Bringing Retirees Back to Work

Legislation that would encourage federal retirees to come back to work in the government on a temporary basis was introduced in the House yesterday, giving the Bush administration a chance to push for one of its management priorities this year.

Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), ranking minority member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sponsored the bill, which would permit federal retirees to return to the government and draw a paycheck without any reduction to their pension.

Currently, their salaries are reduced by the amount of their pension during their period of re-employment.

Over the next decade, about 60 percent of federal employees will become eligible to retire, and that has prompted concerns that some agencies will not have enough experienced hands to train a new generation of workers.

Linda M. Springer, director of the Office of Personnel Management, has proposed giving agencies more leeway to bring back retirees, noting that they can help turn around special projects and serve as mentors.

With the Davis bill, the OPM would be able to lobby both houses of Congress. Last month, Sen. Susan M. Collins (R-Maine) introduced the first bill to rehire federal annuitants.

Both bills would limit the number of days each year that a retiree could work for the government.

Some congressional aides said they see retirees as people with proven abilities and dedicated to making federal programs run smoothly. If retirees cannot be attracted back, then agencies would likely fill any staffing shortages by turning to contractors, the aides said.

But union leaders are wary of the proposal, in part because they think agencies would likely only want to bring back retired managers, and that could make it difficult for rank-and-file employees to get opportunities to take on training and leadership positions.

In a statement, Davis said Reps. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) and Kenny Marchant (R-Tex.) have joined as co-sponsors of the House bill.

Rating Federal Programs

From border control to farm aid to weapons, the government runs a variety of programs and since the 1990s has tried to focus on methods for evaluating what they accomplish. The most recent initiative is the Bush administration's Program Assessment Rating Tool, which has tried to be more systematic and transparent.

Yesterday, the Office of Management and Budget reported that scores for federal programs are improving. In the most recent ratings, 22 percent of the programs evaluated were deemed to be ineffective or unable to document their results, compared with 55 percent in 2002, when the assessments began.

Robert Shea, the OMB's associate director for management, said that agencies are doing a better job of measuring the performance of their programs but that the long-term goals of many federal programs makes it difficult for the public to see drastic improvements from year to year.

The OMB has tried to make the evaluations a part of annual budget deliberations, but the rating tool has attracted little support on Capitol Hill, in part because Democrats are reluctant to take the administration's word on which programs work and which do not.

Shea stressed that agencies are placing more information on the Internet so that the public can see program evaluations. The most recent scores are at http://www.ExpectMore.gov .

Stephen Barr's e-mail address isbarrs@washpost.com.