Many of these provisions were included in FEW's top legislative priority list. "Our organization remains concerned about the large number of retirements expected over the next five to eight years, and these bills will help attract and retain new workers, as well as offer retirees an incentive to return temporarily to the federal workforce to help train these new employees," asserted Cecelia Davis, FEW's Vice President for Congressional Relations. This concern played a major role when FEW ranked its legislative priority issues this year.

According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), 33 percent of all federal workers are now eligible or will be eligible within eight years to retire. Furthermore, roughly 60 percent of the government's 1.6 million white-collar employees and 90 percent of 6,000 executives will reach retirement age by the year 2017.

Employees under the FERS receive no compensation for their unused sick leave when they retire. (In contrast, employees covered under the Civil Service Retirement System [CSRS] are credited for unused sick leave when they retire.) The FERS Sick Leave Credit would provide the exact same benefit to FERS employees as CSRS employees who have accrued sick leave at the end of a federal career added to their years of service in order to calculate retirement benefits. This final bill includes a phased-in enactment of this provision over the next four years.

The FERS Redeposit Act would allow individuals who return to government service after receiving a refund of retirement contributions to re-enter without losing their accrued annuity. Instead of forfeiting credit earned during their prior service, returning employees would be able to redeposit their cashed-out annuity upon re-employment. This benefit is already available to federal employees covered under the older CSRS. Having a reinvestment option for FERS would make government service more competitive by incorporating the flexibility and mobility of retirement plans available in the private sector.

These provisions will greatly help retain more experienced federal workers and retirees to help train the many thousands of new managers that must be hired over the next several years. Allowing current federal workers to serve part-time, while not adversely impacting the calculation of their retirement benefits, is integral to retaining these experienced workers to provide this training. FEW also supported the temporary return of federal retirees to government service to pass on their expert knowledge to new hires and managers to ensure that continuous and uninterrupted services are provided to Americans nationwide. The provision would allow them to do so without forcing them to take a cut in their annuity checks and has several parameters built in to ensure that no returning retiree would displace a current employee.

"FEW's members have been working very hard over the last couple of years on these issues and we urge the President to sign this bill into law," advised Janet Kopenhaver, FEW's Washington Representative. "Our main goal is to continue attracting and retaining the best employees in our federal workforce. Without new workers entering the government, many services that we all rely on might have to be cut back including mail delivery, assistance with Social Security, food safety and help for our nation's most needy. These provisions will certainly make the federal government even more attractive and THE 'model' employer in our nation," Kopenhaver concluded.

FEW is a private, non-profit organization founded in 1968 after Executive Order 11375 was issued that added sex discrimination to the list of prohibited discrimination in the federal government. FEW has grown into a proactive organization serving more than one million federally employed women--both in the military and civilian workforce.

Source: Federally Employed Women