Better Benies

[rhino]

Bills would boost leave and retirement benefits for administrative judges

By Alex M. Parker
[e-mail] June 15, 2009

Two bills introduced this week -- one in the House, one in the Senate -- attempt to address perceived inequities in the pay of some federal judges.

S. 1228, introduced by Sens. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and Mark Pryor, D-Ark., would ensure that administrative law judges, immigration judges and contract board of appeals judges would automatically accrue eight hours of annual leave for every biweekly pay period.

Supporters of the bill, including the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, said it would bring benefits for those judges in line with those of senior federal executives. In 2008, OPM put the judges on a different leave accrual plan, which IFPTE officials said was payback for resisting a pay-for-performance system.

"This just recognizes these three groups of people in the administrative judiciary as being part of the professional pay classification, and treats them accordingly," said Judge Ron Bernoski, president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges.

Akaka and Pryor introduced identical legislation in 2008, but according to Matt Biggs, legislative director of the IFPTE, it was not addressed. The current bill is before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

A second bill, H.R. 2850, introduced by Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y., would boost retirement benefits for administrative law judges, executive branch officials who decide cases mostly for the Social Security Administration. The bill would increase the multiplier used to calculate annuity payments after retirement -- from 1 percent to 1.7 percent for employees in the Federal Employees Retirement System, and from 2 percent to 2.5 percent for employees in the Civil Service Retirement System.

This enhancement would apply for a maximum of 20 years of service. According to IFPTE officials, most administrative law judges serve about 30 years. Supporters said it was designed for judicial officials who don't join government service until relatively late in their careers -- making it harder to build up retirement annuities.

Bernoski said such enhanced retirement annuity systems already exist for members of Congress, congressional staffers and some law enforcement officers, who often come into government service later and don't serve as long as other employees due to election cycles or mandatory retirement ages.

"We're just asking to be included in the enhanced pension system that's already in government," Bernoski said.

The bill is currently before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

[wallace]

[ruonthelist]

For a little background, the retirement bill has been introduced in the last few Congresses and has never been reported out of committee. There’s no telling if it will have any better success this time.


The enhanced leave bill probably has a somewhat better chance, both because it is a smaller adjustment and because it is in line with recent Congressional action. The Federal Workforce Flexibility Act of 2004 mandated, among other things, that SES employees, and those in pay systems that OPM determined to be equivalent to SES, receive 8 hours annual leave per pay period. Ordinarily it takes 15 years of service for civil service employees to reach that leave accrual rate.


In its implementing regulations OPM required that a pay system include a pay for performance element in order to be deemed “equivalent” to the SES pay system:



www.opm.gov/cfr/fedregis/2006/71-101906-61633-a.pdf




The pay for performance requirement is not based on the language of the statute. Eventually OPM promulgated this list of the pay systems that it had determined to be “equivalent” to SES. In addition to ALJs, this list also excludes Immigration Judges and members of the Boards of Contract Appeals:



www.opm.gov/oca/leave/html/sesannual.asp



In early October 2008 Senator Akaka introduced a bill to include ALJs, IJs, and BCA members in the 8 hour leave accrual category. Being introduced that late in the Congress it went nowhere. However, the fact that it was introduced by an influential Senator was taken as a sign that it might have a chance of passage in the next, i.e. present, Congress. Senators Akaka and Pryor have now introduced the same bill and this time it is early enough in the Congress to have a chance of being acted on.

[alj2009]

Hi all.

Just wondering if anyone has any follow-up info on this bill to increase ALJ annual leave?

Just wondering.....

Thanks

[Legal Beagle]

Open letter to AALJ: WORK ON GETTING THESE BILLS PASSED - NOT APPEALING THE RECENTLY GRANTED SUMMARY JUDGMENT!!!!

[Wino]

Open Letter to Legal Beagle: JOIN THE AALJ SO YOUR BARK WILL BE HEARD.

I don't know if you have joined or not, but I suggest that it may be a bit presumptious to give direction to the union unless you are a member. A bit like criticizing the government without registering to vote.

As an AALJ member who has been in touch on this issue with regional leadership, I can assure you that the union's top priority is working for the success of the pension bill. The AALJ leadership has committed unprecedented resources toward the effort.

All current and future ALJs have an interest in the pension reform legislation. We should not just sit back and expect the AALJ to do all the heavy lifting. You can help by financially supporting the AALJ efforts through membership dues, and/or by contacting your Congressional Representative and Senators to express your support for the legislation. Ask your Congressperson to co-sponsor the bill.

[valkyrie]

Aug 24, 2009 6:10:55 GMT -5 Wino said:

Open Letter to Legal Beagle: JOIN THE AALJ SO YOUR BARK WILL BE HEARD.

I don't know if you have joined or not, but I suggest that it may be a bit presumptious to give direction to the union unless you are a member. A bit like criticizing the government without registering to vote.

As an AALJ member who has been in touch on this issue with regional leadership, I can assure you that the union's top priority is working for the success of the pension bill. The AALJ leadership has committed unprecedented resources toward the effort.

All current and future ALJs have an interest in the pension reform legislation. We should not just sit back and expect the AALJ to do all the heavy lifting. You can help by financially supporting the AALJ efforts through membership dues, and/or by contacting your Congressional Representative and Senators to express your support for the legislation. Ask your Congressperson to co-sponsor the bill.

I think any organization, with an exclusively attorney-based membership, that can't get a case past a motion for summary judgment after a third amended complaint is by definition in dire need of some outside direction. Filing the lawsuit in the face of the significant increase in the number of ALJs with SSA staff attorney backgrounds was incredibly poor judgment, and likely put a crimp in membership to begin with. The total failure and embarassment of the lawsuit's summary judgment demise has only further reduced the AALJ's reputation. So what is the AALJ concentrating all of its resources on now? Securing benefits that, big surprise here, will for the most part only be of use to ALJ's without a prior federal service background. I'll bet the ALJs with prior federal service are just kicking the door down to sink money into an AALJ membership. Try offering a free magazine subscription and a coffee mug with membership, or some other gimmick like that. Actually, putting a fork in it and just starting a new union would probably be the best thing to do at this point.

Letting the AALJ continue to do all of the heavy lifting is a great idea. Simple, routine, repetitive, unskilled, heavy exertional work appears to be a perfect fit for the AALJ.

[decadealj]

I can't believe I am in agreement with V- AGAIN! For those who think they can change the monster from within- Forget about it. AALJ once had a VP who was truly a professsional- Peter Valentino. Peter was the scholar that designed the yearly gatherings and tried to reform the organization just before the unionization which most ALJs supported only to try and ward off HPI. His reward was getting canned by the folks who wanted to be like the teamsters and longshoremen. What you see is what you got. Once they can't get 50% maybe AALJ will get decertified and we can start over.

[deltajudge]

8-)Decade, I can only agree with you, Peter was a great person, and was left to hang out and dry. Also, you might remember when the enhanced retirement bill was introduced. A lady ALJ worked long and hard to formulate it, and got it introduced with several sponsors. After it got into committee, a lot of ALJs including those in our office got in touch with our representatives, where it was introduced and got them on our side. So what does AALJ do? It drops it in mid-stream to concentrate on the pay cap situation, which was dead from the start, because of the APA and ALJs not being subject to evaluation. I wil always feel the original retirement enhancement bill would have been reported out and voted on the floor. I would have gotten out of AALJ then, but was close to retirement and let that take care of it.

[Legal Beagle]

Never fear, I did, and I have.