FEDERAL WORKERS FIGURE HEAVILY IN REAGAN'S COST-CONTROL PLANS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP86B00338R000400520031-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 21, 2016
• Document Release Date: September 12, 2008
• Sequence Number: 31
• Publication Date: February 2, 1984
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Approved For Release 2008/09/12 : CIA-RDP86B00338R000400520031-9
a Ir
0 2 FEB 1984
MEMORANDUM FOR: Deputy Director of Personnel for Special
Programs
Deputy Director of Personnel for Policy,
Analysis, and Evaluations
STAT FROM:
Liaison Division
Office of Legislative Liaison
1. Attached for your information and use is a recently
acquired General Accounting Office (GAO) study and the
financial and other problems facing the Federal Employees
Health Insurance Program. Dated February, 1983, the report
was prepared at the request of Senator Ted Stevens (R,AL) in
his capacity as Chairman of the Civil Service, Post Office,
and General Services Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on
Governmental Affairs.
2. The report, while dated, is nonetheless informative
and, I hope, will prove useful to you in understanding some
of the current legislative activity in this area.
STAT
Attachment:
As stated
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 Approved For Release 2008/09/12 : CIA-RDP86B00338R000400520031-9
* f
Distribution:
Original - Addressees
1 - C/LD/OLL w/o att
1 - LEG/OLL (Rob Davis) w/o att
1 - TBC Chrono w/o att
1 - TBC Subject w/att
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 Approved For Release 2008/09/12 : CIA-RDP86B00338R000400520031-9
Thursday, February 2, 1984
THE FEDERAL BUDGET
The W a s h i n g t o n P o s t ? ? ? a t A13
Federal Workers Figure Heavily in Reagan's Cost-Control Plans
By Douglas B. Feaver
Washington Post Staff Writer
Federal workers, dwindling in numbers
and under attack partly because they are an
easy target during election years, are being
asked to contribute significantly to President
Reagan's cost-control efforts.
The fiscal 1985 budget includes a long list
of proposals to trim the price of maintaining
.4.2 million civilian employes and retirees.
These range from delays in salary and pen-
sion increases to reductions in the number of
higher-salaried federal employes to increases
in employe pension and health-care contri-
butions.
Retired military personnel would feel the
knife along with civilian retirees because the
budget proposes to postpone cost-of-living
increases for both from June to January,
185.
"Federal employes are like redheaded
stepchildren," said Sandra Arnold of the Na-
tional Federation of Federal Employes.
"They're not getting any kind of a fair shake
out of this."
The budget proposes personnel levels in
concert with the president's political posi-
tions. Cuts are suggested in almost all do-
mestic departments and agencies, except the
Environmental Protection Agency, but in-
creases are planned for the Defense and
State departments and for the United States'
Information Agency. The biggest jump. is at
Defense, where the budget projects a 7,324-
person increase in 1985.
The budget says the administration ex-
pects to reach its goal of reducing federal
nondefense employment below 1.08 million
in full-time-equivalent employes in 1985. In
1983, the number was 1.09 million.
Salary proposals favor the military: uni-
formed personnel would receive a 5.5 percent
increase next January, while the civilian
work force would receive a 3.5 percent in-
crease delayed from its currently planned in-
ception in October.
The budget also includes proposajs to:
? Phase in over two years an increase from
7 percent to 9 percent of gross salary in em-
ploye contributions to the federal retirement
fund.
? Base future retirees' annuities on their
highest five-year average salary, instead of
the highest three-year average salary.. That
would reduce the annuities.
? Delay cost-of-living adjustments for civ-
il-service annuities from June to next Jan-
uary, which would become the month when
all subsequent COLA increases take effect.
Existing requirements for a minimum 3.3
percent COLA in 1985 for retirees under age
62 would be eliminated and, beginning in
1986, the civil-service retirement COLA
would be limited to the Consumer Price
Index or the increase in federal white-collar
pay, whichever is smaller.
? Authorize full COLA payments only on
the first $10,000 of annuities. On amounts of
more than $10,000, only 55 percent of the in-
crease would apply.
? Establish a voucher health-insurance.
system for workers and retirees, as is pro-
posed in pending legislation. Each year, the
government would issue a check covering the
entire premium for some existing low-option
health-care plans.
Those desiring more comprehensive and
expensive coverage would pay the difference.
The government now pays about 61 percent
of the average premium for its white- and
blue-collar workers, and about 75 percent of
the premium for postal employes.
Pat Korten, a spokesman for the Office of
Personnel Management, said a combination
of changes in retirement payments, the
health voucher plan and reduction of person-
nel in higher-paying grades would save the
government $18.9 billion over five years.
Versions of these proposals have surfaced
periodically in administration pronounce-
ments or recommendations from groups such
as the Grace commission, which recently said
$424 billion could be saved over three years
by curbing wasteful government programs
and controlling federal employe pensions.
Most of the proposals face trouble in this
presidential election year, if early reaction
from Capitol Hill and employe groups is an
indication.
"The only thing likely to occur this year is
the delay in COLA payments," a source in
the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee
said.
Rep. Patricia Schroeder (D-Colo.), chair-
man of the House subcommittee on Civil
Service, said the administration has "once
again done absolutely nothing to increase the
morale of federal employes and is saying that
they are all expendable .... It's just more
of the same."
Robert Honig, 'executive director of the
Federal Government Service Task Force,
said the budget is "somewhat more benign"
for federal employes than it might have been
because this is an election year. A delay in
pay raises, which he and several congression-
al sources said is possible, creates problems
in "retaining key people as jobs open in the
private sector," he said.
Kenneth T.. Blaylock, national president
of the American Federation of Government
Employes, which represents about 700,000
persons, said, "We are horrified, but not sur-
prised, by the continuing practice of the Rea-
gan administration to make federal employes
the enemy."
His group calculated, he said, that more
than "$1 of every $4 of proposed budget re-
ductions comes from federal employe pro-
grams."
Borten, who said he expected that type of
reaction, said nothing ' in the proposals "is
taking a single dollar from' anybody. What
we're trying to do is bring a couple of
things-COLAs and retirement programs-
under reasonable control."
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