Office of Personnel Management June 2015 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is adopting its proposed rule to revise the table of reduction factors for early commencing dates of survivor annuities for spouses of separated employees who die before the date on which they would be eligible for unreduced deferred annuities. This rule is necessary to ensure that the tables conform to the economic and demographic assumptions adopted by the Board of Actuaries and published in the Federal Register on March 20, 2015.

The Hispanic Council on Federal Employment (Council) meeting will be held on Thursday, July 23, 2015 at the location shown below from 3:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. The Council is an advisory committee composed of representatives from Hispanic organizations and senior government officials. Along with its other responsibilities, the Council shall advise the Director of the Office of Personnel Management on matters involving the recruitment, hiring, and advancement of Hispanics in the Federal workforce. The Council is co-chaired by the Director of the Office of Personnel Management and the Chair of the National Hispanic Leadership Agenda (NHLA). The meeting is open to the public. Please contact the Office of Personnel Management at the address shown below if you wish to present material to the Council at any of the meetings. The manner and time prescribed for presentations may be limited, depending upon the number of parties that express interest in presenting information. Location: U.S. Office of Personnel Management, 1900 E St. NW., Executive Conference Room, 5th Floor, Washington, DC 20415.

This notice identifies Schedule A, B, and C appointing authorities applicable to a single agency that were established or revoked from March 1, 2015, to March 31, 2015.

The Office of Personnel Management is issuing proposed regulations to implement section 2 of the Border Patrol Agent Pay Reform Act of 2014, as amended, which established a new method of compensating Border Patrol agents for overtime work. Payments under this new provision will become payable beginning with the first pay period beginning in January 2016. These regulations affect only Border Patrol agents in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection component of the Department of Homeland Security.

The Office of Planning and Policy Analysis, Office of Personnel Management (OPM) offers the general public and other Federal agencies the opportunity to comment on a new information collection request (ICR) 3206-NEW, the Federal Annuitant Benefits Survey. As required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, (Pub. L. 104-13, 44 U.S.C. chapter 35) as amended by the Clinger-Cohen Act (Pub. L. 104- 106), OPM is soliciting comments for this collection.

In accordance with the Privacy Act of 1974 (5 U.S.C. 552a), as amended by the Computer Matching and Privacy Protection Act of 1988 (Pub. L. 100-503), Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Guidelines on the Conduct of Matching Programs (54 FR 25818 published June 19, 1989), and OMB Circular No. A-130, revised November 28, 2000, ``Management of Federal Information Resources,'' the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is publishing notice of its new computer matching program with the Social Security Administration (SSA). This notice replaces the notice placed in the Federal Register/Vol. 78, No. 5/Tuesday, January 8, 2013/Notices, page 1275.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) are issuing final regulations regarding designation of national security positions in the competitive service, and related matters. This final rule is one of a number of initiatives OPM and ODNI have undertaken to simplify and streamline the system of Federal Government investigative and adjudicative processes to make them more efficient and equitable. The purpose of this revision is to clarify the requirements and procedures agencies should observe when designating, as national security positions, positions in the competitive service, positions in the excepted service where the incumbent can be noncompetitively converted to the competitive service, and Senior Executive Service (SES) positions held by career appointees in the SES within the executive branch, pursuant to Executive Order 10450, Security Requirements for Government Employment.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management is issuing proposed regulations on behalf of the President's Pay Agent to link the definitions of General Schedule (GS) locality pay area boundaries to updated metropolitan area definitions established by the Office of Management and Budget in February 2013. Under this proposal, locations that would otherwise move to a lower-paying locality pay area due to use of the updated metropolitan area definitions in the locality pay program would remain in their current locality pay area. This proposal does not modify the current commuting and GS employment criteria used in the locality pay program to evaluate, for possible inclusion in a locality pay area, locations adjacent to the metropolitan area comprising the basic locality pay area. However, regarding calculation of commuting interchange rates used to evaluate such locations, the locality pay area definitions proposed in this document reflect use of the commuting patterns data collected as part of the American Community Survey between 2006 and 2010, as recommended by the Federal Salary Council in January 2014. Under this proposal, 13 new locality pay areas would also be established. The Federal Salary Council recommended these 13 locality pay areas after reviewing pay levels in all ``Rest of U.S.'' metropolitan statistical areas and combined statistical areas with 2,500 or more GS employees. The Federal Salary Council found that the percentage difference between GS and non-Federal pay levels for the same levels of worki.e., the pay disparityin these 13 locations was substantially greater than the ``Rest of U.S.'' pay disparity over an extended period. The President's Pay Agent has agreed to issue proposed regulations in response to the Federal Salary Council's recommendation to establish the 13 new locality pay areas. Locality pay rates for the new locality pay areas would be set by the President after the new locality pay areas would be established by regulation.