Monthly Archives: October 2024

The Federal Aviation Administration has signed first-of-their-kind agreements with two schools to train new hires to be air traffic controllers, with the agency hoping to continue and build upon its recent success in adding more staff. 

Currently, FAA trains all of its hires exclusively at its in-house Air Traffic Controller Academy in Oklahoma City. Under the new agreements, the training program will also take place at Tulsa Community College and the University of Oklahoma. 

The announcement comes as FAA is seeking to reverse a longstanding decline in its air traffic controller workforce. It received some relief in that effort earlier this year when Congress reauthorized the agency and tasked it with hiring to the maximum extent possible for the next five years. FAA hired 1,500 controllers in 2023 and eclipsed its goal of bringing on 1,800 in fiscal 2024. 

The agency now has 14,000 ATCs on staff, with 3,400 currently in various stages of training. The new partnerships will help ensure more individuals can make it through the training pipeline.

“The FAA is working to hire and train more air traffic controllers, in order to reverse the decades-long decline in our workforce and ensure the safety of the flying public,” said FAA Administrator Mikchael Whitaker, who added the new training opportunities will aid in those efforts. “We’re excited to have these schools become pioneers in this initiative and look forward to seeing more applications from schools as we build out these partnerships.”

New hires attending one of the new schools will go through the same curriculum and have access to the same technology as those who go through the FAA academy. Upon receiving their certifications, they will go straight to an FAA facility for their final training. They will still have to pass a final skills assessment exam before starting in their roles. An existing program enables candidates to attend preliminary training at campuses around the country, but those individuals still must attend the official FAA academy. 

The recent reauthorization package dropped a provision the Senate had originally included to require a second training academy for air traffic controllers, instead requiring expanded capacity at the existing facility.

Agency officials, the White House and lawmakers in both parties have stressed that growing FAA’s workforce is a top priority and a failure to address it could reduce safety and increase flight delays. According to recent findings by the National Airspace System Safety Review Team that FAA formed after 10 safety incidents occurred in late 2022 and early 2023, the staffing reductions occurred despite a marked increase in the complexity of the agency’s operations.

Staffing shortages led to a constant reshuffling of resources to ensure the airspace could function and an all-time high in the use of overtime. That, in turn, led to more absenteeism, lower productivity and increased fatigue. Insufficient staffing has forced FAA in recent years to negotiate schedule reductions with certain areas to maintain the safety of operations, implement more ground stops and combine locations to fall under one post.

The agency is still in a hiring posture going forward and has a new application window opening Oct. 11. It is also in the process of installing modernized simulators at 95 facilities by the end of 2025, which it said would make training efforts more efficient. FAA is also looking for more schools to join as training partners. 

It is near the end of the year retirement processing “surge” at the Office of Personnel Management’s Boyers, Pennsylvania, Retirement Operations Center.  This is when the employees who process your retirement applications are preparing to receive about 25% of the entire year’s retirement applications in the months of January and February.   

In 2023, OPM received 21,962 retirement applications in January and February while the other 10 months of the year they received 66,807. This year, OPM received 21,791 applications in January and February and so far from March through August, there were 41,048 applications received compared with 42,246 for the same period in 2023.  This is because the end of the year is a popular time to retire when employees are trying to maximize their lump sum payout of unused annual leave.   

Employees who earn eight hours per pay period, and who carried over 240 hours from 2023, may have a balance of 440 hours at the end of December if they haven’t used any of their accrued leave this year.  Employees who retire on Jan. 11, 2025, will accumulate an additional annual leave accrual for the 2024 leave year since the year doesn’t end until that date.   

There is a tradeoff for waiting out this last pay period since their retirement benefit won’t begin until February 1 instead of January 1 for those employees who retire on Dec. 31, 2024. CSRS-covered employees (including CSRS Offset) can choose to retire on Jan. 3, 2025, and their retirement will begin on January 4, allowing a partial January retirement payment for the month.   

Today’s column is not about retirement processing, but it is about federal couples, or tandem couples as they are called in the Foreign Service and the CIA. These are spouses who serve in the same federal agency or a married couple who work for different federal agencies. These couples have some unique issues when it comes to important retirement decisions regarding their federal retirement and insurance benefits. The two most common questions I receive from federal employees who are married are:  

1. Should we carry two self only plans under the Federal Employees Health Benefits program or a single self-plus-one plan if we don’t need to cover children? 
2. Do we need to provide survivor annuities for each other? 

Health Coverage 

The answer to the question about health plans depends on the working situation of the couple. Are both spouses retired, or are they still employed? Is one spouse retired while the other is still employed? 

The benefit of two self only plans is that it allows each spouse to choose the health plan that works best for them. For example, one spouse might be over 65, retired and needing a plan that will work well with Medicare Parts A and B. The other spouse might be retired, but younger than 65, and might want to contribute to a health savings account by using a high deductible health plan. Having two separate self-only plans also could be less expensive than a single self-plus-one or self and family enrollment. 

On the other hand, when one spouse retires, it may be more cost effective for the working spouse to maintain health benefits for both spouses, since employees can pay premiums with pre-tax funds allowing for substantial tax savings.  

Important: If one spouse is not eligible to retire at the time they separate from federal service, then it’s critical to transfer health insurance coverage to the spouse who is working and will be eligible to maintain insurance in retirement. The spouse who is covered under the self plus one or family enrollment of their resigning spouse can enroll in FEHB because losing coverage under your spouse’s FEHB plan is a qualifying life event for enrollment by the federal employed spouse. 

Survivor Benefits 

The issue of electing a spousal survivor benefit is not only a way to provide income to a surviving spouse but may also be required to pass on FEHB coverage as well.    

As long as both spouses have individual entitlement to FEHB (if both stay employed long enough to qualify for an immediate retirement benefit), there is no need to provide a survivor’s annuity to maintain health benefits. If one spouse loses entitlement when the other spouse who had self plus one or self and family enrollment dies, then the surviving spouse can elect to have coverage via their own retirement benefit. 

Although your spouse may not need the survivor annuity to provide continuation of FEHB coverage, it may be important to provide additional income to a surviving spouse when the retiree dies. It boils down to this basic question: If you’re covered under the Federal Employees Retirement System, can you live on the balance of your TSP investments along with the higher of your two Social Security retirement benefits and one FERS retirement benefit if your spouse dies?  

Remember that while both of you are living and receiving Social Security retirement benefits, you get two payments every month, along with two FERS retirement benefits. You also presumably have investments in one or two Thrift Savings Plan accounts, but the balances might be small due to the need for long-term care or other unforeseen expenses later in life. 

There is no way of knowing for certain how long you or your spouse will live. A survivor annuity can serve as insurance against the loss of income due to the death of your spouse. If your spouse predeceases you, then you can restore your retirement benefit to its full, unreduced amount.  

Remember, your spouse is entitled by law to a survivor annuity when you retire from federal service. If you want to choose not to provide a full or partial survivor annuity to your spouse, you have to get their notarized consent, regardless of whether they are entitled to their federal retirement benefit. 

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel on Wednesday touted recent resolutions to cases where agencies allegedly committed prohibited personnel practices against federal employees, including whistleblower retaliation. 

“Whistleblowers are crucial to exposing problems and wrongdoing across the federal government. But for whistleblowers to come forward, they must believe they will be protected from retaliation, which is at the heart of OSC’s mission,” said Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger in a statement. “I am very pleased with the resolution of these complaints and want to thank all the OSC attorneys involved….”

• The Veterans Affairs Department settled with an employee who alleged that “his proposed demotion was retaliation for reporting a significant number of unanswered patient telephone calls to a VA medical facility’s mental health crisis line.” The employee’s proposed demotion was withdrawn, and he received 97 hours of restored sick leave and $10,000 in compensatory damages. 
• OSC determined that VA committed a prohibited personnel practice against an employee who alleged that he was “removed during his probationary period for engaging in a protected grievance process.” The department and individual settled, with the employee receiving a clean record and $175,000 in back pay and damages. 
• The Air Force settled with an employee who made protected disclosures regarding lab safety issues, participated in an inspector general investigation and filed an equal employment opportunity complaint. The individual said they were retaliated against by being reassigned, subjected to a hostile work environment and receiving a lowered performance evaluation. The Air Force agreed to pay the individual $47,000, raise their performance evaluation and expunge management files with derogatory information. 
• OSC concluded that an unspecified agency violated the Family Medical Leave Act after an employee alleged the agency didn’t provide her with a promotion that she was eligible for in retaliation for taking leave. The agency agreed to provide the individual with a retroactive promotion and backpay, conduct FMLA training and change its promotion guidance to clarify that taking leave cannot be used as a negative factor. 

Merit Systems Protection Board Chairman Cathy Harris on Monday announced that most petitions for corrective action filed by OSC with respect to prohibited personnel practices will be handled by MSPB chief administrative judges rather than such judges from other agencies under interagency agreements. 

“By assigning corrective action cases to our own chief administrative judges, this change will result in both cost-savings and expert attention to these critical cases,” Harris said in a statement. 

Dellinger also backed the change. 

“I thank MSPB for undertaking this thoughtful procedural update. These types of cases are some of the most time- and resource-intensive complaints OSC handles. Protecting federal employees and whistleblowers from retaliation and other PPPs is at the heart of OSC’s mission,” he said in a statement.