[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 133 (Wednesday, October 19, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2126]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT, OFFENDER SUPERVISION, PAROLE AND PUBLIC 
                 DEFENDER EMPLOYEES EQUITY ACT OF 2005

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON

                      of the district of columbia

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, October 19, 2005

  Ms. NORTON. Mr. Speaker, today Chairman Tom Davis and I introduce a 
bill that will correct a long overdue oversight affecting the non-
judicial employees of the D.C. Courts, the Court Services and Offender 
Supervision Agency (CSOSA), and the D.C. Public Defender Service (PDS).
  Under the 1997 National Capital Revitalization and Self-Government 
Improvement Act of 1997, the federal government took over the operation 
of the District of Columbia Courts and related services making the non-
judicial employees of the D.C. Courts and the employees of CSOSA 
federal employees. In 1998, employees of PDS were similarly transferred 
as part of the District of Columbia Courts and Justice Technical 
Collections Act. As federal employees, these Court, CSOSA and PDS 
employees were brought under the federal retirement program (FERS). 
However, for the employees transferred in 1997 and in 1998, 
``creditable service'' for the purposes of determining when they would 
be eligible to retire and the amount of annuity they would be entitled 
to under FERS only began from the date of the transfer. That is, the 
1997 and 1998 laws made no provision for treating their year of service 
as Court and related services employees prior to these laws as 
creditable service for retirement.
  Accordingly, the bill we introduced today will amend these laws to 
require that the time served by these employees before 1997 will count 
towards their overall federal retirement eligibility as ``creditable 
service''. So for example, if an employee is 60 years old today and has 
worked 20 years (i.e. since 1985) for the D.C. Courts under our bill he 
would be eligible for federal retirement today (whereas without our 
bill he would have to work another twelve years).
  I should also note that to avoid the problem of ``double dipping,'' 
since the employees are still entitled to their D.C. retirement 
benefits (based upon their work status up until 1997), our bill does 
not count the pre-1997 years spent as D.C. government employees towards 
the amount of federal retirement annuity an employee is eligible to 
receive.
  However, it is only fair and just that the Court and related services 
employees who started their jobs with the expectation that would be 
able to retire without penalty after 20 years of service or more should 
be allowed to do so. Our bill today does just that, it restores their 
``lost time.''

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