Federal Daily - July 28, 2010

Obama Orders Agencies to Increase Hiring of Disabled into Federal Workforce

Reviving a Clinton-era hiring goal, President Obama on July 26 signed an executive order instructing federal agencies to increase employment of people with disabilities by adding 100,000 disabled employees.

The 100,000-employee goal was part of a July 2000 executive order signed by President Clinton. However, little was done to implement that order, Obama said, and disabled employees continue to make up just a small fraction of the federal workforce today.

“As the nation's largest employer, the federal government must become a model for the employment of individuals with disabilities,” Obama said. “Executive departments and agencies must improve their efforts to employ workers with disabilities through increased recruitment, hiring and retention of these individuals. My administration is committed to increasing the number of individuals with disabilities in the federal workforce.”

Within 60 days, the Office of Personnel Management—along with the secretary of labor, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the director of the Office of Management and Budget—must come up with strategies for recruiting and hiring people with disabilities. OPM also is tasked with developing mandatory training programs on the employment of people with disabilities.

Agencies also will be required to develop their own plans for promoting employment opportunities for disabled individuals. The plans must include performance targets and numerical goals for employment of individuals with disabilities, and sub-goals for employment of individuals with targeted disabilities. The order directed OPM to work with agencies in implementing the strategies.

Under the order, workers injured on the job also will get an extra hand. The order mandates that agencies do a better job of helping injured or sick workers return to work, and of removing barriers that prevent Federal Employees’ Compensation Act claimants from getting back to their jobs. The order instructed OPM develop better return-to-work strategies, even if it meant reforming the FECA system.

“Today, only 5 percent of the federal workforce is made up of Americans with disabilities—far below the proportion of Americans with disabilities in the general population,” Obama said. “So we’re going to boost recruitment, we’re going to boost training, we’re going to boost retention. “

To see more, go to: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-increasing-federal-employment-individuals-with-disabilities

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FEW Applauds Diversity Provisions in Financial Reform Law

A group dedicated to gender equality in the federal workplace applauded new financial reform law provisions that require federal financial regulatory agencies to set up at least 20 offices devoted to increasing diversity and equal employment opportunities.

The Offices of Minority and Women Inclusion will be responsible for promoting equal employment opportunities and racial, ethnic and gender diversity not only in agency workforces, but also in those of its contractors and sub-contractors, said Sue Webster, president of Federally Employed Women. The mandates were included in the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (H.R. 4173/Public Law No: 111-203) that President Obama signed July 21.

These offices will be established in the Department of the Treasury, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Federal Reserve Regional Banks, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the National Credit Union Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The offices also must ensure that agencies improve the representation of women and minorities in their ranks. The law suggested that recruiters begin by stopping first at historically minority colleges and universities, as well as women's colleges, said FEW Vice President for Diversity Georgia Thomas.

To see more, go to: http://few.org.

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TRICARE Sending Out Transition Letters to Overseas Beneficiaries

TRICARE Management Authority will soon be sending out notification letters to beneficiaries living outside of the United States that will update them on the new TRICARE Overseas Program Contract that begins Sept. 1, TMA said in a July 26 announcement.

Beneficiaries will receive the letter only if their Defense Enrollment Eligibility Reporting System address is up to date. The new contract will maintain current overseas enrollments in TRICARE Prime, TRICARE Global Remote Overseas and TRICARE Puerto Rico Prime. In addition to new contract information, the letter will include an updated enrollment card and a TRICARE Overseas Program flyer.

To see more, go to: www.tricare.mil/mediacenter/news.aspx?fid=647.

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