FederalDaily - June 4, 2007

NTEU Urges Increase in IRS Mileage Reimbursement Rate

In the face of skyrocketing gasoline prices, National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) President Colleen Kelley on June 1 urged the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to make a mid-year upward adjustment in the mileage reimbursement rate for federal worker business travel. The reimbursement rate for federal workers is established by the General Services Administration (GSA), but it cannot exceed the maximum rate allowed by the IRS as a business expense deduction. The current rate for business travel is 48.5 cents a mile, the same as it was in late 2005, Kelley said. Although it has been normal practice for the IRS to set the mileage reimbursement rate at the beginning of the year, Kelley suggested that the upward trend in gasoline prices would justify a mid-year correction. The IRS did make a mid-year correction in 2005 when it upped the rate by eight cents a mile. “Both the federal Energy Information Administration and the American Automobile Association are showing record gas prices of over $3 a gallon, with expectations of continued increases,” Kelley wrote. “This is above the gasoline price during late 2005, when the IRS made its previous mid-year adjustment.” To see more, go to: www.nteu.org

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DOI HQ Has Sick Building Syndrome, PEER Says

The Department of the Interior (DOI) has failed to employ the proper indoor ventilation practices during renovations of the DOI headquarters complex, permitting workers to be exposed to chemical fumes and construction dust, according to an evaluation by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). The NIOSH report, released May 31 by the nonprofit watchdog Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), said that employee complaints of exposure stem from DOI’s “failure to design and maintain the renovation area under negative air pressure” which prevents fumes from entering the building ventilation system. This is the second such NIOSH report in the past 15 months and both reached mostly the same conclusions. But, the latest NIOSH health hazard evaluation found that DOI had failed to comply with previous recommendations. “After three years of denial, Interior should finally admit that it has a very sick headquarters building and take appropriate steps to protect its workers, who have been exposed too long to noxious fumes,” said PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch. To see more, go to: www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=863 

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OPM Suggests Locality Pay for Some Workers

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has sent a proposal to Congress to phase out the non-foreign Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA) and phase in locality pay for about 50,000 federal employees in Alaska, Hawaii, Guam and U.S. territories. The changes, for General Schedule and U.S. Postal Service (USPS) employees would be phased in over a seven-year period, said the OPM proposal sent to Congress on May 30. President Bush has proposed the changes as part of his Fiscal Year 2008 budget. Federal employees now getting non-foreign COLA don’t have to pay federal, social security or Medicare taxes but they see reduced retirement pay because the COLA payments don't count as part of base pay when retirement annuities are calculated, said OPM Director Linda Springer. “These perceived disparities between the pay and retirement benefits of those two groups of employees generate actual and potential staffing problems for federal agencies in non-foreign areas, especially in retaining employees near retirement,” Springer said in a statement that accompanied the proposal.

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