r/fednews

Drumpf made his businesses, his family, and himself exempt from audit of underpayment or nonpayment of taxes…FOREVER!

I wonder why he thinks he’d need immunity from laws if he’s never broken them???

Hey, everyone who was RIFd, forced back to work in the office, was denied a reasonable accommodation or was victim any other hostile act from this administration, let’s all file claims against the Slush Fund.

My current government salary as a GS-14 human capital manager is about $178,000. I've received an offer from a FAANG company that currently offers about 50k more in salary (~$236,000). I have approximately 200k in student loans and four years left till I hit my 10 years in public service to be eligible for student loan forgiveness. Job satisfaction concerns aside, should I keep my government job til I hit ten years or take the offer and just use all of my additional 50,000 in salary to pay off my student loans in about the same amount of time? I'm wary of using my new offer as leverage for my govt job because in the end I know that whatever pay increase they give to match, is subject to a yearly review and not guaranteed.

My OS is claiming that traveling from the hotel to the job site isn't credible work. They're citing a 2018 opinion from the DOL regarding crane inspectors who are covered under FLSA. (Linked above)

I was under the impression that as soon as you leave the door of the hotel you're working. This is because you're traveling on official government duty away from your permanent duty station.

It seems like the only caveat is if you're traveling outside of your normal work schedule. However, this doesn't seem applicable to my specific situation. Regardless since GS employees are FLSA exempt it seems the whole 2018 opinion isn't valid anyway.

Has anyone else had to deal with this or can provide guidance on how to proceed? I asked HR if there has been and internal guidance and haven't heard anything back. Typically I wouldn't care but when working in some areas the drive to and from the hotel can be up to 30min - 1hr each way.

TIA

Edit: For clarification this is with regards to travel while TDY beyond 50mi from my official duty station which is my apartment so no regular commute.

Can it change?

Have anything you want to talk about that doesn't quite warrant its own thread or currently being discussed in a megathread? Post it here!

In an effort to effectively manage the amount of information being posted, please keep anything speculative or considered repetitive within this discussion thread.

Has anyone dealt with a reasonable accommodation process at work where things seemed to be handled outside the official system/process?

I was previously approved for a telework accommodation and it was documented that it improved my productivity/work performance. Later, I was asked to submit updated medical documentation by a certain deadline. I missed the deadline because I’ve been between doctors and struggling to get appointments while working full time with limited PTO.

My accommodation was then stopped and I was told to return to office full time. Now I’m being told I should withdraw the original request and submit a brand new one, even though the request still shows as pending in the system and an RA coordinator told me I could continue the existing request with updated documentation.

I already emailed management + the RA coordinator two weeks ago stating that I’m not withdrawing and want the formal process to continue, but I never received a response back from management.

Would it be reasonable/professional to send a follow-up email:
- reiterating I’m not withdrawing
- requesting an interim extension while updated medical docs are pending
- attaching prior approval memos and asking they be uploaded into the official system for recordkeeping
- and requesting a formal decision so I can appeal if needed?

Just trying to make sure I’m handling this appropriately and not overstepping.

Mental health declining with physical symptoms manifesting from stress. Extreme vertigo. Dysautonomia.

Democrats in Congress are raising the alarm as the Trump administration is not handing all its information over to a government watchdog.

It’s been nearly a year since Elon Musk left the federal government, and while there have been a few recent revelations, there is still plenty about how the U.S. DOGE Service operated and what its members did in government that remains shrouded in mystery. For months, the Government Accountability Office has been conducting a major investigation into how DOGE members handled sensitive information, but as new internal government emails reveal, final findings could leave plenty of key information out of public view.

Since last spring, the GAO has been looking into how DOGE members accessed sensitive government databases. But the probes have been stymied by federal agencies trying to avoid handing over information.

A GAO attorney emailed officials at the Department of Health and Human Services last month because, while the department provided much of the documentation that was requested, there were outstanding requests for information that were key to the investigation, including screenshots and a routine walk-through meeting to corroborate details about DOGE’s access to data.

The GAO attorney told the HHS officials that the congressional research arm could discuss how it would protect confidential information as it has with other agencies in the past.

Full gift article at the link.

How can we conceivably ever enforce the Hatch Act again?

Who's filling out these employee "pulse" surveys?

The agency I currently work at is really pushing the workplace satisfaction and employee pulse surveys. With all the reminder emails they send out, I have to wonder is anyone actually filling these out?

The administration has made it pretty damn clear by now that they give two shits about how we all are and whether or not we are satisfied with our work environment...so why even ask at this point??

Is it because they get off on knowing how miserable everyone is or are the only people filling out these things loyalists who will sing their praises for how awesome of a job they're doing pummeling through taxpayer dollars to reverse any progress made in creating a nontoxic work environment?

Legislative action has already been taken to make better use of federal space which would allow employees to benefit from telework but this administration has crushed those intentions hard.

One is the USE IT Act of 2023 which requires federal government to collect data on occupancy of buildings and for those properties not meeting the 60% occupancy threshold would need to reduce their footprint. RTO reverses all the money already spent on downsizing office space to now expand office spaces for agencies due to the destruction of telework.

Another is the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987 which was intended to turn federal buildings being underutilized into affordable housing for the homeless and other Americans in need. RTO makes this intention even tougher.

Ways to repurpose these buildings exist and legislation is already in place to try to achieve this but that's not what the elite want. They want to be able to keep their effortless paychecks coming in all while making the peons more miserable and them more rich.

This administration could care less about hearing what the people really want or how they want to work, in fact it is their goal to traumatize the federal workforce, so why the hell are they trying to make it seem like they actually want to hear what their workforce thinks right now? They will either do nothing with honest responses from employees or use it against them.

You want my opinion??

Let's see... just this past year you:

1. Obliterated telework; a method of working that has proven to be mutually beneficial for both employee and employers. Data shows employees are both happier and more productive. A win for employers.

2. Made it nearly impossible for anyone to get a good performance rating with a meaningful reward even though the people left have taken on 60% more workload in a very toxic work environment due to DOGE chainsawing.

3. Impulsively fired hundreds of people then turned around months later to ask them to come back.

4. Began looking for people to fill positions that were occupied by qualified, experienced people with inexperienced people who will need to be trained due to the DOGE actions that saved no money.

5. Took away potential for internal employees to receive promotions by demoting backfill positions.

6. Ensured that little to no pay increases would occur for all employees.

7. Incurred more expenses for employees due to additional costs associated with RTO such as gas, parking, train, extending childcare hours, lunches, etc.

8. Following orders from people like appointee Vought who said about the federal workforce: "When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains. We want to put them in trauma."

Here's my anonymous response for y'all:

FUCK OFF!

I retired at age 65 from fed govt. I have FEHB blue cross/blue shield (BCBS) and Medicare Plan A only. The following info is for those who are unaware (I only found out about because it was written on my recent Explanation of Benefits (EOB) for claims made to my BCBS ins:

"Under FEHB LAW (5 U.S.C. 8904(B)), when services are provided by Medicare Participating Provider, they are required to base their payment on Medicare Fee Schedule Amount or the providers charge, whichever is less. This law applies to services provided to fed retirees and annuitants who are 65 or older AND who are not enrolled in Medicare Plan B. Because the FEHB law is applied to these services, the No Surprises Act and its independent dispute resolution (IDR) are not applicable even if they otherwise would be. You are not responsible for any amounts for covered services over the Medicare Fee Schedule amount."

Keep in mind that 90% of today's doctors do opt to be a Medicare Participating Provider (except maybe doctors like psychiatrists or cosmetic surgeons). I think most of them participate because its guaranteed payment I'm when the file claim with ins company, even if the amount is way less than their submitted claim. ​They probably figure it's better than not getting paid at all due to a lot of folks being un-insured.

Anyway, just to give you an idea of how this whole thing worked out for me, I recently had a small surgical procedure performed at a Medstar surgical center. The surgeon initially showed an estimated billing of $8K but submitted a claim to BCBS for $1281 because this doctor was a Medicare Participating Provider. But he only received $476. Yep its shown on my EOB. Also the surgical center (non-hospital center) where the procedure was performed filed a very high claim for the use of their facility, however due to that FEHB law, they were paid a lower amount. I still had to make a co-payment of $200 for use of surgical center (according to BCBS plan). Additionally, there were other claims filed from other surgical team members, such as lab technician and anesthesiologist, but yet again because of that FEHB law specific to Medicare Participating Providers that provide services to federal retirees 65 and older, I didn't have to pay another dime to the others. So bottomline? Entire total of claims filed for that one hour surgical procedure (a small lipoma removal) was at least $10k but I only came out of pocket with a copayment for use of surgical facility. Keep in mind I do not have Medicare Plan B, however that FEHB law 5 USC 8904(B) operates like I do.

I was given a performance improvement plan by my supervisor on Friday. I am not sure of the process but I honestly don’t think it is one that was approved by HR.

There are 5 or 6 items and only two are tied to my critical elements. One is about an instrument implementation that I supposedly did not do but everything was done last July-August 2025. I will admit that my supervisor had to help me because it was the first one I had ever done. There was an item about doing a root cause analysis on a PI metric that while updating the metric and reviewing the data is one of my critical elements there has never been any requirement to do a root cause analysis. I have gotten about 5 emails that my supervisor said in the subject line are coaching emails but I don’t know if those officially count towards counseling.

He also put in there that he his giving me training on two things that don’t even have anything to do with what he claims are my deficiencies.

I do admit that there were/are some knowledge gaps but I have continuously tried to close those gaps. My supervisor is kind of hit and miss about answering my questions. Somedays he answers them and some days he tells me to figure it out myself or I should know.

So my questions are really about the process. As in do I get some type of email or something from HR saying I am going to be out on a PIP? Would an HR representative be in the meeting? My supervisor sent me a meeting invite at 1345 for a 1215 meeting. I believe he called it performance management discussion. Does HR have to approve it and my supervisor have to have specific documentation with the proposed PIP? There was a statement saying that signing only means I received it not that I agree or disagree with the content. I am very confused and for the last year my boss has been moving the goalposts fairly frequently.

One other note is that I have an ORM complaint against my boss that was accepted for a formal investigation about a month ago, would HR know about this and approve the PIP anyway?