By August 31st, feds will know what to expect for this year regarding a pay raise. That’s the cutoff point for the president, who is expected to propose a 1.6% across-the-board pay increase for civilian federal employees as outlined in his fiscal 2017 budget.

In a letter issued last week to Beth Cobert, the Acting Director of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), Representatives Don Beyer (D-VA) and Gerry Connolly (D-VA) demanded answers regarding the recent increase in premiums for enrollees in the Federal Long-Term Care Insurance Program (FLTCIP).

A legislative alternative to the White House’s proposed $3.1 billion IT Modernization Fund has been introduced in both the House and Senate.

Last week, Reps. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) and Mark Meadows (R-NC) introduced legislation to allow federal employees to use their transit benefits toward ride-sharing companies such as Uber and Lyft.

In a letter to Acting Director Beth Cobert of the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last week requested details regarding how many political appointees have been converted to career positions since September of last year.

The White House is threatening a veto to the House version of the fiscal 2017 Financial Services and General Government Appropriations bill because of its inclusion of $236 million in additional cuts to the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) budget.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is weighing a vote on a resolution to hold the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) Administrator in contempt, with Chairman Jason Chaffetz leading the charge while House Democrats stand in opposition.

An early draft of a fiscal 2017 appropriations bill has passed through the House Appropriations’ subcommittee on financial services and general government with massive cuts to the IRS’ budget.

The Senate’s Defense authorization bill for fiscal 2017 currently includes a provision that would narrow veterans’ preference in hiring efforts so that it would only apply to a veteran’s first job in federal service. The new provision would not factor in veteran status for any subsequent federal jobs an eligible employee applies for.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) voted unanimously to approve a new measure that would allow federal agencies to bypass employee unions when blocking access to webmail and other websites believed to be security risks.

Legislation introduced last week would ensure all federal law enforcement officers receive enhanced retirement benefits.

The House Judiciary Committee will host two hearings in the coming weeks regarding alleged “misconduct” by IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.

Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is demanding to know where the IRS has found money to hire up to 700 new staffers for enforcement.

In effort to discover what makes some federal employees happier at some agencies, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform brought together representatives from agencies who have ranked high in the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government and one – the Department of Homeland Security – who has struggled at the bottom for some time.

Last week, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and 50 other House members issued a letter to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) regarding “fair chance hiring” in government and to continue to ease hiring for formerly-incarcerated individuals.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee unanimously approved the “Making Electronic Government Accountable by Yielding Tangible Efficiencies Act,” bipartisan legislation that would require federal agencies to maintain comprehensive software inventories and use them to track licenses and software usage to reduce duplication.

During her last year in office, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) will continue to advocate for a proposed 5.3% pay raise for federal employees, in addition to finding new money for the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Former House Budget Committee staff director Thomas Kahn is the new legislative director for the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE).