NARFE's Legislative Accomplishments: 116th Congress (2019-2020) Review

NARFE’s advocacy efforts during the 116th Congress (2019-2020) helped defeat threats to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from earned federal benefits, improve federal pay rates, enhance employee benefits, protect the integrity of agency functions and more. These victories were possible thanks to the combined efforts of NARFE’s members, leaders and staff working together to maximize our impact. Below are highlights of NARFE’s legislative accomplishments during the 116th Congress.

PREVENTING CUTS TO EARNED PAY AND BENEFITS

• NARFE defeated proposals in the president’s budgets for more than $177 billion in cuts (over 10 years) to earned federal retirement benefits.

The proposed cuts included eliminating or reducing cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) for all current and future retirees. • Thanks to the hard work of

NARFE and its members over the years, these proposals never received serious consideration during budget negotiations, even as Congress raised sequestration-level spending caps on agency budgets.

BLOCKING THE OPM REORGANIZATION PLAN

• NARFE prevented the

Trump administration’s efforts to reorganize the Office of Personnel

Management (OPM), a move that had the potential to subject the civil service to political influence and undermine OPM’s ability to carry out the vital programs—retirement services, health care and insurance—on which federal employees and retirees rely. • NARFE President Ken

Thomas testified before

Congress, voicing concern over the consequences of the reorganization plan, and

helped lay the groundwork for congressional action in opposition to the proposal. • In December 2019, legislation signed into law stopped the reorganization plan from advancing at least until after a yearlong study detailing the challenges facing OPM and recommending solutions.

SECURING PAY RAISES FOR FEDERAL EMPLOYEES IN 2019, 2020 AND 2021

• NARFE helped prevent the administration’s proposed federal pay freeze in 2019, secure a market-based pay increase in 2020 and block a

Senate attempt to freeze pay in 2021. • In 2019, Congress approved a 1.9 percent average federal pay raise—a 1.4 percent raise across-the-board and an average 0.5 percent locality pay increase—which the president signed into law. This was the first time since 2010 that Congress passed a pay raise into law through the appropriations process rather than

MYTH VS. REALITY

MYTH: NARFE uses money from the NARFE general fund to contribute to congressional campaigns. REALITY: No dues money or general funds from NARFE are disbursed to congressional campaigns. To do so would violate federal election laws. Only funds from NARFE-PAC, NARFE’s political action committee, are used for this purpose. NARFE-PAC contributions constitute a separate, segregated fund of NARFE that is reliant on voluntary contributions from members made explicitly to the PAC.

approving a pay freeze or deferring to the president. • For 2020, Congress passed and the president signed into law a market-rate 3.1 percent average pay raise—a 2.6 percent across-theboard increase and a 0.5 percent average increase in locality rates. • For 2021, the Trump administration proposed a 1 percent across-the-board pay increase. Congress remained silent on the issue despite attempts in the Senate to freeze pay, so the president’s pay increase went into effect.

PROVIDING PAID PARENTAL LEAVE FOR FEDERAL EMPLOYEES

• NARFE worked with a coalition of stakeholders and congressional allies to include a modified version of paid parental leave legislation in the fiscal year 2020 (FY20) National Defense

Authorization Act (NDAA), which the president signed into law. The provisions provided 12 weeks of paid parental leave to most federal employees for the birth, adoption or foster care placement of a child. • While the bill inadvertently excluded some federal employees from the new benefit, Congress corrected this inequity in the FY21 NDAA, extending the benefit to all federal employees and overriding the president’s veto of the bill.

GUARANTEEING BACK PAY FOR EMPLOYEES FURLOUGHED DURING GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWNS

• NARFE teamed with congressional allies to pass the Government Employee

Fair Treatment Act, which the president signed into law.

The law not only guaranteed back pay for those furloughed during the 35-day shutdown that began in December 2018, but also for all future government shutdowns.

ADDRESSING THE LONGEST GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN IN HISTORY

• NARFE continuously urged

Congress and the president to end the government shutdown that began in December 2018, cataloging and highlighting its damaging effects on political leaders, civil servants and the public. • NARFE members mobilized and worked cohesively to keep the pressure on legislators to end the shutdown. Members sent more than 10,000 letters to Congress and submitted more than 2,000 letters to editors of local publications. Nearly a dozen NARFE member letters to the editor were published, including one in The Washington Post.

SUSPENDING RMDs FOR TSP PARTICIPANTS FOR 2020

• NARFE worked to suspend required minimum distributions (RMDs) on retirement accounts, including the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), for calendar year 2020.

With stock markets losing substantial value last year due to economic ramifications from the coronavirus outbreak, RMDs would have directed seniors to withdraw a far greater percentage of their retirement accounts than anticipated. The provision was included in the Coronavirus

Aid, Relief and Economic

Security (CARES) Act, which was signed into law by the president in March 2020.

SECURING CONGRESSIONAL HEARING ON NOMINEES FOR THE TSP BOARD

• NARFE successfully lobbied

Congress to hold hearings to vet three nominees to the

Federal Retirement Thrift