FederalDaily - June 16, 2006

House Passes 2.7 Percent Raise

Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., announced House approval of a 2.7 percent pay raise for all federal military and civilian employees, continuing a tradition of pay parity for the two groups. The pay raise is included in H.R. 5576, the Transportation, Treasury, Housing and Urban Development Appropriations for fiscal year 2007, which passed the House on June 14 by a vote of 406-22. At 2.7 percent, the pay raise is higher than the 2.2 percent proposed by the president. “This is an appropriate pay increase for our valuable federal employees, and will help keep the public sector a real workforce competitor with the private and non-profit sectors,” said Davis.

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IRS Contractor Collections Effort Quashed

The House passed a bill June 14 containing a provision to block IRS plans to outsource delinquent tax collection to private contractors. The controversial collection effort was set to start this summer, but an amendment sponsored by Rep. Steven Rothman, D-N.Y., would put a stop to it. “With personal identity theft on the rise, it makes no sense to hand over 2.65 million taxpayer files to private debt collection companies,” Rothman said. The congressman and his allies, including National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen M. Kelley, also objected to the price of outsourcing tax collection—more than 20 cents per dollar collected, versus the four cents on the dollar that it costs in-house IRS employees.

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Cracking Down on E-Mail Abuse

The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) said on June 14 that it won key rulings that should curb misuse of government e-mail accounts. The specific cases were: Special Counsel v. Morrill, CB-1216-0027-T-1, and Special Counsel v. Davis and Sims, CB-1216-05-0012-T-1 and CB-1216-05-0013-T-1, decided on June 9 and 12, 2006, respectively. In the first case, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) upheld a 60-day suspension imposed against Rocky Morrill, a federal employee found to have violated the Hatch Act by sending an e-mail while on duty and in a federal building that promoted a candidate for the House. In the second case, originally a judge had dismissed two OSC complaints for disciplinary action against federal employees who sent partisan political e-mails while they were on duty and/or in a federal building. OSC petitioned the MSPB for review of the judge’s decision, and on June 12 the petition was granted. “We will continue to vigorously prosecute anyone who engages in political activity in the workplace or on duty,” said Special Counsel Scott J. Bloch.

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“Google U.S. Government Search” Launched

Search engine giant Google announced June 15 the debut of a new search engine page, Google U.S. Government Search (http://usgov.google.com). The new facility draws on official government Web sites at the federal, state and local levels to give the public searchable access to news and information from a single search box and directory. A user can customize his or her government search page—both its appearance and what the engine trawls for. A user can also permanently add specific government links and news feeds—as well as commercial ones—to his or her page. Google U.S. Government Search mines sites ending in .gov, and selected .com, .edu and .us sites. If you are a U.S. government site webmaster, and you want to make sure you are listed, click on Google’s Sitemaps facility to notify the company.

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