[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
H.R. 5600, THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT, OFFENDER SUPERVISION,
PAROLE, AND PUBLIC DEFENDER EMPLOYEES EQUITY ACT OF 2008
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL WORKFORCE,
POSTAL SERVICE, AND THE DISTRICT
OF COLUMBIA
of the
COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON
H.R. 5600
TO PERMIT NONJUDICIAL EMPLOYEES OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURTS,
EMPLOYEES TRANSFERRED TO THE PRETRAIL SERVICES, PAROLE, ADULT
PROBATION, AND OFFENDER SUPERVISION TRUSTEE, AND EMPLOYEES OF THE
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PUBLIC DEFENDER SERVICE TO HAVE PERIODS OF SERVICE
PERFORMED PRIOR TO THE ENACTMENT OF THE BALANCED BUDGET ACT OF 1997
INCLUDED AS PART OF THE YEARS OF SERVIVCE USED TO DETERMINE THE TIME AT
WHICH SUCH EMPLOYEES ARE ELIGIBLE TO RETIRE UNDER CHAPTER 84 OF TITLE
5, UNITED STATES CODE, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
__________
JULY 15, 2008
__________
Serial No. 110-145
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/
index.html
http://www.oversight.house.gov
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND GOVERNMENT REFORM
HENRY A. WAXMAN, California, Chairman
EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York TOM DAVIS, Virginia
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania DAN BURTON, Indiana
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio JOHN L. MICA, Florida
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana
JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri CHRIS CANNON, Utah
DIANE E. WATSON, California JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio
BRIAN HIGGINS, New York DARRELL E. ISSA, California
JOHN A. YARMUTH, Kentucky KENNY MARCHANT, Texas
BRUCE L. BRALEY, Iowa LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
Columbia VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina
BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota BRIAN P. BILBRAY, California
JIM COOPER, Tennessee BILL SALI, Idaho
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JIM JORDAN, Ohio
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland
PETER WELCH, Vermont
JACKIE SPEIER, California
Phil Barnett, Staff Director
Earley Green, Chief Clerk
Lawrence Halloran, Minority Staff Director
Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the District of
Columbia
DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois
ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of KENNY MARCHANT, Texas
Columbia JOHN M. McHUGH, New York
JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland JOHN L. MICA, Florida
ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland DARRELL E. ISSA, California
DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio, Chairman JIM JORDAN, Ohio
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
Tania Shand, Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on July 15, 2008.................................... 1
Text of H.R. 5600................................................ 19
Statement of:
Kichak, Nancy H., Associate Director for Strategic Human
Resources Policy, U.S. Office of Personnel Management...... 35
Wicks, Anne B., executive officer, District of Columbia
courts, accompanied by Kathy Holiday Crawford, probation
officer, Social Services Division, District of Columbia
Family Court; Paul A. Quander, Jr., director, Court
Services and Offender Supervision Agency of the District of
Columbia; and Avis E. Buchanan, director, Public Defender
Service for the District of Columbia....................... 53
Buchanan, Avis E......................................... 66
Crawford, Kathy Holiday.................................. 73
Quander, Paul A., Jr..................................... 63
Wicks, Anne B............................................ 53
Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:
Buchanan, Avis E., director, Public Defender Service for the
District of Columbia, prepared statement of................ 68
Cummings, Hon. Elijah E., a Representative in Congress from
the State of Marfyland, prepared statement of.............. 31
Davis, Hon. Danny K., a Representative in Congress from the
State of Illinois:
Prepared statement of.................................... 15
Various prepared statements.............................. 2
Kichak, Nancy H., Associate Director for Strategic Human
Resources Policy, U.S. Office of Personnel Management,
prepared statement of...................................... 37
Marcant, Hon. Kenny, a Representative in Congress from the
State of Texas, prepared statement of...................... 25
Quander, Paul A., Jr., director, Court Services and Offender
Supervision Agency of the District of Columbia, prepared
statement of............................................... 64
Wicks, Anne B., executive officer, District of Columbia
courts, prepared statement of.............................. 55
H.R. 5600, THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT, OFFENDER SUPERVISION,
PAROLE, AND PUBLIC DEFENDER EMPLOYEES EQUITY ACT OF 2008
----------
TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2008
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service,
and the District of Columbia,
Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:39 p.m., in
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Danny K. Davis
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Davis, Norton, Cummings, and
Marchant.
Staff present: William Miles, professional staff member;
and Marcus A. Williams, clerk/press secretary.
Mr. Davis. We are going to move into our hearing on the
District of Columbia Court, Offender Supervision, Parole, and
Public Defender Employees Equity Act of 2008. The subcommittee
will now come to order.
Welcome, Ranking Member Marchant, members of the
subcommittee, hearing witnesses and all those in attendance, to
the Subcommittee on the Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and
District of Columbia's hearing entitled, ``H.R. 5600, the
District of Columbia Court, Offender Supervision, Parole, and
Public Defender Employees Equity Act of 2008.''
Hearing no objection, the Chair will ask unanimous consent
to allow the testimonies of the following individuals: William
L. Askew, Patrice Irick, Thomas T. Abraham, Kevin Brannon,
Rodney C. Corbin, Shawn Edward Dickerson, Ricardo Green, Diana
Miles, Linda Suzanne Rupard, Ardina Yvette Van, April Davis,
Alicia Holder, Deborah Ward, Neville Campbell-Adams and George
Hughson to be added to the record.
Hearing no objection, so ordered.
The Chair, ranking member and subcommittee members will
each have 5 minutes to make opening statements, and all Members
will have 3 days to submit statements for the record.
Hearing no objection, so ordered.
[The information referred to follows:]
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Mr. Davis. I will read a brief opening statement.
Today, the subcommittee is holding a hearing to examine
H.R. 5600, the District of Columbia Court, Offender
Supervision, Parole, and Public Defender Employees Equity Act
of 2008. The bill, which was introduced by Representative
Eleanor Holmes Norton on March 12, 2008, would permit former
D.C. government and independent agency employees to count the
years of service they performed prior to 1997 toward their
Federal creditable service which determines an individual's
eligibility for retirement.
Passage of the National Capital Revitalization and Self-
Government Improvement Act of 1997 brought about a transfer of
several of the District's criminal justice functions to the
Federal Government, which has adversely impacted hundreds of
employees who lost their prior service time. These employees
were forced to shift their source of employment as a result of
the enactment of the 1997 Revitalization Act. People who for
years performed functions and duties under the D.C. government
banner found themselves seeking employment opportunities to do
almost the same jobs, but on the Federal level.
Although many of the individuals were fortunate enough to
secure employment with newly created Federal entities and are
to become considered as Federal employees for the purpose of
pay in benefits, none of these individuals were allowed to have
their previous years of work included in the calculation of
their creditable service which is used to determine an
employee's eligibility for retirement under the Federal
Employees Retirement Service.
What we are witnessing today are dozens of employees who
would normally be ready for retirement being forced to work
additional years, sometimes an entire decade, because of an
inability to incorporate their previous years of related
service. H.R. 5600 seeks to remedy this problem by allowing the
service these Federal workers performed prior to 1997 to count
as creditable service for the purpose of determining an
employee's eligibility for retirement only and not an
employee's annuity amount.
I understand that the bill may need some fine tuning to
ensure that all affected persons and agencies are covered, and
I anticipate that those issues will be addressed in some of the
testimony being presented today.
The support that this bill has received from groups like
the American Federation of Government Employees and the
hundreds of employees affected highlights the importance of
quickly moving this legislation toward enactment.
I thank Congresswoman Norton and Ranking Member Tom Davis
for all the hard work they have put in on this issue over the
past several years, and I also want to thank today's witnesses
for participating in this afternoon's hearing.
I would now like to yield to Ranking Member Marchant for
any opening comments that he would have.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Danny K. Davis and the text
of H.R. 5600 follow:]
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Mr. Marchant. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As I understand it,
House H.R. 5600 introduced by Congresswoman Norton and
Congressman Tom Davis would restore retirement credit that
certain employees lost when non-judicial employees became
Federal employees as the Federal Government assumed the D.C.
court function in 1997.
The context of the 1997 National Capital Revitalization and
Self-Government Improvement Act is important. At the time, the
city was beginning to recover from a spending and management
crisis of epic proportion. Congressman Davis, who was then
chairman of the District of Columbia Subcommittee, is to be
commended for working in a truly bipartisan way with Delegate
Eleanor Holmes Norton to address this crisis.
In 1997, with patience and perseverance, the Control Board
created by Congress in 1995 was having its intended effect;
much needed discipline was instilled into the budget process.
The city's return to the private financial market was solid
evidence that Congress did produce more creditable numbers and
better performance.
The success of the Control Board made revitalization
possible in 1997. The enactment included a fundamental
restructuring of the relationship between the Federal
Government and the Nation's Capital. Part of this massive
restructuring included subtitle (c), criminal justice area.
Also included in that was the Federal assumption of the costs
associated with the District of Columbia courts, around $136
million in 1998. The Federal assumption of funding
responsibility for the court system included probation, public
defender services and pretrial services, which became a Federal
agency.
The courts continue to be self-managed. The D.C. parole,
probation and pretrial services were operated by a Federal
trustee until they met the Federal standards to become a
Federal agency. As a consequence of that, there was a loss of
creditable service by former D.C. employees.
The legislation before us will rectify this by providing
that service before the transfer of authority would count
toward an overall Federal retirement eligibility as creditable
service; the Public Defender was shifted in 1998, so they would
get credit for any service prior to that; and included
employees still entitled to D.C. and retirement benefits would
be prohibited from double-dipping.
I appreciate the opportunity to have this hearing today and
learn more about this issue.
Mr. Chairman, thank you.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Kenny Marchant follows:]
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Mr. Davis. Thank you very much, Mr. Marchant.
Let me ask if any other Members have opening comments.
Ms. Norton.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Chairman, since this issue arose, I have
put in a bill every year when Representative Davis was the
Chair of the committee. He cosponsored it with me, and I am
grateful that he has continued to cosponsor it now as ranking
member.
Mr. Chairman, I have to say that not since I have been in
Congress have I seen a technical oversight that has done such
an accumulated injustice to a group of Americans. Nothing is
more valuable to people than working your whole life and then
deciding when to retire upon the time that is generally
prescribed. Time cannot be recaptured. Whatever we do here, the
failure to correct this error immediately will leave a terrible
mark on the Congress.
As I shall indicate, there was no intent when we passed the
Revitalization Act to punish or penalize any employee. In fact,
the employees generally did not oppose the act, in no small
part because of our guarantee that the act was designed to
remove certain costs from the District of Columbia, State costs
that no city bears, and that nobody was going to be hurt.
We did not keep our word, and if we were going to break our
word, we certainly chose the worst of the benefits to do so
because there are employees, now Federal employees, who will
never be made whole, for no reason except the Congress did not
act promptly.
You have outlined very clearly, Mr. Chairman--and I will
not repeat--what this bill does. I will only say that these
employees are only asking for the time they have already
accumulated. They are asking for time they accumulated before
the Revitalization Act was passed in 1997 and not one thing
more.
They lost this time without any notice when the error was
made, and they lost their so-called ``creditable service.''
They became FERS employees--and the definition of ``creditable
service'' there is somewhat different--and all it took was
aligning these employees with the Federal employees they had
become. It was the only decent thing to do.
I certainly don't blame this on the Republican minority
that worked so closely with me on the Revitalization Act.
Everybody worked together on that bill with the President of
the United States, and yet this is, by far, its major flaw.
I just ask you, Mr. Chairman, suppose you were 60 years old
at the time of the act and you had been an employee for 20
years working for the people of the District of Columbia. Does
anyone think that you deserve to work 13 more years in order to
retire? Can that case possibly be decently made by anyone?
Mr. Chairman, it has been very painful to see time
accumulate, because it is like a ticking bomb. It is time; it
is gone.
And I knew for a while that the Federal Government was not
going to do anything to compensate these employees for having
lost some of that time. For one thing, it would be difficult to
figure out when people wanted to retire given the ADEA, the Age
Discrimination Employment Act. If I may say so, if I myself had
been in private practice, what would have occurred to me would
have been to bring a suit under the Age Discrimination and
Employment Act, which in fact covers the Federal Government,
because under that act you can work as long as you please. You
cannot be made to retire. In fact, the whole point was to
remove the government from the decision to retire; and I
continue to believe there has been a violation by the Federal
Government of the ADEA.
What makes it particularly painful is that the bill has
been at pains to eliminate the possibility of double-dipping.
Nor have these employees asked to be credited with funds
from the Federal Government during the period before they
serve--only the time served. They have the annuity from the
District Government. They are not asking for anything from us
that they do not deserve; they are asking for their time.
If we want to add insult to injury, we can argue that the
Federal Government incurs some financial liability here.
Now, if you really want to build on the nonremedial aspect,
you might want to argue that, well, we are going to lose
something in the Federal Government. That is palpable nonsense,
Mr. Chairman. The argument might be made on the basis, well,
the Federal Government is paying out this money--its share of
the money, understand--at an earlier moment than it might have
wished to.
Mr. Chairman, nobody knows when people are going to retire.
The government doesn't know for 1 second when Federal employees
will pick up their marbles and go home, and that is one of the
reasons we are having such a problem in retaining Federal
employees. They don't have the slightest idea. Once they reach
the point of early retirement, they can say, Bye-bye, Federal
Government, I am going to take this marvelous training, I am
going to go work for a contractor, I am going to go home and
sit; now just give me my money.
Under the ADEA, they can stay here until they are as old as
Methuselah; and you don't know when they are going to retire
and you had better not ask them. So any claim that somehow you
are calling on Federal money before you are supposed to assumes
that there was a time you were supposed to.
If anything, the Federal Government ought to be here with
an apology rather than any resistance to this bill. It makes me
mad and I am not even involved. I would hate to be somebody who
was supposed to retire any time during this interval and be
told, you just sit tight as long as we say so. Or worse, sit
tight for X number of years; you will be the only Federal
employees who are so required. And that is why I say it is a
violation of the ADEA.
The least we can do, Mr. Chairman, is to do what I hope we
will do here today. Hear everyone out, rapidly pass this bill
before this session, which is due to end somewhat earlier than
usual, do so with an apology to these employees, and try never
to repeat this kind of error again.
I do want to note for the record that anyone who argues
that there was any intent to, in fact, deprive these employees
of their service needs to cite the record from the
Revitalization Act to this committee. Because I will cite to
them exactly the opposite in the act and in its report.
We have made a promise to these employees. We need this
transfer. We know you are nervous. Not to worry. This is the
sacred promise of the Federal Government of the United States;
and we then proceeded to break it. Let's try to make these
employees as whole as we can, for they shall never be whole,
but as whole as we can by not depriving them of another minute
of service time to which they are entitled.
And I thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Davis. Thank you very much, Ms. Norton. Thank you very
much.
Mr. Cummings.
Mr. Cummings. Mr. Chairman, I just want to associate myself
with the words of the distinguished representative from the
District of Columbia.
You know, Mr. Chairman, I often say that we have one life
to live and this is no dress rehearsal; this is that life. When
people have worked hard and have given their blood, their
sweat, and their tears to make it possible for others to live
the best life that they can, they should not be deprived of
that which is due them. We are not doing them any big favor,
just giving them what they have earned.
And so, I am excited about this legislation and I just hope
that we can get it pushed over the line as fast as we possibly
can so that these folks can get what they have earned.
And with that Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Hon. Elijah E. Cummings
follows:]
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Mr. Davis. Thank you very much, Mr. Cummings.
And I would ask unanimous consent that Members would have 3
legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks.
Hearing no objection, so ordered.
And we now would move to our witnesses.
Our first witness will be Ms. Nancy Kichak. She was named
Associate Director for the Human Resources Policy Division of
the Office of Personnel Management [OPM], in September 2005.
Ms. Kichak leads the design, development and implementation of
innovative, flexible and merit-based human resource policies;
and we are delighted to have her here to testify, as she does
so regularly with us, from the Office of Personnel Management.
If you would stand, it is the tradition of this committee
that witnesses be sworn in.
[Witness sworn.]
Mr. Davis. The record will show that the witness answered
in the affirmative.
Ms. Kichak, if you would, summarize for us in 5 minutes
your written statement, which will be in the record. We get
down to the lights, that they are now working. The yellow light
is an indication that there is a minute in which to wrap up.
Thank you so very much. We appreciate your being here.
Please proceed.
STATEMENT OF NANCY H. KICHAK, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR STRATEGIC
HUMAN RESOURCES POLICY, U.S. OFFICE OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT
Ms. Kichak. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Marchant, and members of the subcommittee. I appreciate the
opportunity to be here today to discuss the proposed bill, H.R.
5600.
The National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government
Improvement Act of 1997, as amended, which was part of the
Balanced Budget Act of 1997, stipulated the four groups of
civil service servants have their future retirement coverage
covered by the Federal Employees Retirement Systems [FERS]. The
four employee groups were as follows: nonjudicial employees of
the District of Columbia of Columbia courts; employees whose
functions were transferred to the pretrial services, parole,
adult supervision, and offender supervision trustee; employees
of the Public Defender Service hired before enactment of the
District of Columbia Courts and Justice Technical Corrections
Act of 1998; and individuals appointed under the priority
consideration program of the Bureau of Prisons.
Prior to placement in the first system, these employees
were covered by a defined contribution retirement plan similar
in nature and benefit level to the Thrift Savings Plan. Upon
the bill's enactment, these employees retained their defined
contribution plan benefits from the District of Columbia, and
those who did not have sufficient time for vesting under the
D.C. defined contribution retirement plan were permitted to
count their subsequent service so as to achieve vesting,
ensuring that no benefits were lost due to this legislation.
Instead, employee benefits were increased by providing coverage
under a defined benefit plan based on years of service while
continuing participation in a defined contribution plan and
coverage under Social Security. Also, health benefits were now
provided that continue into retirement.
Under FERS, individuals are eligible to retire with a
minimum of 5 years of FERS-covered service as age 62 without a
reduction to their annuities. An individual with at least 10
years of FERS covered service may retire at the minimum
retirement age with a slight reduction. The minimum retirement
age is between ages 55 and 57, depending upon the individual's
date of birth.
As it has been 11 years since passage of Public Law 105-33,
the individuals covered by H.R. 5600 will be eligible to take
advantage of the first provision for those with 10 years of
service, once they reach their minimum retirement age, and will
be eligible to retire without a reduction upon reaching age 62.
H.R. 5600 will not modify the computational structure
applicable to their employment under FERS, nor will it make
their prior service creditable toward the computation of FERS
benefits. However, it will permit that service to be creditable
solely for the purpose of eligibility for annuity so that
affected individuals will be permitted to retire at the time
that they would have been eligible had all of their service
been performed under a single system.
These provisions increase costs to the retirement fund
through the early provision of benefits and thus the loss of
employee-employer contributions equal to 12 percent of salary.
The proposed legislation makes no provision for funding these
costs.
A number of the individuals covered by this bill are
currently employed in positions as law enforcement officers. As
drafted, H.R. 5600 would not make the prior District service
creditable toward early retirement as a law enforcement officer
because the proposed bill does not define this service as
creditable under the law enforcement officer provisions.
If law enforcement credit were granted, costs for these
employees would be significantly higher due to the more
generous benefit structure and the loss of employer and
employee contributions at a rate of 26.2 percent of pay. Full
cost funding is an important principle of the first system, and
we believe the provisions of H.R. 5600 should be in compliance
with this principle.
In conclusion, we have policy and financial concerns with
aspects of this proposal, and accordingly, we cannot support
it.
Thank you for inviting me here to testify today. I would be
glad to answer any questions.
Mr. Davis. Thank you very much, Ms. Kichak.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Kichak follows:]
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Mr. Davis. I am going to yield to the ranking member, Mr.
Marchant, to begin the questioning.
Mr. Marchant. Thank you.
How does this bill prevent double-dipping by any of the
employees that are still entitled to their D.C. retirement
benefits?
Ms. Kichak. Well, the bill does not include their service
in the first calculation. It only allows that service to be
creditable to make them eligible. So they will not be paid
twice or accrue a computation for the service; however, they
will be able to start receiving their annuity earlier.
Mr. Marchant. I think you probably answered this question
in your testimony.
The legislation is not revenue neutral.
Ms. Kichak. That is correct.
Mr. Marchant. Has there been a computation made as to the
cost to implement that would compensate and make it a neutral
transaction for FERS?
Ms. Kichak. Right now, the bill does not permit service to
be computed the way it is drafted for law enforcement officer
coverage. We think it was intent that is an unintended
consequence, because we know a lot of these people are law
enforcement officers. So we have done two computations.
Roughly speaking, and as was pointed out earlier, when you
do these computations you have to assume, on average, when
people will retire. Based on patterns of retirement for each
law enforcement person covered, the increase in cost under this
bill is roughly $50,000--roughly; and for employees not in law
enforcement, about $2,500 per person.
Mr. Marchant. OK. So the $50,000 is per person?
Ms. Kichak. For a law enforcement officer. They retire
earlier, so they would start receiving their benefit earlier.
They have a higher benefit computation in recognition of the
fact that they have a shorter career.
And we lose revenue because, had they worked under the
first system, there would have been contributions into the fund
by both them, at a higher rate of pay, and their employer.
Mr. Marchant. Is there some precedent in the FERS system
where any other instances like this have ever taken place?
Ms. Kichak. We cannot identify any other similar instance.
Mr. Marchant. So is the bill drafted to where it does not
set a precedent for----
Ms. Kichak. We think that the bill would set precedent.
Mr. Marchant. OK. So your concern is that it sets
precedent. And you have the----
Ms. Kichak. And has a cost.
Mr. Marchant. And it has a cost. And the cost has to be
defrayed in some way?
Ms. Kichak. Yes.
Mr. Marchant. I think those are my questions, Madam Chair.
Ms. Norton [presiding]. Thank you, Ms. Kichak, for your
testimony.
Quoting from your testimony, page 3, ``While they will
receive,'' these employees--it is the next to last paragraph--
``benefits under FERS proportionate to their FERS-covered
service, they will have to wait somewhat longer to be eligible
for those benefits than if their service had been performed
under a single plan.''
I ask you to cite the authority in the legislative record
for that statement. In other words, I am asking you, since this
was an entirely new bill that had to be written out of whole
cloth. You have given us an interpretation, therefore, without
citing any authority for the interpretation that I have just
indicated. That rather much summarizes your testimony.
Ms. Kichak. OK. I don't have the specific cite under Title
5 with me, but it very clearly says that their service will be
counted from the day they became covered under FERS. And we
could point to that----
Ms. Norton. Well, obviously that service will be counted
from the time they were covered under FERS.
Ms. Kichak. Right.
Ms. Norton. This hearing goes to whether or not their
service before being covered by FERS is to be given any credit.
Are you testifying that it was the intent of the Congress
of the United States to deprive these employees of years of
service they would have received had they remained subject to
the authority of the District of Columbia? Is that your
testimony here this morning?
Ms. Kichak. No. My testimony is that the law, as it is
currently written, gives credit only for the time they have
served under the FERS system.
Ms. Norton. Oh, you will have to supply for the record, if
you would, what you are basing that on. If you are to cite a
single sentence without looking at the entire bill is to invite
us to ignore your testimony.
There was a great deal of testimony about what we were
doing. The ranking member, Mr. Davis, was there; I was there
every step of the way. I submit to you that the Congress was
very clear that bringing these employees into the Federal
sector would be without prejudice.
And I ask you to tell me whether or not, if we transferred
Federal employees to another sector, we could possibly have
done so without informing them of any losses. Are you therefore
saying that these employees lost time and the Congress intended
them to lose their service before their eligibility for
retirement, before they were transferred to the Federal
Government?
You are saying that was the intent of Congress?
Ms. Kichak. I am not. I am not speaking about the intent of
Congress. We administer the law as it is written in Title 5
today, and that is what we are basing it on.
Ms. Norton. I suggest to you, Ms. Kichak, that you are
citing a sentence from the law without looking at the entire
record. I ask you to do this committee the service of looking
at that record, if you would.
In any case, as I indicated, the record would include the
statements, the promise of the Congress that it did not and
would not deprive people of their eligibility for retirement.
Now, the notion that somehow or the other we intended that
and that these employees would sit on their rights, is not only
unpersuasive, it is incredible. And it is even worse to suggest
that the Congress of the United States would, in fact, deprive
people of their retirement time without, in fact, so informing
them.
Now, I could accept your testimony if you said, we made a
mistake. But you have testified here that is what Congress
intended, and you have done so without citing to me the entire
record, including the parts of the record which indicated we
intended to deprive these employees of nothing. So as long as
you are going to cite a single sentence, it does seem to me you
have to back that up with what it is Congress said in its
fullness.
You concede that what happened with the law enforcement
officers does not reflect what Congress intended, do you not?
Ms. Kichak. What I meant to say was, I don't think that is
what was meant by the folks that have drafted this bill. But I
would need the changes in the legislation to verify that you
wanted those changes made.
Ms. Norton. Now, I read with interest the part of your
testimony--this sentence: ``If law enforcement credit was
granted''--and I want to know if you would apply this to others
as well. ``If law enforcement credit was granted, costs for
these employees would be significantly higher due to the more
liberal benefits structure and the loss of employer and
employee contributions at the higher rate.'' And you cited 26.2
percent.
Ms. Kichak. Right.
Ms. Norton. Is that your testimony with respect to the
other employees?
Ms. Kichak. For the other employees who are under the
regular system, the loss of income is 12 percent in pension
funding.
Ms. Norton. Now, you may have heard my opening statement. I
can understand the law enforcement at least a little better,
because law enforcement retires earlier.
I would like to know the basis for your--what is it, 12
percent?
Mr. Kichak. Twelve percent.
Ms. Norton. Twelve percent. Would cost the FERS 12 percent?
Ms. Kichak. Yes.
Ms. Norton. I would like to know the basis for that
statement.
Ms. Kichak. Twelve percent is what is called the ``normal
cost'' of the retirement system, and under FERS today----
Ms. Norton. What do you know about the normal cost of these
D.C. employees?
Now, they were in the FERS system. Did you ask what was the
normal cost or normal retirement age when they were in the D.C.
system, where they would have accumulated whatever expectation
they would have had?
Ms. Kichak. In the D.C. system, as a defined contribution
plan, they could have, once they were vested, resigned at any
time and taken their money out in an annuity or whatever, very
similar to what you can do today under the Thrift Savings Plan.
So they were at----
Ms. Norton. And you are aware that the D.C. bill is a
carryover from no Home Rule, so that this bill rather much
reflects the thinking that the Congress put in effect at that
time. Go ahead.
Ms. Kichak. Well, my background, before I came to the job I
currently have, was as the Chief Actuary at OPM. And ``normal
cost'' is a technical actuarial term based upon the future
benefits, based on the average rates of decrement of folks in a
system.
So the 12 percent normal cost is, indeed, based on
averages, and it is based on the experience, and continually
reviewed and updated of the--well, it is not 1.8 million in
FERS, but of all of the hundreds of thousands of people in the
FERS system. And under pension funding, FERS pension funding
today, for every employee covered by FERS 12 percent is
supposed to be contributed from the entry on duty until
retirement; and the loss for giving folks credit toward
retirement and not making that funding would cause an unfunded
liability in the FERS system.
Ms. Norton. Now, where in the record can you cite
congressional concern that bringing these employees over would
put a burden on the FERS system if, in fact, they came over
with their time accumulated in the District?
Cite me to that part of the record.
Ms. Kichak. The record there would be in the establishment
of the FERS system, which was designed to be a fully funded
system back when it was established.
Ms. Norton. Would you explain why these employees are
coming over to the FERS system in the first place?
Ms. Kichak. Because the law stipulated that they would.
Ms. Norton. Well, they are coming over in the FERS system.
What about the D.C. system?
They came from a system like that in the District of
Columbia; is that not true?
Ms. Kichak. They came from a system in the District of
Columbia whose service did not count toward their pension under
FERS.
Ms. Norton. No, that is your conclusion, please. That is
what you have concluded.
I am asking, first of all, would all these employees come
under the FERS system, the employees that are at issue here?
Ms. Kichak. We believed that most of them would be, and
that is how we analyzed that.
We have recently become aware in other statements we have
seen, that some of these would be under CSRS offset; but we
believe that most of them would be under FERS. And the data
that we were provided by the district court was for folks that
would be under FERS.
Ms. Norton. And you concluded that they would be under FERS
for what reason? Because they were under a FERS-type system in
the District of Columbia?
Ms. Kichak. No. Because they entered into our system and
became covered under FERS after FERS was established.
FERS became the system----
Ms. Norton. Wait a minute. FERS, our employees are no
longer covered by FERS. Is that right?
Ms. Kichak. Our employees are covered by FERS today.
Ms. Norton. Excuse me. The opposite.
Ms. Kichak. Right.
Ms. Norton. These employees are now entering a FERS system.
Ms. Kichak. Correct. Which has been the system----
Ms. Norton. What kind of system were they in before?
Ms. Kichak. They were in a defined contribution plan.
Ms. Norton. Isn't that the point, Ms. Kichak? That they
entered the District government and offered their service in a
defined contribution plan?
Well, let me cite this example to you. The Federal
Government went from a defined benefit to a defined
contribution. Did any Federal employee suffer when the Federal
Government changed over from one kind of plan to the other?
Ms. Kichak. For folks hired----
Ms. Norton. Was there any penalty to Federal employees when
the Federal Government decided to make that very switch that
you have just described?
Ms. Kichak. No one who was covered by the Federal system,
CSRS, that was in place when FERS was established was
penalized. They were in a CSRS system, and they were in a Civil
Service Retirement System and they stayed in a Civil Service
Retirement System.
Ms. Norton. Thank you, Ms. Kichak. That is my point.
The District of Columbia employees were in a system like
CSRS. They come to the Federal Government. They do not ask for
anything special except that they recognize they are coming
into a system, a FERS system.
If your testimony is that Congress did not penalize any
employees when they moved over from one retirement system to
another, how can you offer testimony today that the Congress
would have treated the District of Columbia employees, who are
becoming Federal employees, any differently from what they
treated the CSRS employees whom they were at pains to make sure
were not penalized, as you have testified here today?
Ms. Kichak. The folks from the D.C. system were in a
defined contribution plan. Before enactment of this
legislation, they did not have access to a defined benefit
plan. They were not in the same system. They entered a new
system.
Ms. Norton. Aren't some of the employees of the District of
Columbia under that very system, the FERS system, a FERS-type
system?
Ms. Kichak. The FERS system has three components. The FERS
system has the defined contribution plan, which is Thrift, it
has Social Security, and it has a defined benefit plan.
The employees impacted by this legislation had only two of
those three. When they entered into the new system and became
covered under FERS, they had an enhancement in benefits. It was
an enhancement in benefits.
Ms. Norton. Well, it is hard--and no one is asking for more
benefits, Ms. Kichak. We are talking about time, and not
benefits. They are not asking for a dime.
Now, your testimony about 12 percent I simply have to ask
you about. Yes, you can do the actuarial 12 percent, but is it
not the case that in point of fact that is the only way you
have of doing it because you don't have a clue as to when
people will retire?
Ms. Kichak. For a large group, because----
Ms. Norton. Excuse me, did you look at the District of
Columbia group or did you look at the Federal group? Did you
compare the District of Columbia group, and when they retired,
with Federal employees, and when they are likely to retire? Or
did you look at FERS employees?
Ms. Kichak. We looked at FERS employees. We don't have
enough data for this specific group of people.
Ms. Norton. You do have sufficient data. All you would have
to do is ask the District of Columbia for it.
You wouldn't need it for these employees, but if you were
trying to make some kind of fair assessment, what you might
want to do is look at what their actuarial retirement age was
in the District of Columbia, or years they were in the District
of Columbia; at least make some kind of comparison that way, if
that is what you wanted to stand on and did not want to stand
on equal treatment with the way in which we treated CSRS people
who came to FERS. And that is the heart of the matter.
Congress has indicated its intent. Because Congress did
not--goodness, I am sorry, Mr. Chairman--because Congress did
not penalize any Federal employee. And your testimony is here
that although Congress did not penalize any Federal employee,
it was quick to take time from employees of the District of
Columbia who were in the exact situation of our own CSRS
employees.
I submit to you, Ms. Kichak, unless you can supply some
part of the record to justify your assertions, I do not believe
that we can credit them here in this hearing.
I am going to give the chairman back his chair.
Mr. Davis [presiding]. Ms. Kichak, let me ask you,
specifically related to law enforcement officers----
Ms. Kichak. Yes.
Mr. Davis [continuing]. How do you separate them in terms
of some concerns expressed from the other groupings of
employees?
Ms. Kichak. First of all, in my testimony, when we reviewed
the legislation as it is drafted, and it talks about crediting
service, it does not cite the service for law enforcement
officers. So that was a point of information I would like you
to understand.
But when we look at the activity of law enforcement
officers, when we do our actuarial analysis and when we manage
the trust funds, because they have different age and service
requirements and, therefore, their retirement patterns are
different--they can retire at ages that normal people can't--we
look at the rates of retirement leaving the law enforcement
service, etc., in our projections, and we look specifically at
the law enforcement officer community.
We didn't look specifically at the District, but we looked
at, I believe about 80,000 law enforcement officers in Federal
service; and that is how we determined the average experience
that we used to fund the system.
Mr. Davis. Wouldn't you say that the law enforcement
officers in question relative to the District of Columbia, that
they will find themselves at some disadvantage anyway, just by
virtue of having been caught in the situation or the squeeze?
Ms. Kichak. They would find themselves in the same
situation as somebody who joined the law enforcement community
from another State, from a State government or from the private
sector at the age they entered the system. Those folks also
would not have credit under the FERS system. They would be
treated like somebody who entered the service from another
entity that wasn't Federal.
Mr. Davis. Can I ask you, even though you may not be in
agreement with this particular legislation and all of the
components of it, does OPM see any way that this group of
employees can, as one might say, be made whole? Is there any
way that they can end up at the end of their careers feeling
that they somehow or another have not been cheated or
disadvantaged?
Ms. Kichak. Our concern in creating the precedent that was
spoken about before is that there are other groups of folks who
would be interested in being able to get credit for service
that they served someplace else.
In fact, under the FERS legislation, one group that gets no
credit for Federal service are those people who worked for the
Federal Government, took their contributions out, and that
doesn't count for them. So they don't have a provision today
where they can buy back credit for that service. And I see
those as similar, that if we start allowing people to get
credit for time that they didn't contribute under FERS, then
there are going to be challenges to funding the system.
The system was carefully designed to try to make it fully
funded. And there are other people out there with the same
concerns.
Mr. Davis. So it is sort of the Pandora's box syndrome----
Ms. Kichak. Yes.
Mr. Davis [continuing]. In a sense? And I have always been
amazed about how Pandora was looked at. And I have always said
to myself that if you are just afraid of opening up a box that
ought to be opened, then why not open it if the situation is
required, if there should be some redress?
I hear that a lot in terms of Pandora's box, and you know,
if one group gets it, then somebody else wants to be
considered. It would just seem to me that as long as there is
any form of inequity, or as long as there is some denial of
justice and as long as there is some denial of due process or
corrective action, then all of the Pandoras in the world will
end up perhaps dying with some feeling that somehow or another
they were short-changed because they happened to fall into a
box.
And I understand the concept. It is not one that I agree
with, but I certainly understand it and certainly hear it used
a great deal that we are going to open up a can of worms. Well,
if the can needs to be opened, then the worm has as much of a
right as, you know, anything, anybody else. That is just my
position, especially when I ask myself the question about
fairness.
I often ask, is it fair for birds to eat worms? The reality
is, if you asked the bird, you get one answer. Now, you turn
around and ask the worm and you get another answer. And I am
sure that the people here don't want to be viewed as worms. But
it seems that they are in that position.
So let me thank you very much.
Mr. Marchant, do you have any other questions?
Mr. Marchant. Just one question. The bill can be
implemented as drawn correctly, but with an appropriation
attached to it?
Ms. Kichak. An appropriation would solve the funding
problem. If the bill is implemented as drawn, our
interpretation of this language would not credit the service
under these entities in the District of Columbia with credit
toward law enforcement officer service.
Mr. Marchant. So in order for what Ranking Member Davis,
Delegate Norton, and the chairman want to do to accomplish----
Ms. Kichak. Right.
Mr. Marchant [continuing]. The bill needs to be redrafted
to be specific, in your opinion, to specifically cover these
things?
Ms. Kichak. If that is what they want. And we would be glad
to provide technical assistance to show them where we think----
Mr. Marchant. And an appropriation attached to implement
it.
Ms. Kichak. We would recommend that should be done. There
should be an appropriation.
Mr. Marchant. And that is your position?
Ms. Kichak. Yes.
Mr. Marchant. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Davis. Thank you very much, Ms. Kichak. We appreciate
your being here.
Ms. Kichak. Thank you.
Mr. Davis. And as always, we thank you for your testimony.
Ms. Kichak. Thank you.
Ms. Norton. Mr. Chairman, could I have a followup question?
Mr. Davis. One. Yes.
Ms. Norton. She testified--I am sorry, was your last
testimony about money Congress would have to add?
Ms. Kichak. When an unfunded liability is created in the
pensions----
Ms. Norton. You have a huge unfunded liability in every
pension system, I know.
Ms. Kichak. We don't have one in the FERS system.
In the CSRS system there was one, which was one of the
reasons that Congress created the FERS system, to have a system
that was fully funded.
Ms. Norton. Well, of course this is a unique situation,
because you are not starting at ground zero. You are bringing
over people and putting them in the FERS system and leaving
them without their time.
Ms. Kichak. They retained their benefits that they had
when----
Ms. Norton. Obviously, that would be a violation of due
process.
Look, because with the law enforcement employees, given
your testimony, you really have struck a third rail there. I
appreciate your testimony about how we probably intended to
include law enforcement authority and that the bill does not
include law enforcement sufficiently. They, of course, still
have an enhanced retirement.
But is it your testimony that a law enforcement officer who
would, I suppose, be entitled to retire in 20 years? And if
that law enforcement officer hadn't made it, that law
enforcement officer simply has to do what every other employee
who switched over, simply continued to work until the 20-year
in his case or her case time is met?
Ms. Kichak. Yes. They would have to continue to work to get
20.
Ms. Norton. Don't you see how at odds that is with Federal
policy? We don't grant 20-year payouts to people, or enhanced
benefits to people, simply because we like our police officers.
A policy decision has been made about the likely fitness of an
officer after that period of time.
You, administratively, now are requiring these officers,
unless we fix the bill, to serve beyond the period of time that
Congress has fixed for their service.
Yes, it is a benefit. Yes, there is good reason for them
to, in fact, want this benefit. But like every city that does
it, this benefit is not just a benefit, you have to have a
policy reason for doing so. In this case, the policy reason for
doing so has to do with the same reasons that we don't draft
people in the armed services beyond a certain age.
I just want to say that for the record, Mr. Chairman,
because I think that the testimony that law enforcement
officers have to also serve this additional time affects not
only the officers, but presumably the underlying mission that
they happen to be serving.
I would like to ask you about your notion that this is a
precedent and that somehow we are opening up a concern about
similarly situated employees. Can you cite for me any instance
in the history of our country where we have had the Federal
Government to take responsibility for a mission that was
formally performed by a local jurisdiction?
Ms. Kichak. I don't have an example, no.
Ms. Norton. Well, I submit that it could not happen,
because only the District of Columbia is subject to the Home
Rule jurisdiction and is subject to the ultimate jurisdiction
of the Federal Government. And if there was some kind of
transfer of funds from--I don't know, the city of Baltimore--
some kind of transfer of jurisdiction that would interfere with
the Federalist rights of Baltimore itself--and I cite that
because if you want to cite precedent, you have to tell us how
a Federal employee could then look to this change from the one
local jurisdiction that the Federal Government constitutionally
has any jurisdiction over as a precedent for what the Federal
employee would be demanding.
Ms. Kichak. When I was speaking of precedent, I was
speaking of getting credit for service that is not covered
under the FERS system.
Ms. Norton. That is exactly what I am speaking of since
these people are not asking for money.
Ms. Kichak. Well, I was talking about credit for those----
Ms. Norton. I want to know whether you can cite a precedent
for that, or in the absence of a precedent, cite me a
hypothetical.
I am a law professor. I will take a hypothetical of where
you think a Federal employee might validly cite this for
wanting the same or similar treatment.
Ms. Kichak. I think people who have worked for the Federal
Government and taken their money out and lost their coverage
under FERS could say that if somebody that was transferred from
the District of Columbia into Federal service----
Ms. Norton. Who took no payout. Who took no payout. Who
took no payout. These people are sitting on their money because
the Federal Government won't let them go.
I mean, if you want to cite me a precedent, you had better
be careful. These people have not taken payouts. Some are gone,
with less money. I wouldn't call that the same kind of payout
that Federal employees have taken.
I am sorry, Mr. Chairman, I just want to lay it on the
record and ask this witness one question.
I will accept your hypothetical and I will have to accept
it as a hypothetical because you have not cited me to the
record where the intent of Congress is noted. You cited me to
one sentence in the statute, and I can understand that.
But I would like to accept your notion for the moment and
then ask you: Let's assume that you are right, that we either
never intended it and that the record does not support my
notion that we intended it, given what has occurred, so that
there are employees now serving well beyond their retirement
time; would you recommend to this committee that it take the
appropriate action to correct this anomaly?
Ms. Kichak. I am not making that recommendation.
Ms. Norton. So I would rather have that answer than the
answer that you would let this anomaly remain in place, fall
where it may, and penalize hundreds of employees in the
process.
So I am going to let you go without asking you to put that
answer on the record. And thank you for your testimony.
Ms. Kichak. Thank you.
Mr. Davis. Thank you very much, Ms. Kichak.
We will proceed to our second panel. And while we are
establishing their presence, I will go ahead and introduce
them.
Ms. Anne Wicks serves as the executive officer of the
District of Columbia courts. Prior to her appointment, Ms.
Wicks was the courts' acting chief financial officer from 1999
to 2000; deputy executive officer for court operations, 1997 to
1999; and deputy director for research and development, 1987 to
1999.
We also have Mr. Paul Quander, who is the first director of
the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency [CSOSA]. He
has served in this capacity since 2002. CSOSA is responsible
for supervising adults on probation, parole, and supervised
release in the District of Columbia.
We have, also, Ms. Avis Buchanan, who has served as the
director of the District's Public Defender Service for the past
3 years. She holds a Juris Doctorate degree, and has worked as
a staff attorney for the Equal Employment Opportunity Project
of the Washington Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights and Urban
Affairs.
Let me thank all three of you. And if you would stand and
be sworn in and raise your right hands.
[Witnesses sworn.]
Mr. Davis. The record will show that the witnesses answered
in the affirmative.
We will then proceed with our testimony, if you would
summarize your written statement in 5 minutes.
The yellow light indicates that you are down to 1 minute;
and if you would then wrap up for us, the red light will
indicate that your time is up.
And we will begin with you, Ms. Wicks.
STATEMENTS OF ANNE B. WICKS, EXECUTIVE OFFICER, DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA COURTS, ACCOMPANIED BY KATHY HOLIDAY CRAWFORD,
PROBATION OFFICER, SOCIAL SERVICES DIVISION, DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA FAMILY COURT; PAUL A. QUANDER, JR., DIRECTOR, COURT
SERVICES AND OFFENDER SUPERVISION AGENCY OF THE DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA; AND AVIS E. BUCHANAN, DIRECTOR, PUBLIC DEFENDER
SERVICE FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
STATEMENT OF ANNE B. WICKS
Ms. Wicks. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, Congresswoman Norton, members of the
subcommittee, I am Anne Wicks, executive officer of the
District of Columbia courts. As executive officer, I am
responsible for the administration of the courts, and the
management of our 1,000 nonjudicial employees.
I am pleased to be here today to offer testimony on H.R.
5600.
Chief Judge Eric T. Washington of the D.C. Court of
Appeals, and Chair of the court's policymaking body, the Joint
Committee on Judicial Administration, has taken time from his
schedule to be here, as well, in support of this legislation,
which is of fundamental importance to the courts.
Also here today is Kathy Holiday Crawford, a probation
officer with our Family Court Social Services Division.
As you are aware, law enforcement personnel are eligible to
retire at age 50 with 20 years of service, and a mandatory
retirement age of 57. Ms. Crawford has been a probation officer
with the courts for 19 years. Because of the changes instituted
with the 1997 D.C. Revitalization Act, Ms. Crawford will not be
able to retire next year as she had anticipated, but must wait
until 2017, at which time she will be beyond the mandatory
retirement age, and will have served in a law enforcement
position for over 28 years.
More than 250 of the D.C. courts' employees lost up to 10
years of government service, an unfair and unintended
consequence of the Revitalization Act. These individuals
comprise 26 percent of our work force. Discounting years of
public service and work experience for such a huge segment of
the courts' work force has had a significant negative impact on
employee morale and employee-management relations.
Management has a responsibility to protect employee rights,
pay a living wage, and provide health and retirement benefits.
Unfortunately, as a result of the Revitalization Act, many of
the courts' employees believe management has let them down.
H.R. 5600 would restore fairness to our retirement system
and improve the morale of our work force. Employees of the
courts who were hired prior to October 1, 1987 participated in
the Civil Service Retirement System. Court employees hired
between October 1 of 1987 and October 11, 1997 participated in
the District of Columbia's retirement system. When the D.C.
Revitalization Act was enacted, it provided that all court
employees would be treated as Federal employees for the
purposes of retirement. What the act did not provide was credit
toward retirement for the years of service for those employees
under the District's retirement system, that is, all employees
hired by the D.C. courts between 1987 and 1997.
Although these 250 employees had worked for the courts for
up to 10 years, and have continued through today to remain
dedicated court employees 11 years later, the Revitalization
Act imposed on them an artificial change in their employment
status, resulting in the loss of valuable time and credit
toward retirement.
Consider how this works. An employee hired in September
1987 was under the Civil Service Retirement System, and today
has nearly 21 years of service when computing retirement
eligibility. An employee hired 1 month later, in October 1987,
was under the District's retirement system, and today has only
11 years of service toward retirement. The reality, of course,
is that both employees have worked for the D.C. courts for
nearly 21 years.
The rationale for this decision, that the impacted
employees participated in a different non-Federal retirement
program, while logical, is neither practical nor fair. The fact
is that up to 10 years of government work is being ignored when
determining eligibility for retirement. The fact is that for
these employees, their years of service with the courts and
their years of service to the people of the District of
Columbia are not being fully counted toward retirement.
We are not asking for these employees to be paid additional
money. They paid into a different retirement system and will be
entitled to their funds in that system when they retire. What
we are asking for is that all the years of D.C. court
employment be counted when retirement eligibility is
calculated.
For an employee to have to work 6, 8, or 10 years more than
their coworkers to be eligible to retire, solely by coincidence
of when they are rehired, is patently unfair. To ignore years
of an individual's work as a government employee in the justice
system is particularly problematic for the courts. Imagine
being responsible for ensuring justice and fairness, day in and
day out, when you believe an injustice has been done to you.
And imagine being responsible for managing these employees.
The vision statement of the D.C. courts is Open to All,
Trusted by All, Justice for All. Our employees work each day to
make those words true for all who walk through the courthouse
doors. You can make them true for our employees as they
approach retirement.
Thank you for your support on this important issue. Ms.
Crawford and I would be happy to answer any questions you may
have.
Mr. Davis. Thank you very much, Ms. Wicks.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Wicks follows:]
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Mr. Davis. We will proceed to Mr. Quander.
STATEMENT OF PAUL A QUANDER, JR.
Mr. Quander. Good afternoon, Chairman Davis and members of
the subcommittee.
H.R. 5600, the proposed District of Columbia Court,
Offender Supervision, Parole, and Public Defender Employees
Equity Act of 2008, would impact 106 employees of the Court
Services and Offender Supervision Agency.
In both the Community Supervision Program, which provides
probation and post-trial release supervision, and the Pretrial
Services Agency, which provides pretrial supervision, a
substantial number of employees remained with the agency and
converted to Federal status following passage of the D.C.
Revitalization Act in 1997. These employees would be affected
by the proposed legislation.
In the Community Supervision Program, a total of 52
employees, or 5.6 percent of Community Supervision's total work
force, would be affected. The majority of these staff are
directly involved with offender supervision and are classified
as law enforcement employees. Twenty-three of them, or 44
percent, are community supervision officers. An additional 12,
or 28 percent, are supervisors, with one occupying a branch
chief position. Five, or 10 percent, work in our Offender
Processing Unit; the remaining 12 employees, 28 percent, hold a
variety of support positions.
In the Pretrial Services Agency, a total of 54 employees,
or 15 percent of PSA's total work force, would be affected. As
with the Community Supervision Program, the majority of these
employees are directly involved with supervision; 29, or 54
percent, are Pretrial Service Officers and, additionally, 11,
or 20 percent, are supervisors.
Four employees, or 7 percent, work in the Forensic
Toxicology Laboratory. The remaining 10 employees, or 19
percent, hold various program management or support positions.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this
subcommittee, and I will be happy to answer any additional
questions that you or members of the committee may have. Thank
you.
Mr. Davis. Thank you very much, Mr. Quander.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Quander follows:]
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Mr. Davis. And we will go now to Ms. Buchanan.
STATEMENT OF AVIS E. BUCHANAN
Ms. Buchanan. Good afternoon, Chairman Davis, Congressman
Marchant and Congresswoman Norton. I am Avis Buchanan, Director
of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia for
the last 4 years. Thank you for this invitation to testify
before the subcommittee today in support of H.R. 5600.
The Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia is
a federally funded, independent organization governed by a 11-
member board of trustees. PDS is a federally funded entity as
the result of the passage of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997
which, among other things, transferred fiscal responsibility
for the District of Columbia's court functions to the Federal
Government.
As part of that transfer, the employees of the Public
Defender Service and other District of Columbia employees
affiliated with the city's justice system became Federal
employees solely for the purpose of the applicability of
several employee benefits provisions in Title 5 of the United
States Code. One of these benefits, participation in the
Federal Retirement System, is the subject of H.R. 5600.
PDS supports H.R. 5600, as it will eliminate an inequity
for certain current and former PDS employees and certain
District of Columbia court employees related to their
retirement eligibility. My comments focus on former and current
PDS employees; however, the courts' employees' circumstances
are analogous.
PDS employees participated in the Civil Service Retirement
System until October 1, 1987, when the District of Columbia
reorganized its personnel functions and practices. In addition,
the Federal Employees Retirement System [FERS], was created
that same year. From October 1, 1987, on, newly hired PDS
employees were deemed ineligible to enroll in CSRS or FERS.
After the District created the District of Columbia Defined
Contribution Plan, PDS employees were permitted to participate
in that program.
In 1999, the Balanced Budget Act and the technical
corrections thereto ended PDS employees' participation in the
District's plan and made FERS available to all PDS employees.
Currently, these PDS employees do not receive credit toward
their Federal retirement for any time they worked at PDS
between 1987 and 1999.
H.R. 5600 permits PDS employees to count their qualifying
years of service to determine eligibility for participation in
FERS. These 24 current employees have waited several years for
this inequity to be addressed. For some, this legislation could
make the difference between retiring now and retiring as much
as 12 years from now.
For one who died 3 years ago, 4 months short of his
retirement eligibility, it has made the difference between an
annuity for his surviving wife and no annuity at all.
PDS suggests that two technical corrections be made to the
draft legislation. One correction will allow for consistent
treatment for similarly situated PDS employees. The other will
add clarity to Congress's intent to provide this retirement
benefit to those employees.
First, current and former PDS employees who are enrolled in
a third retirement plan, the Offset Civil Service Retirement
System, should be included in the group of employees
contemplated by H.R. 5600. As noted, the legislation will allow
current and former PDS employees to receive credit under FERS
for service they performed prior to being covered by the
Federal retirement provisions. H.R. 5600 does not, however,
provide credit toward retirement for the same type of service
by PDS employees who, because they had sufficient prior service
under the Civil Service Retirement System, were placed under
the Civil Service Retirement Offset retirement program rather
than the FERS program. These employees should also receive
credit for their qualifying service.
Second, current and former PDS employees should be
explicitly referenced in section 2(a) of the legislation,
because section 2(a) describes the legislation's intended
beneficiaries. An express reference will make clear that
current and former PDS employees are contemplated by this
provision. Evidence that the legislation is intended to include
current and former PDS employees is found in its title and in
its prefatory language, but section 2(a), which describes the
targeted employees, does not mention PDS employees.
In order to understand that current and former PDS
employees are included in section 2(a), one must refer to three
other statutory provisions: one within PDS's authorizing
statute, D.C. Code, section 2-1605, subsection (c)(1), which
makes PDS employees Federal employees for certain enumerated
purposes, including Federal retirement; 5 U.S.C., section 8401,
defining ``employee'' under FERS; and assuming PDS's above-
requested amendment is made, 5 U.S.C., section 8331, defining
``employee'' under CSRS.
Neither of the two latter provisions specifically lists
PDS. Naming PDS employees in section 2(a) will eliminate the
need for reference beyond the four corners of this legislation.
With the above-described changes, this subcommittee will
help PDS succeed in accomplishing the long-sought-after goal of
obtaining for PDS employees appropriate credit toward their
Federal retirement.
I appreciate the opportunity to present this testimony to
the subcommittee. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Buchanan follows:]
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Mr. Davis. Thank you all very much. We certainly appreciate
your testimony. Let me quickly begin with a question.
Ms. Wicks, your testimony highlights some of the challenges
and consequences of being denied their total service years by
employees who work under your supervision. What does this do
for their morale, if you can make any assessment?
Ms. Wicks. Well, I would assume that it would improve
employee morale. It has been a concern since 1997, when the act
was passed, that the employees felt that they were sold out
somehow and they were cheated somehow. This would go a long way
in restoring their faith in management and their faith in the
retirement system. So I think it would improve morale.
Mr. Davis. If H.R. 5600 was enacted, a number of your
employees would become eligible for retirement. What do you
think would actually happen?
Ms. Wicks. I am not certain as to the number who would be
eligible, but the reality is that besides this negative aspect,
let's say, of their employment, our employees typically are
fairly satisfied with their jobs, and tend to have long careers
with the courts. So I don't believe that it would cause a rush
to retirement in any way.
Mr. Davis. Well, let me just ask this last question before
I have to run off to vote--and Mr. Marchant, I am sure, will be
running off to vote. But I understand that Kathy Holiday
Crawford and other employees in her situation have expressed
strong support for H.R. 5600.
If it was passed, or an amended version passed, would you
expect many of these employees to retire immediately, or would
many of these employees continue to provide services with
reassurance that they are eligible for retirement? Since this
applies directly to Ms. Crawford and other individuals in her
situation, perhaps she would like to respond to that question.
STATEMENT OF KATHY HOLIDAY CRAWFORD
Ms. Crawford. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for
allowing me to speak today. First, I would like to say, if we
are given back our years, I don't see that there will be a
drastic departure to depart from the court. As I put in my
statement, we enjoy the work that we do, but we would like to
get the years back that we lost basically on the date that we
were hired.
Mr. Davis. So you feel that you have actually given up
something unnecessarily, through no fault of your own; and you
would like very much to have it restored. Is that correct?
Ms. Crawford. Yes, sir. I feel that something was taken
from me. I did not lose years by choice. I lost my years by
force.
Mr. Davis. Well, thank you very much. I am going to run
vote.
Ms. Norton, perhaps you would just continue, and I will be
back as soon as I finish voting.
Ms. Norton [presiding]. For those of you from the District
of Columbia, you can either regard this as a benefit or--a
penalty that I am still here, because I shouldn't be, and I do
not expect to be after the Senate gives us the vote we expect
this very year. I simply want to get beyond some of the
nomenclature that is generally used to describe the workers we
are talking about.
Mr. Quander, you testified that the majority of the staff,
I am looking at your testimony, involved with offender
supervision are classified as law enforcement employees. Could
you elaborate on that statement?
Mr. Quander. Yes. Many of the individuals that we
identified are members of law enforcement. They have direct
contact with offenders, individuals who have been a part of the
criminal justice system who have been adjudicated, who have
been convicted and----
Ms. Norton. Are they peace officers?
Mr. Quander. They are akin to probation officers in the
Federal Service. We have the authority to be armed; we are not,
but we do have that authority. Technically, they are not peace
officers, but they are law enforcement officers. They are in
the homes. They are riding with the Metropolitan Police
Department. They are doing law enforcement work at the highest
level. They are putting their lives on the line every day----
Ms. Norton. So they are doing the work of peace officers
without the peace weapon?
Mr. Quander. Yes.
Ms. Norton. Continue.
Mr. Quander [continuing]. With their skills.
And many people in the probation and parole area do this.
They rely upon the skill set as opposed to weapons. They use
the training that they have to talk to individuals. But it
doesn't diminish the fact that they are dealing with
individuals who, on occasion, may be unpredictable. So, safety
is always in the back of every member's mind, their safety and
the safety of others. It never leaves them.
So they are true law enforcement professionals.
Ms. Norton. Are some of these former police officers.
Mr. Quander. Yes, they are.
Ms. Norton. So their value to CSOSA has precisely been
their law enforcement training then?
Mr. Quander. It complements what we want to do. A number of
them have training in the military, as military police, as well
as some members of the Metropolitan Police Department and other
law enforcement organizations that are currently working with
us at CSOSA.
Ms. Norton. And their title is Community Supervision
Officer?
Mr. Quander. Community Supervision Officers for CSOSA
proper and Pretrial Services Officers for the pretrial
component because they do many of the same functions as far as
interaction with individuals who are pending, proper.
Ms. Norton. Are those people with PDS?
Mr. Quander. No. They're with the Pretrial Services Agency
[PSA].
We have so many initials floating around. But that's PSA,
Pretrial Services, which is part of the umbrella.
Ms. Norton. So they are also classified as law enforcement
officers?
Mr. Quander. Yes.
Ms. Norton. Are you continuing to, in filling these
positions, try to find people who may have retired, for
example, from law enforcement, from police work, former police
work?
Mr. Quander. If they have the other qualifications, yes,
because they have experience with the population that we are
dealing with, they have an educational background.
Ms. Norton. So you might want a young person if they had
some law enforcement background and they applied for a job;
that might be a desirable employee for a Community Supervision
Officer?
Mr. Quander. Yes.
Ms. Norton. Now, of course, they would be foolish to come
in with the law as it is because they are treated differently
from others with law enforcement training, isn't that true,
with respect to their retirement benefits if they come into--or
would they, in fact, go into FERS knowing full well that they
were getting FERS?
Mr. Quander. They go into FERS knowing, but they will still
be entitled to the same.
Ms. Norton. But FERS is different for law enforcement
officers?
Mr. Quander. No. I'm not the personnel expert, but it is my
understanding that for a new employee coming into law
enforcement for CSOSA, they will still be eligible for
retirement with 20 years of service and age 50, with a
mandatory retirement age of 57. So coming into that, they still
have that. It is that group that came in after 1987 that is not
covered.
Ms. Norton. That's the cutoff point?
Mr. Quander. That's that area.
Ms. Norton. You said that--you say in your testimony that
28 percent are supervisors. Would these supervisors also be law
enforcement officers who have risen through the ranks?
Mr. Quander. Yes. Supervisors have law enforcement status.
They go out and do accountability tours just as the CSOs do.
They meet frequently with offenders, oftentimes the offenders
who have problems, who are hostile.
The supervisors have a lot of experience, so they're on the
front lines just as often; and it is a requirement that they
actually go out and actually do home visits and do
accountability tours and do other things with the staff. It is
not just the staff that are out there; supervisors, as well.
Ms. Norton. Just like police who go into people's homes
except they don't have a gun. Forty-four percent are Community
Supervision Officers, 28 percent are supervisors, so we have to
add them, do we not, to the law enforcement number; is that not
true?
Mr. Quander. Yes.
Ms. Norton. And one is a branch chief. Don't we have to add
him or her----
Mr. Quander. Her, yes.
Ms. Norton [continuing]. To the number who are law
enforcement officers and thus affected?
And finally 10 percent work in the Offender Processing
Unit. Are they also law enforcement, classified as law
enforcement officers?
Mr. Quander. Many of those individuals are also classified
as law enforcement personnel because they're dealing with the
offender population. At intake, they're getting a lot of
information; they have a lot of contact with the offender
population. So I would suggest that the vast majority of that
10 percent are, in fact, law enforcement.
Ms. Norton. So essentially what we're dealing with is a
work force who, when it was with the District of Columbia, was
hired for their law enforcement background, was trained with
that background, take those risks--and you have testified, even
more because they're not armed--but have been transferred over
and are not treated precisely the same as they would have been
treated had they remained with the District of Columbia?
Mr. Quander. Yes.
Ms. Norton. Your testimony says, of the Pretrial Services
Agency that you referred to earlier, 54 percent are Pretrial
Services Officers. Let me ask you for the record, are these
officers law enforcement or would they be classified as law
enforcement officers?
Mr. Quander. Yes, they are.
Ms. Norton. And what is their work specifically?
Mr. Quander. They perform a similar function, but the
population that they serve are pretrial defendants--they have
not been convicted of any criminal offenses, but they have been
charged, and they have been placed under the supervision of the
Pretrial Services Agency.
And they're employed by the Superior Court of the District
of Columbia to provide supervision, to provide drug testing, to
provide substance abuse treatment, to have regular contact with
many of these individuals, to provide special programming for
them, to ensure their return to court and their compliance with
the conditions of release that have been imposed by a judge of
the Superior Court.
Ms. Norton. Do they work in the court?
Mr. Quander. Many of them do. Many of them are actually in
the courtroom giving recommendations to the court on release
conditions and background information. So many of them are in
the court, and they have regular contact with the offender
population that they serve.
Ms. Norton. I've asked you to lay that out, Mr. Quander,
because these titles, I think, hide the reason that these
employees were, in fact, hired for those particular missions at
the time they were hired. And it is important for Congress to
be aware that these are law enforcement officers, because of
the deference Congress always, always pays to the special
circumstance of law enforcement officers--and if I may say so,
I think particularly for officers who are unarmed and do work
which exposes them to danger.
Ms. Wicks, you testified that the bill making the changes
we propose--and we now know with some additional ones--would,
if I can paraphrase you, restore faith in management and in the
retirement system. I wish you to elaborate on that and tell me
what effect you think it has had on court employees to have
spent--how many years is it now since we passed this bill?
Ms. Wicks. Eleven years.
Ms. Norton. Eleven years. What effect you think it has had
on employees who have had to stay longer than they indicate
they intended?
Ms. Wicks. From my perspective, it has obviously just had a
really demoralizing effect on employees. And while they're
there every day doing their jobs, it is a constant point of
dissatisfaction. And I think, just as I look at the room and
see most of the audience behind me are court employees, it is
clearly an issue of tremendous importance to them. It just
makes it incredibly difficult, as well, to motivate people and
talk about justice and talk about fairness and talk about
treating the public with respect when they don't feel it comes
their way. So I think it's been an underlying, continuous issue
for them--maybe not one that they bring to the top of mind
every day, but it's a sore subject.
Ms. Norton. Well, you had to live with it and to live in
anticipation of it is, of course, just as bad.
I had a question about the PDS employees, but the staff has
given me some background that seems to me we have to look more
closely into.
Let me ask all of you about those who have retired. What's
going to happen or what has happened to those who have retired?
Some people have retired anyway, haven't they?
Ms. Wicks. I assume, at least for the courts I assume they
have. But I've truly not seen as many folks retire who were
hired during that period of time, those lost years period from
1987 to 1997, as I have some of our longer-term employees, who
were here prior to that time and were Civil Service.
Ms. Norton. So you think the ones who were caught in that--
--
Ms. Wicks. I don't think they're retiring. They would leave
our service before they would retire from it has been my
experience.
Ms. Norton. So you think they could be recruited to go
elsewhere?
Ms. Wicks. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
Ms. Norton. The chairman wanted to ask you, Ms. Buchanan,
if you would provide the number--Mr. Quander has provided for
us a breakdown of the employees who are affected--if you would
provide us with the number of employees participating in the
CSRS that would be affected by the changes now contained in
H.R. 5600?
Ms. Buchanan. The number of employees is 24. It's cited in
a footnote in our testimony, our written submission, footnote
5. And that's 24 current employees. We do not know how many
former employees might be affected because we do not know what
their subsequent employment histories have been since they left
PDS.
Ms. Norton. So all we can imagine is that at--your
testimony, Ms. Wicks, is that there haven't been a lot of
people who have taken the sacrifice of retiring without their
benefits. Have they believed that Congress would, in fact,
correct this matter and are they waiting in the hope that is
exactly what is going to happen?
Ms. Wicks. Maybe Kathy can answer that better than I.
Ms. Norton. I would be pleased to have any testimony from
any of you who have any idea about that.
Ms. Crawford. Actually, we have not been able to retire
because, as it stands, we only have 11 years toward retirement.
So financially, we cannot retire.
And actually this is an issue that we have been trying to
get addressed over the years; and again I can only say, we
thank you because we have at least gotten this far.
Now, if we get our years back, then of course it will be to
each individual employee to go and sit with their family and
decide what they should do, whether they will retire or stay.
But right now we are not eligible to retire because it's as if
we have been employed only since 1997. So everybody who was at
Court Social Services, which a lot of us are, in the hazardous-
duty realm, we are not eligible to retire. We won't be eligible
to retire until 2017.
Ms. Norton. Are you saying that 2017 would be the earliest
date any employee could retire?
Ms. Crawford. Yes, that's the earliest date that we can
retire.
Ms. Norton. Because if you count the oldest age that is
caught in this time warp, the oldest age would be held until
what year?
Ms. Crawford. 2017, because we would need 20 years of
service under the first system, and our first retirement goes
back to 1997.
Ms. Norton. Do you have any idea what the age of some of
these employees who will be held 20 years is?
Ms. Crawford. Yes, ma'am, I do.
Ms. Norton. Don't scream out a number, people. You don't
need to incriminate yourselves. I'm just trying to get some
sense.
Ms. Crawford. We currently have employees in the hazardous
duty of Court Social Services who are in their 60's, in their
late 50's; and they have to work the additional years before
they can retire.
Ms. Norton. These employees are now in the Federal
Employees Health System, aren't they?
Ms. Crawford. Yes.
Ms. Norton. You know, if the OPM was serious, it would
compare the costs incurred by that system, as well, since all
of the data we have is that the older you get, the more likely
you are to need real service in the FERS system, and those of
us who are spring chickens just don't use it very much.
I don't know if anyone has any data on--and Ms. Wicks may
because she, of course, would perhaps have observed whether
people take sick leave, whether people have or report
disabilities of various kinds as they age, and the rest that
might comprise such an answer. I realize you may not have
done----
Ms. Wicks. I couldn't say that I have hard data. I could
say anecdotally, the court has certainly, as our work force
agent--and I am sure everybody sees the same thing. We
certainly see a lot more instances of disability and we see a
lot more instances of family medical leave being used for
health issues. So certainly, to your point, health care costs
increase the older your work force gets.
The other thing we were discussing is the fact, as well,
that the OPM argument, if people have to work longer then their
income gets higher, so their retirement benefits are more
costly to OPM.
It depends on what assumptions you're looking at to
determine what the costs would be over time. But certainly one
assumption could be that workers who work longer make more
money, and they will cost more in retirement because the
retirement benefits are higher, so it seems to us that it could
really cut both ways.
Ms. Norton. Certainly, if you were serious about making a
cost argument, you're going to have to look at those and you're
going to have to look at health care costs.
Ms. Wicks. Exactly.
Ms. Norton. And you have to look at all of those in light
of what amounted to a promise to leave people whole, which, of
course, is a sacred promise.
The reason that we're able to float bonds, given the
terrible indebtedness of the United States of America, and get
people to buy them is because our word has been our bond. And
employees, of course, have regarded that equally to be the
case.
I want to just say for the record, I have very much been at
one with our majority in living by PAYGO. And I note for the
record that the Senate sure hasn't found it should live by
PAYGO. Now, PAYGO is, of course, the system we adopted when
President Clinton was in power, and essentially we do not have
an effect on appropriation, which I hasten to add.
I don't see the argument for applying PAYGO to a retirement
system. I mean, that entirely escapes me. So if you want to
really pile on with these employees, then bring PAYGO to a
retirement system, since we don't count PAYGO in the retirement
system. And I would add to that, and the House is to be
congratulated to try to press down the deficit. I would add to
that I don't think any Member of Congress would want us to
break a promise to Federal employees at the expense of PAYGO,
and that should be the basis for an exemption.
Now, we've just had experience in this very subcommittee
that I think proves that Congress will not break a promise to
Federal employees. And that's who we're talking about. And I
cite our experience with the GAO.
The GAO sought to withhold COLAs from GAO employees based
on their version of pay, the--I don't want to call it
``reform''--the pay-for-performance system. They were, of
course, essentially guinea pigs for that system. But they
weren't the only ones who were doing pay-for-performance; the
DOD, a much larger work force for sure, was doing pay-for-
performance. Homeland Security, or parts of it, was probably
doing pay-for-performance.
Appropriation time came around--and this I want
specifically to be noted for the record: It could not be
avoided that Congress made the DOD employees whole when DOD
deprived those employees of their COLA under the statute. But
the small number of GAO employees were never made whole, and so
these employees who suffered under the pay-for-performance
system were unique in the Federal system, and there were COLAs
owed them.
Now, we not only have made them whole; we have made them
back-pay whole. That's what the promise of the United States of
America is all about. We did not allow these Federal employees
to be singled out even for a new system that we ourselves had
authorized.
Now, I have indicated I have heard nothing from the record
to say we authorized this difference. I'm still a law
professor; I teach at Georgetown, and I respect the notion of
textualism, because I teach textualism and what we call
contextualism. That is to say, there are very few statutes
which the courts--even the strictest of those who look to
congressional intent are able to use only the bare words of the
statute. And so, more often than not, we're forced to use
contextualism in order to see, well, what really did Congress
intend?
The OPM representative cited for me one sentence to support
the notion that unequal treatment of Federal employees is
justified, and worse, was intended by the Congress of the
United States. She threw it back in our face.
When I asked her, all right, let's assume your
hypothetical, given the unequal treatment that has resulted,
would you recommend that we change it? And all she could say
was--I had better bear in mind that I'm testifying for the
administration--and so all she would say was that she was not
making that recommendation.
She did not say she should not make the recommendation. She
did not even say that there was no unequal treatment, because
it's impossible to avoid the fact that there is unequal
treatment.
And so I just want to say to you--I think these are the
last witnesses; aren't they the last witnesses we have? I just
want to say to you that I am going to find--we don't ask for
exemptions from PAYGO. I haven't heard that PAYGO would apply
here. All that I have heard is that it adds to the FERS system.
I do not believe that we would need to make a specific
appropriation in order to make these employees whole. So I'm
going to argue, first, that I don't believe a specific
appropriation is necessary. And second, I'm going argue that
even if it did, this would be the first time I know of where
the promise of the United States has been violated knowingly by
the United States and not fixed.
I thank all of you for your testimony. Those who can vote
are now continuing to vote. And the Chair has given me
permission to thank you for him as well and to tell you that
this committee will proceed to try to do our very best to
correct this wrong.
Thank you for your testimony.
[Whereupon, at 4:45 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Additional information submitted for the hearing recorde
follows:]
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