FEDweek

09/06/2026

Maxing Out Government’s TSP Matching Before Year End

Are you a highly compensated FERS employee who contributes the maximum to the TSP each year? Don’t risk losing any of the government’s matching contributions by maxing out your TSP before the end of the year.

The government can contribute up to 5% of your salary to the TSP each pay period, as follows:

☑ 1% agency automatic contribution paid whether or not you are contributing to the TSP.

☑ A dollar-for-dollar match on the first 3% of your salary that you contribute each pay period.

☑ A fifty-cent on the dollar match for the next 2% of your salary that you contribute each pay period.

For any pay period where you are not contributing for any reason, you will get the 1% government contribution and that is all. Let’s look at a highly compensated FERS employee who is not paying attention and reaches the TSP maximum ($24,500 in 2026) before the year ends.

Are you a highly compensated FERS employee who contributes the maximum to the TSP each year? Don’t risk losing any of the government’s matching

09/06/2026

SSDI: The Benefit FERS Requires You to Apply For — and Why So Many Feds Leave It on the Table

FERS requires you to also apply for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits.

You do not need to be approved for the benefits, but you do need to show that you applied for them to qualify for FERS Disability Retirement.

Most federal employees treat that requirement as just a box to check - but that could be a costly mistake.

[link in comments 👇👇]

OPM Disability Retirement asks whether you can perform YOUR job — your position of record. SSDI asks a harder question: whether your condition prevents you from performing ANY substantial gainful work in the national economy.

That is why plenty of employees win their OPM disability and lose their SSDI claim — and why losing SSDI has no effect whatsoever on your OPM case.

But “harder standard” does not mean “impossible standard,” and this is where feds talk themselves out of real money.

Social Security’s rules get significantly more favorable at age 50, and again at 55, through what are called the medical-vocational guidelines — the “grids.”

09/06/2026

“Why would anyone pay thousands of dollars for Medicare Part B when BCBS Basic already has a catastrophic out of pocket maximum?”

To answer this we need to consider several important details about how Medicare and FEHB coordinate together, how BCBS Basic changes when Medicare becomes primary, and what retirees are actually trying to protect themselves against.

The real decision is usually not about comparing the Medicare premium to the catastrophic maximum.

It is about comparing the Medicare premium to the medical cost sharing Medicare may eliminate throughout the year.

Once you understand that distinction, the decision becomes much clearer. Link in comments 👇👇

The most common mistake federal retirees make is comparing the Medicare Part B premium directly against the BCBS Basic catastrophic maximum. Emotionally, that feels logical. Mathematically, it usually is not.

09/05/2026

Reminder: OPM Finalizes Changes to Critical Position Pay Authority

OPM has finalized, in an August 26 Federal Register notice, changes to its rules on critical position pay” which allows for higher salary rates in positions requiring high-level expertise in a scientific, technical, professional, or administrative field deemed critical to the agency’s mission.

“The final rule eliminates non-statutory caps and approval criteria; addresses the use of service agreements; clarifies that reductions or terminations of CPP are not adverse actions or subject to grievance or appeal rights; and clarifies the treatment of critical pay rates as basic pay. This final rule simplifies and better aligns OPM’s regulations with governing law and delegated authority,” the notice says. Continues, link in comments 👇

09/05/2026

Misconduct Appeals Reshaped: What to Know About the MSPB’s New Penalty Review Rule

Federal employees who file future appeals with the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) may be significantly impacted by a new final rule issued on Sept. 2, 2026 that reshapes the landscape of how penalties in federal employee misconduct cases will be reviewed. The rule is effective Oct. 5, 2026.

The new rule eliminates the longstanding requirement that the MSPB consider the 12 factors established in Douglas v. Veterans Administration, known as the Douglas Factors, in misconduct-based adverse action appeals. Instead, moving forward the MSPB will determine whether an agency’s chosen penalty falls within the “tolerable limits of reasonableness” based on the totality of the circumstances and the specific facts of each case.

Here's what federal employees can expect ...link below 👇

09/04/2026

President Donald Trump’s executive order placing new restrictions on mail-in voting directed the U.S. Postal Service to strictly regulate the envelope design of mail-in ballots and to collect voter data from each state through an online portal, among other things.

The Postal Service has argued in court that its rule is not an election regulation, but is within the agency’s purview as a standard for a specific type of mail.

But some state officials tasked with fitting their systems to the new regulations say it presents massive — if not impossible — challenges to reach compliance for the November midterms, when voters will decide whether to continue Republican control of the U.S. House and Senate.

Important questions remain - such as whether an entire batch with thousands of ballots could be invalidated if just one ballot exhibits an inconsistency with new rules being put in place, using a new system developed and deployed nationwide in a short timeframe.

President Donald Trump’s executive order placing new restrictions on mail-in voting would assign state officials a Herculean task to reach compliance

09/04/2026

IG Finds Gaps in Whistleblower Protections at FBI

Whistleblower protection policies at the FBI have inconsistencies that “have resulted in gaps in protecting FBI personnel from retaliation and ensuring that FBI personnel are held accountable for retaliation,” an inspector general report has said.

A management alert report called attention to differences that have arisen “during multiple investigations of allegations of retaliation by FBI personnel.”

For example, while a policy directive purports to protect from retaliation all “personnel”—including contractors, interns, task force officers, and detailees—who make reports of compliance concerns, the offense code only provides penalties for retaliatory actions taken against FBI “employees.”

Similarly, while the offense code “protects FBI employees from retaliation when they make a protected disclosure or exercise ‘any other legitimate right authorized by the FBI,’” the policy directive requires FBI personnel to have reported a “compliance concern.” Continues, link in comments ...

09/03/2026

A FERS Retiree Annuity Supplement, commonly called the special retirement supplement, may be paid in addition to your FERS annuity benefits. It represents what you would receive for your FERS service from the Social Security Administration and is calculated as if you were eligible to receive SSA benefits on the day you retired. It’s designed to bridge the gap between retirement and age 62, when a retiree first becomes eligible for Social Security.

https://www.fedweek.com/fers-special-retirement-supplement-calculator/

The supplement is computed as if you were age 62 and fully insured for a Social Security benefit when the supplement begins. OPM first estimates what your full career Social Security benefit would be. Then it will calculate the amount of your civilian service under FERS and reduce the estimated full career Social Security benefit accordingly.

09/03/2026

IRS Didn’t Assure All Agency-Issued Devices Were Returned by Departing Employees, Audit Says

An inspector general audit has found that some 600 IRS-issued devices including laptops, portable printers, and smartphones were not returned by employees who left the agency last year—mostly through accepting deferred resignation offers—worth a total of $27,000.

That is only a small share of the some 32,000 such assets that had been issued to the 22,000 departing employees, but “failing to collect assets from departing employees results in risk of data loss as well as a financial loss to the agency,” it said. Continues, link in comments ...

09/03/2026

Defined Benefit Retirement Programs Like FERS Increasingly Rare

A report for Congress has charted the continuing decline of defined benefit retirement programs —such as the federal FERS and CSRS systems—that pay annuities based on factors such as years of service and earnings, with continued growth in defined contribution programs—such as the federal TSP—which accumulate value based on levels of investment and rates of return.

While federal employees have both types of benefits, the Congressional Research Service said that over 2010-2025 the percentage of private sector employees with access to defined contribution programs like 401k plans rose from 59 to 70 percent while pension type plans fell to just 14 percent. Continues, link in comments ...