Federal employees are facing a familiar bill in a long line of legislation aiming to cut telework options. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer reintroduced the SHOW UP Act this week. The bill would return federal employees to the work arrangements they had prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. In practice, it would largely scale back federal telework. The House passed the bill in the last Congress. But the Senate did not take any action on the companion legislation. During a hearing this week, Comer said there’s “no reason” feds shouldn’t go

back to pre-pandemic telework levels.

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A record number of Americans hold a U-S passport. The State Department says there are more than 170 million in circulation and that it issued or renewed 90 million passports during the Biden administration. Applicants saw long wait times to apply or renew their passports at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. But the department says it’s gotten processing times down to four-to-six weeks.

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The Office of Personnel Management is finalizing rules meant to bring the wages of blue collar feds more geographically in line with their General Schedule counterparts. Under the changes set to take effect in October, OPM says nearly 15-thousand workers will see higher wages. Around 500, meanwhile will get lower pay under the new wage area boundaries. Most of the affected employees work for the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

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As Inauguration Day approaches, federal employees in the D.C. area should plan to telework all this week, and into next week, if they’re able to. The Office of Personnel Management says preparations for Inauguration Day next Monday will create traffic disruptions and road closures in the nation’s capital. OPM is asking agencies to work in a maximum telework posture to try to ease at least some of that traffic. Federal employees who do have to go into the office should build in extra time for the expected delays. Employees will also get a federal holiday on Monday, January 20th, to observe both Inauguration Day and Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

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Federal employees who telework at least once a week would lose locality pay under a new House bill. Under the Federal Employee Return to Work Act, teleworking employees would receive "Rest of U.S." locality pay even if they live and work in a region with a higher cost of living. Rep. Dan Newhouse introduced the bill. He and Sen. Bill Cassidy led the bill during the last session of Congress.

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The new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is putting a hold on hundreds of millions of dollars for the State Department and the U-S Agency for International Development. Chairman Brian Mast says the agencies are rushing to spend the money on projects before the start of the Trump administration. Mast says those projects include studying climate change in the Middle East and LGBTQ awareness programs in Zimbabwe.

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Political appointees who are resigning on Inauguration Day later this month have some special rules to pay attention to. A new memo from the Office of Personnel Management details how pay, benefits and leave typically work for non-career federal employees resigning at the end of an administration. Impacted appointees will mostly be ending their workdays at noon on January 20th. Because of that, OPM is telling agencies they should only receive a half day of pay. OPM added that resigning appointees should also not accrue annual and sick leave for the pay period that starts next week. That’s because they will leave their positions before

completing the full pay period.

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The American Federation of Government Employees filed an unfair labor practice against the Bureau of Prisons for its decision to close seven facilities. AFGE says this decision impacts more than 400 union members in seven states. AFGE says the bureau made the decision to close the facilities without warning or consultation with the union , which violated the terms of its labor-management agreement. In the unfair labor practice, AFGE is asking the Federal Labor Relations Authority to halt the implementation of this reorganization and require BOP to bargain with the union.

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The federal government is only paying out a small fraction of the settlement funds it set aside for victims of the 2015 Office of Personnel Management data breach. A federal court

in October 2022 finalized a $63 million settlement for those impacted by the

breach. But a recent court filing shows about the federal government paid about

$4.7 million to more than 5,000 individuals who could demonstrate harm from the

data breach. The OPM breach impacted about 22 million current and former

federal employees.

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The 119th Congress begins today and several key Senate committee federal workforce committees have new leaders. At the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, former chairman, Gary Peters, is the new ranking member. Over at the Armed Services Committee, Democrats tapped Jack Reed from Rhode Island to be the ranking member. Senator Richard Blumenthal takes the ranking member reins at the Veterans Affairs Committee while Senator Edward Markey is the new Democratic leader of the Small Business Committee. Senator John Thune from South Dakota is the new Majority Leader. The new chairmen of the committees are expected to be finalized in the coming days.

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