Committee structures still being reorganized.

Date published: 1/30/2005

Both the House and Senate are in the midst of reorganizing committee structures to reflect the priorities established when Congress passed last year's massive overhaul of the U.S. intelligence community.

In the House, Northern Virginia's Rep. Tom Davis will return as chairman of the powerful Government Reform Committee. Davis indicated that his committee would tackle areas such as postal reform, executive-branch reorganization authority, the presidential appointment proc-ess, streamlining federal law enforcement pay and classification reform.

What is less certain is how Davis will organize his subcommittees to achieve these goals. Going into the new Congress, the Government Reform Committee had several leadership vacancies on key subcommittees. For example, the chairmanship of the civil service subcommittee, which considers most measures affecting federal workers, is still vacant. Late last year, Fredericksburg-area Rep. Jo Ann Davis relinquished this civil service leadership post for a coveted seat on the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Because there are a limited number of subcommittee slots available, Government Reform must find a venue to exercise its oversight of homeland security issues and could choose to consolidate oversight functions. With his strong record of interest in areas concerning the well-being of federal workers, Davis could move to bring these matters to the full committee.

How the House chooses to oversee federal employment issues could be crucial this year as the president moves to reform Social Security.

Many federal workers and retirees have worked hard to repeal provisions that penalize and reduce the Social Security benefits received by federal workers. With more than 100 co-sponsors, Rep. Howard McKeon of California is leading the charge to repeal these provisions.

The organizational uncertainty in Congress also extends to the appropriations committees, which are vital to the funding of every federal program, agency and activity. Currently, the House and Senate appropriations subcommittees mirror each other. But with the added emphasis on homeland security and intelligence, it is not clear how the 13 subcommittees can be realigned.

With the president soon to unveil the budget for 2006 and spring funding hearings in the offing, it should prove interesting.

The Office of Personnel Management last week published the interim rules to grant federal workers compensatory time for official travel. The new rules were effective Jan. 28, and define such key areas as "travel" and "travel status." For example, "travel status" is defined as the time a federal worker actually spends to go between an official and a temporary duty station. Traveling feds should be aware that the newly accrued compensatory time must be used within 52 weeks of being earned or be forfeited.

KEVIN WILKINSON of Spotsylvania County is a veteran federal employee. Write him c/o Federal Feedback, The Free Lance-Star, 616 Amelia St., Fredericksburg, Va. 22401. Or e-mail kwlknsn@yahoo.com.

Date published: 1/30/2005