency assistance to federal employees of NTEU-represented agencies impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Through the Federal Employees Education & Assistance (FEEA) Fund, the union set up a NTEU Hurricane Relief Fund to help any federal employee who works for any of the 30 federal agencies where NTEU represents employees. The union said it will match contributions up to $25,000. Federal employees in need of assistance because of Hurricane Katrina can call FEEA at (800) 323-4140 or (303) 933-7580. Assistance information is also available on the FEEA Web site at www.feea.org.

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DHS Postpones New Pay System

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Sept. 7 told its employees it would delay for as much as a year—until possibly January 2007—the planned implementation of the first phase of employee pay-banding as part of a pay-for-performance system. National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) President Colleen Kelley said this move was a step in the right direction, but not enough. NTEU had recently called on DHS to delay implementation after DHS meetings in which contractors presented proposed performance standards. The new performance management system was slated to be in effect no later than Oct. 1, 2005, and the pay system originally was scheduled to be implemented in phases, starting in 2006.

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VA Plans to Review PTSD Cases

The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) said it is opposed to a decision by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to review 72,000 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) cases that were approved between 1999 and 2004. The review was initiated after a recent VA Inspector General report alleged that veterans suffering from PTSD tend to avoid treatment once they begin receiving disability compensation, even though VFW said a three-year study conducted by VA doctors concluded the exact opposite. The VFW argued that the review would create a surge in workload that would “significantly aggravate the VA’s already unacceptable backlog of more than 752,000 claims currently awaiting adjudication for compensation and pension, education, or are on appeal.”

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