good afternoon and i apologize for the slight delay traffic on the way in the subcommittee on the federal work force postal service in addition to columbia hearing will now come to water i welcome my friend ranking member mr jay fitz of utah members of the subcommittee hearing witnesses and all those in attendance the purpose of today's hearing is to review the existing temporary hiring authorities and current regulations and the resulting impact on temporary employees status and benefit offerings that share the ranking member and the subcommittee members will each have five minutes within which to make an opening statement and all members will have three days to submit stay and for the record i'm hearing no objection so order ladies and gentlemen is the duty of the subcommittee to look after every single federal employee an amount of the level of pay what type of schedule loss and you're already they may have i've called today's hearing to discuss issues relating to temporary employees who represent about nine percent of the total federal workforce we know that seasonal temporary employees play a critical role in helping an agency accomplish its mission and carry out its mandates yet these employees are operating largely under the radar screen given the fact that in certain federal entities namely the national park service and the forest service seasonal temporary employees can comprise approximately forty percent of the workforce at any given time it is important that we take time to seriously consider the issues and concerns currently confronting this particular employee population oftentimes seasonal temporary employees have worked in the same capacity year after year decade after decade however they receive no health care retirement insurance or other regular benefits accrued by otherwise permanent term employees of the federal government while in the early one nine hundred ninety s regulatory changes were made to reduce temporary employees assignment time from four years to a maximum of total of  two thereby eliminating the possibility of temporary employee abuses it is clear that renewed oversight on this issue is needed as we explore existing temporary hiring authorities and current regulations i believe it's important that we consider whether a pa permanent sea can be established for our temporary employees many at home have worked for multiple years and fully cognizant of the merit principles in our hiring additionally we need to look at how we can harness the sizable talent information acquired by these temporary employees today's hearing will also provide us a chance to hear from the employer as well as the employees side of the temporary hiring issue my intent is for this afternoon's hearing to provide all of us with an opportunity to further the dialogue on various ideas and suggestions on how we can best reach a middle ground on some of these issues so that our employees are properly taken care of without agency budget being overly stretched it's my hope that the testimony of feedback we receive from today's witnesses will provide the subcommittee with precise guidance and direction again i thank each of you for being with us this afternoon and i look forward to you now yield to the ranking member mr chafets for five minutes for an opening statement thank you mr chairman thank you to our witnesses for being here in the preparation put forward this testimony is important as we dive into this issue temporary employees provide federal agencies w flexibility needed to handle temporary increases in workload such as seasonal work and short term projects or to hire people to fill in behind permanent employees as an extended leave of absence such as parental leave these positions are not intended to be use tryouts or as a substitute to buffer the full time workforce congress in the office of personnel management must continue to work diligently to ensure that agencies comply with the statutory and regulatory framework and limitations on the use of temporary workers at the same time any statutory regulatory change must be approached with caution to ensure that effective workforce and effective workforce while limiting spending and maintaining the flexibility the system is intended to provide eighty eight the last time the office of personnel management estimated the cost of extending health and pension benefits a temporary workers it estimated the total cost of providing these benefits to the hundred two thousand plus temporary employees would be in excess of seven when the federal deficit is projected to exceed at least last exceed last year's record high of one point four trillion dollars and unemployment is in the range of nine point seven percent across the country a billion dollar increase in spending would be obviously your response i look forward to hearing suggestions from today's whether this is on how the office of personnel management in congress can work together to ensure agencies temporary workers in accordance with standard standing regulations  temporary employees has gone up that doesn't in and of itself valda me because they are increasing numbers of temporary employees and they have very satisfied very satisfactory status to many to many people but i think at this hearing we need to find out whether temporary status is being abused or if it simply doesn't work the way we are we workers apparently still cannot get access to health care unless they pay for it entirely i cannot understand how anybody with federal government would be put in that position for any period time will be very interested to know whether the health care bill we just met makes any difference with respect to that status very concerning to is the lack of any retirement benefits now a time limit was objections to it at least as it stands now is is that we want to preserve the merit system as the wait to hire employees on the other hand i'm troubled by reports of of temporary employees who are working far longer than the two year limit because that can be waived i think the reason probably is that their experience is needed i do join the ranking member  and in understanding the need for flexibility here but flexibility should not come with abuse there was a case that first led to reforms  involved a man from the district of columbia who worked three shifts over july fourth and for op to dead from it he had a wife and five or six children and nothing to show for it  i went to the floor with a bill a bill for a single individual is very rare in this house but the house and the senate saw this as not only  signal that there was reform needed but that something had to be done for this man and we were able to get some funds for him i regret to see now that perhaps too little was done and hope to learn more from this hearing about what more needs to be done consistent with main gaining the flexibility of temporary employment which is employment that is not only to the benefit of the federal government but many of those who work in port time positions as well thank you again mr chairman i thank the general a the chair now recognizes the gentleman from virginia mr crowley for five minutes for an opening statement thank you very much mr chairman for continuing to tackle one of the more intractable challenges facing our federal workforce widespread agency abuse of temporary hiring practices is both a symptom of a broken hiring system and an ongoing impediment to the long range for true and retention of the high caliber employees we need in the federal government the office of personnel management needs to use its administrative authority to the maximum extent possible to crack down on agencies abuse of temporary hiring is a logical accompaniment to the implementation of the president's recently announced hiring reforms which i for one welcome one reform o p m could implement would be to close the loophole allowing repeated temporary harz of seasonal employees who work less than six months a year temporary hiring has all too frequently been abused as a de facto means of retaining a long term employees to save money in the short run at the expense both the federal employee and federal efficiency in the long run it's not surprising that agencies used temporary hiring authorities including the misnamed federal career internship program to fill employment positions as the current hiring process is so most inefficient fortunately president obama no pm director barry at taking aggressive steps to reform that process by eliminating k s a s a requirements and streamlining hiring on usa jobs these reforms will allow agencies to  issues more readily with permanent employees hired on american principles for their part agencies must take advantage of the opportunity to begin making progress to reverse the twenty five thousand position growth in temporary employment that occurred thousand two in two thousand and nine i look forward to hearing the forest service plans for reforming abuse of temporary hiring authority and extraordinary fifty three percent of forest service employees who responded to a national federation of federal employees survey s that they had been temporarily hard for five or more seasons even though the merit system protection board advised the temporary employment policy should be based on the assumption that the employment will normally be on a onetime short duration basis many of these temporary employees are in fact long term dedicated public servants for example for service fire crews of serve year after year from june to october or longer maybe seasonal but they surely are not temporary many of these for service involve hard dangerous labor it's morally repugnant to exploit temporary haar in authority to avoid providing for service employees the benefits that in fact the earned through what is frequently long term service and certainly dangerous this is not presently an issue of workers rights however rather federal efficiency and productivity we must remain focused on recruiting and retaining the best employees and what is frequently a very competitive job market in order to recruit retain the best employees who will serve our constituents we must ensure that agencies are offering basic benefits rather than long term temporary employment that doesn't justice to both that all ploys and in the long run the taxpayers themselves i yield back i thank the gentleman again i want to welcome our witnesses it is the custom before this committee that all witnesses are sworn can i ask you to please rise and raise your right hand only swear that the testimony you're about to give to the subcommittee is the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth and let the record indicate that all the witnesses have answered in the affirmative what i will do is offer a brief in a direction of the this is and then each will be afforded five minutes for an opening statement just for the beginning of the small boxes in front of you on the table  they began mr jerry sampson began his federal career with the national aeronautics and space administration in one thousand nine hundred eighty seven and two thousand and six he left nasa to join the national park service mr simpson currently serves as the associate director of workforce management for the national park service where his duties include ensuring effective utilization of federal employees concession employees cooperators contractors and volunteers as to hank cash has served the national forest service for thirty five years and is currently the forest service is associate chief during his tenure with the forest service mystic ashton has served in a variety of roles including his appointment as deputy chief of business operations as angela bailey was selected for the senior executive service in october of two thousand and seven after twenty six years of public service she currently serves as deputy associate director for the recruitment and diversity at the office of personnel management prior to joining the opposite personnel management is barely work for the social security administration and the department of defense is dissension in our recognized the five minutes from  for many years the park service has relied heavily on a seasonal workforce to augment its permanent staff today we hire approximately ten thousand seasonal employees every year to provide critical services especially during peak summer visitation the variety of positions that we hire includes maintenance workers rangers both law enforcement protection and interpretation the collectors biological technicians landscape architects firefighters lifeguards just to name a few seasonal positions in the park service are very competitive and the number of applicants usually far exceeds the veil of the number of available positions we use temporary hire authorities to fill many of these positions often through open competitive examination procedures however we may also give temporary appointments noncompetitive lead to certain individuals and we do make use of the student educational employment program to noncompetitive fill positions performing seasonal work the park service is concerned about the morale in the equitable treatment of our seasonal workforce because the employee viewpoint survey conducted by o p m is only distributed to permanent employees we recently completed a comparable internal survey distributed to approximately six thousand of our employees who were hired after june two thousand and nine including seasonal employees according to the survey our seasonal employees like their permanent coworkers derive very high satisfaction from their belief that the work they do is important and that they like the work that they do their greatest to satisfy years however are with the lack of health and retirement benefits the lack of job security and the lack of equity with permanent staff particularly where promotions and within great pay increases are at stake approximately forty three percent of those survey respondents indicated they were considering leaving the park service within the next year we have formed an internal work group to help address these issues and we will to be working those in the coming year within existing regulatory and budgetary budgetary constraints those seasonal employees are not eligible for participation in the federal employees health benefits program we do make available to all of our seasonal employees when they first start work information about private health insurance that is provided available to them through the association for national park rangers which is a nonprofit employee organization we are vigilant in monitoring our use of temporaries we conduct multiple audits annually to ensure compliance with the temporary hiring laws regulations and the time limits imposed on these appointments by o p m guidelines over the past three years the park service has conducted between fifteen and twenty of these reviews with an o p m staff member as a member of each review team and we have found no major compliance issues in these areas so in summary the use of temporary hiring authorities is critical to the park service they play a role in our seasonal recruitment efforts and they allow us to meet our n p s mission we are strive to ensure that our use of authorities is in compliance with civil service laws and regulations but we would welcome the opportunity to work with the committee and other agencies and departments to explore potential solutions to the issues will be discussed today so mr chairman this concludes my prepared remarks and i'd be happy to answer questions thank you mr simpson mr cash and welcome you now recognize the five minutes for an opening statement thank you chairman mr bilbray ms norton mr conley appreciate the opportunity to be here today to talk about a very critical segment of the workforce that delivers the forest service mission that being the temper a seasonal workforce in addressing the subcommittees concerns about temporary hiring authorities and benefits legislative issues and qualification for permanent jobs i think it's important to just lay out an employment profile for the agency that at any given time in the forest service will have up to about thirty thousand career employees at this time of the year the end of june early july will increase that number to almost forty five thousand adding fifteen thousand temporary seasons to the workforce and that typically hits its height right about this time of the year these employees are primarily field employees work and wildlife habitat management watershed restoration recreation management forest products and the  alaska that feels he can be fairly short three in four months so in addressing the question of how long does temporary last i'd like to address it from a strictly plain and simple business model standpoint as well as an empathetic standpoint trying to put myself in the shoes of a temporary employee from from the business model standpoint i think there's there are some of the basic attributes that we have to consider most of the forest service field work is in fact seasonal winter type or non season office work is different than seasonal field work as an executive in the agency that manages the workforce i think there's an important aspect of the budget profile that necessitates having a reasonable level of discretionary cost compared to fixed costs as an executive i look at twenty to thirty percent of our budget profile being discretion is a reasonable level to achieve seasonal employees are in the discretionary category along with grants agreements contracts and procurement permanent ploys would be in the fixed cost category along with infrastructure now that's a very plain and simple budget profile in the workforce profile it's very important for the agencies employment file to represent a variety of sources from which employees are derived this includes veterans interns  college placements from job corps presidential management fellows returning peace corps volunteers and from the ranks of seasonal workforce and let me just add that that seasonal workforce provides about forty four percent of our current career workforce in the agency so it's the single largest component now from that's the business model that i think it's important to pay attention to from the empathy stands i do identify with seasonal employees who want career jobs i started as a seasonal the chief of the forest service tom did well was a seasonal we both moved into the career ranks and achieve the positions we have today many seasonals desire career positions we want seasonals to fill career jobs but it's also important to note that some seasonal employees do not look for a career in the forest service there's a good percentage employees that are attending school they work for the in the summer time there are teachers who teach during the school year and work in the summertime and then there are others who pursue who are have other pursuits that is complimentary to a seasonal work force now back to the employees that do want to do have a personal empathy my son has a five year seasonal he's very frustrated with the process of trying to become a career employees told me just last week he's sick of filling out job applications so i can identify with that we've had some tough love conversations about this very issue and what i tell him are the four things that i tell anybody who asked me about it getting a career job you have to go where the jobs are you have to do a job you may have to do a job you don't want in order to get your foot in the career category consider serving your country in the military and getting veteran's preference or joining the peace corps and coming back with a noncompetitive placement authority or consider going back to school if you can't do one or more of these things the reality is limit yourself in pursuing a career so in closing mr chairman let me just acknowledge th appointment the regulatory time limits the certification must include the specific reason for using a temporary appointment let me review why these limitations were imposed until one thousand nine hundred five temporary appointments were much like they are today appointments were limited to one year with a maximum one year extension in one thousand nine hundred five zero zero pm made several policy changes to give agencies greater flexibility to meet mission and budgetary challenges from one thousand nine hundred five through hundred for temporary appointments could be extended for up to four years in one year increment there was no limit on the number of times the position could be filled using temporary appointment one of the consequences of this situation was that many temporary employees developed an expectation of continuing employment because agencies could appoint them to successive temporary appointments sometimes for decades one example of this was the tragic case of james hudson an employee of the national park service who died on the job because he was a temporary employee albeit with more than eight years of service his family was not eligible for certain benefits they would have received had he been serving under a permanent appointment at the time of his death p m re examined the use of temporary appointments and in one thousand nine hundred four revised the rules governing them we prescribe the limitations i outlined in order to ensure that temporary appointments will be used for truly short term hiring needs and to avoid the perception by employees that temporary employment could last indefinitely our regulations provide for limited exceptions from the time limits agencies can ask o p m for exceptions on a case by case basis only when required by major reorganizations base closings or other unusual circumstances o p m requires agencies to submit a work related justification for each request in a o p m regulations provide an exception to the time limits for work that is expected to last less than six months the reason for this exception is that some agencies need to be able to bring back some employees in contrast to seasonal employees who work more than six months a year and who therefore must be employed under permanent employment appointments those who work less than six months a year may be given temporary appointments that can be renewed multiple times this exception allows agencies to limit the number of permanent employees they hire while retaining the flexibility to employ seasonal workers services are needed for less than six months a concern that is often raised with respect to employees serving under temporary employee appointments is that they are excluded from coverage of the retirement programs for federal employees retirement coverage is generally not in the interest of these employees or the agencies they work for this is true because of the requirement that an individual must work for at least five years in a covered employment in order to become laws governing the federal employees health benefits and federal employees group life insurance programs authorized o p m to exclude certain categories of employees from coverage based on the nature and type of their employment consequently employees serving under temporary appointments  generally excluded from coverage under the health and life insurance programs thank you again for the opportunity to discuss with you how temporary employment is used in the federal government and how and why it affects employee benefits i would be happy to respond to any questions you a person can work for a year with one additional year and that's it step that we allow a waiver and now it's perpetual apparently some of these employees but i'm just wondering  the impact on the employees the morale of the employees productivity how they approach the job and the impact on their families and the workers and the peace of mind in terms of the management and the workforce there given the fact that a lot of these people are in limbo they are continually re a ploy re employed as temporary workers without without any benefits how is that impacting the workforce and how is that impacting  mentioned similarly to the forest service we have a wide variety of circumstances represented in our seasonal workforce and those issues are not true for all of our seasonals but for those that it is true it certainly can't be denied it has an impact on morale is it mentioned early oversubscribed so these temporary positions so is it is it just too bad if you don't like it we've got somebody else who wants that job is that is that how we look at it i wouldn't say that we would look at it that way you know every manager makes their own decisions about who they hire and there are a lot of individuals that are hired back because they want to come back and their manager that they work for the previous season wants to have them back  that's one of the reasons why we have far more applications than we have available slots for the competitively advertised positions that we that we feel mr cashman in the closing remarks you said that if the ministration were willing to look at this rule again and changes policy you'd be happy to participate well this this committee is doing just that you know we've got a lot of complaints from workers that you know they've been in this  and at the end of the day you have the situation that was illustrated earlier about an employee who you know for all intents and purposes was continually re reemployed but was denied all these benefits because he felt telling a different class how how do you feel i mean you're saying that forty four percent of your career positions are being occupied by temporary employees is that just a result of the seasonal nature or are we looking at a strategy  employed by management to really try to reduce their costs and so if we can we can keep forty four percent of the people with no benefits no health insurance no retirement no  it of our career workforce those who have career status in other words permit employees forty four percent of that career workforce came from the ranks of employees who previously were temporary seasonals so there is a path to yes in it and it's the largest single segment i do think it's critical to have a variety of employment sources career temporary seasonal employees are a very very large or six thousand employees that don't have seasonal counterparts those positions that are our natural resource related actually numbers up in the fifty five to fifty six percent range ok i have exhausted my time i'm going to yield five minutes to  i mean it's sort of sparked my interest as a seasonal work force is scary to think that somebody when i start off one hundred seventy and he was elderly person almost thirty years old was lifeguarding that they're still out the same people that i worked with and nine hundred seventy a lot of them are still seasonal workers doing the same thing i guess the discussion is one that we don't think about of many seasonal workers this is not their only employment a lot of teachers yeah i think there's a legitimate concern here that the fact that this is not just a a situation where people living off of a few months to work i just know that there are real estate agents who do this kind of thing there are people that are teaching there's a whole lot of different professions that find that that ability people that are in property management can get into this so i just think that a lot of this is fashion is somehow focus on a perception that may not be a reality but the other issue is this forty four percent you know i'm just wondering how much of the complaints are people who think that if they get seasonal and work for a few years that puts them in the pecking order to basically be moved up which should be true if are there in ploys that we want to participate but saying that we have how many applications do we have for temporary service and in your department one hundred fifty what was the number that you gave up while i was just saying that in the three hundred fifty thousand that we fill each year two hundred thousand of those are temporary or seasonal i know you don't know how many applications you have for the seven zero on average though today we get around four hundred fifty applications for every job that we are now so in other words the market out there is very large it's it's an employer's market when it comes to working for the government even if if it's seasonal right correct ok so there's enough people on the outside of the system who really think this is a really good deal even though there may be those in the system once they're in feeling that it's not a very good deal that fair to say what's a turnover with our season that's very hard to put your finger on because you're bringing in the fact of those who are not looking at it as a continuous long term season after season approach so i don't really have a date on that we would want to limit seasonal workers for some reason to how many years i'm sorry i still think the old guys that are there been there for thirty years are probably still the best life guards on that  and frankly just because they keep coming back they do enjoy it and we keep doing a good job and i worry about this attitude that basically says that we expect you know we don't expect seasonals to be around long to for a period of a few months to undertake the initial data collection or to follow up on that data collection because it was inadequate or incomplete somehow goes on every ten years and that i think we would all agree is clearly a temporary position would you consider it temporary however we did a census every year and we hired that person for six months every year is that a temporary far as far as you're concerned perfectly legitimate and could go on until that person retires is that a correct use of the federal work workplace of this category temporary the correct term is less than one thousand and forty hours is a type of temporary authority we use that is specifically used for work that is seasonal and temporary in nature sometimes i think we we overlay the issue of benefits with that we do not use this authority for the purpose of denying benefits if benefits were part of that we still use the authority we use  hours and that's not to say it's not something that many more frustrated with just asking a different question though i'm glad you told us about the practice but at what point do we have to agree we're sort of census takers and if we hire them back each year is that really truly temporary with the current law and what our regulations allow for is an agency could make a decision to hire them either as temporary employees or as permanent employees and either one could carry what we would call a seasonal seasonal work schedule so in other words if something is reoccurring every year we would probably suggest to an agency that rather than t employment that you would make permanent seasonal employees or permanent because it is reoccurring forest service in certain areas actually particularly california is an example where we reasons of of trying to have a workforce that we have been able to retain over a longer period of time provide a retention and incentive so there are areas where we do have career seasonals now along the northern tier states where the work is primarily field you'll find less of a profile better career seasonal and more temporary so it really it really varies with the work and the fluctuation in the  work you know in the forest products area that work may fluctuate from year to year and we don't know how many seasonal fire it's fairly predictable my time is almost up mr simpson i want to give you a chance to respond i would echo what  is normally purposes are there's got to be abuse now and then and i think that's a challenge frankly for this committee thank you well thank you thank you ma'am i think it is safe to say that we do have through our oversight role if we do find a situation where there is an abuse that is occurring we will absolutely go in and work with that agency in an informal manner we can do all kinds of things from training to hiring managers to training the h r snow yuki records of where you have found abuses actually yes in our oversight when part of our oversight and accountability we keep records of all agencies where we have found a finding of a violation and then we make a record of that for both the agency and for o p l miss mally it would be very helpful if you would submit to the subcommittee testimony in answer directly to my question was we have found no such examples none and now i'm hearing well actually when we we do take corrective action and if you want to correct your statement please feel free to do so but i'm leaving here with your answer under oath question that you have found no examples of the abuse of the use of temporal positions in the federal workforce and that sir i do not want to change that is correct we have not found one well it really depends on exactly under what conditions these folks are well they got a waiver to keep getting a waiver would be automatic waiver constitutes an abuse i am not aware of any instance where an agency has abused the automatic waiver situation they have applied appropriately where ever we haven't actually used our oversight authority they have applied it appropriately in accordance with the well then you're back to mr connelly's point to a point that if they were fried if they have applied it appropriately you would have to go in and retrain and otherwise correct the abuse that's a problem we have with your testimony ok but i think i'll be clarified if you just do what i asked you to do for the last two years would you submit for the record i understand there may be we may have a definitional problem you may regard what a ploy what a manager  done is a mistake whatever it is we're not trying to play any gach got you here we're just trying to see how the system works so if you would provide for the chairman within thirty days a record of those instances where you pm have gone in to assist managers or employees with respect to temporary hires that would that would assist our record as i see it this hearing is really about two things one is benefits and the others in their system we see temporary employees as valuable in fact some places indispensable as in the national park service for example  poor service i'd be interested to know because we here have more typical we have before us managers from more typical temporary service  agencies i'd like to know what percentage of temporary employees are outside of these seasonal the seasonal area that we've just heard of and where we see the the  park service forest service and the i r s you name it all feel free to use temporary employees it would benefit our record to know what percentage come outside of the seasonal employees interested in your testimony seems reasonable that there were a fair number of people even yourself who came into the government first a seasonal employees and then became employees now a concern of course is how does this key with the married system could you tell us in your case how you were able to become a merit system employee while beginning as a temporary seasonal employee how were you able to compete let me just clarify that even in the six months  to enhance my chances of getting a career job they decided to fill the career job went to the roster and i was available so i was able to be picked up off that roster so the merit process was going through the o p m roster being rank and being entered on the roster and up and that's how i got into the same way that our chief got into so you were competing with people who had no experience i can to what extent does experience receives on the seasonal a temporary talent or help him to obtain permanent employment through the merit system experience is something that counts regardless of how it's acquired so if it's acquired under a seasonal appointment or a temporary appointment or if it's acquired outside the federal government so let's take a federal firefighter that happens to be working on a seasonal basis not only would that experience counts if then in the wintertime they're also a firefighter with this city of new york that experience combined experience would count and then give them credit experience toward whatever position that they are applying for so it's we don't make distinctions based on an appointment type or a work schedule experience is experience no matter how it's  because he obviously needed to work with the family so far as i can tell all that happened was there was a cap put on the number of temporary employees who would work consecutively right yes as part of our review of of that particular case and then in consultation with the agencies and discuss how best to to balance both the mission accomplishment  with what is in the best interest of the employees that is correct that we did put in temporary employment regulations allow for one year of employment and then one year extension and the whole intent of this  regarded as the workplace work for work workplace usually regards employees looking for experienced people and so they keep thinking these people it may depend on which kind of appointment that they're actually using if it's some of the employed some of the the agencies are able to given the other exception that is in our temporary employment roles is that if they are working six months or less which is the ten forty or less if they are working that then they do allow for indefinite when your extensions at a time and that how someone could work up to five years i see if you think they may be in that category yes i mean given given  the situation that you described i do i think james hudson's death raised rather definitively the notion of benefits however so much so that congress in fact gave m hudson's wife and children benefits thirty four thousand dollars retirement benefits in effect that's one man there's never been retirement benefits in light of the health care legislation the just passed has o p m looked at health care for temporary workers or are they to be considered outside of first when president obama's administration first came in we had the recovery act and at that point in time we had a schedule authority for agencies to hire temporary workers to come in and to assist with the recovery act and at that time the question did come up with regard to health benefits and so we took a very good close look at both our regulations in the wall and the way the law is currently written is written in such a way that it excludes temporary employees from receiving health benefits private and public sector you're saying oh i'm only speaking to federal sector i cannot speak to private sector in testimony before us yes after one year even temporary employees are eligible to apply for health benefits as long as they pay the one hundred percent contribution of that so in other words they are there not be a shared benefit for these employees why would the federal government employ people and take up well first let me ask you what percentage are people i understand where your jobs which are not your highest paid job in the federal government in fact take on coverage one hundred percent of the health care costs how many what percentage do that i don't have the answer to i would think you want to know after mr hudson in maybe a quite empty promise what is the policy reason behind the notion of coverage if you want it but don't ask us to contribute anything to it what's the justification for that in this particular instance we're not unsympathetic to this issue and we would be more than willing to always present issues when it comes to benefits of various kinds one can even understand retirement notions and how difficult that would be within their social security i understand that seasonals however don't receive don't receive any access to the fair employment less than six months seasonal employees number we had the number we have mr mr cashman mr simpson those less those less than six months employees have no access to health care but let me status in the federal workforce they do get temporary they do get health benefits life life insurance those under temporary appointment non career status that as ms bailey mentioned if they are an a seasonally out of work for themselves and so they pick up seasonal work they may in fact have health care we do need to understand in light of the health care bill how many people we're talking about that simply don't have health care that were carried on the rolls of federal government this would be a terrible embarrassment seemed to me to have another james hudson type incident i don't mean death i mean someone become seriously ill on the job happens to be a federal employees a seasonal employees an ex has no access to health care despite the fact that we touted the health care bill as covering almost everybody we have to understand that this is a very different workforce the workforce of pensioners who work full time i'm sure that may have been the case for the federal government at some point or something close to it that's of workforce of the past and i'm not sure mr bailey  that o p m has looked at this new workforce as a in light of benefits and in light of status it's going to be important for us to know how many of these see these seasonals these less than six months seasonal have health care now we know they don't have health care from the federal government but they may have health care so we need to have an accurate picture i don't even know if we have a problem we may and if we do it does seem to me that the first work force that would have to take account of it would be the federal workforce we probably have this problem throughout the united states we have sought in the health care bill to correct this problem for seasonal workers on some part of the country on my home my dad but that if we are sitting on such an issue ourselves it would be an embarrassment and worse for the federal government i'd like to dismiss this panel thank you for a very helpful testimony on an issue that we are confronting a new and you have in which director thank you very much thank you panel two we want to proceed until the other members get back the panelists are william doogan a national president national federation federal employees were all with us you seemed in two thousand  national levels calling kelly is the president of the national treasury employees union which is the nation's largest independent federal sector union and represents employees in thirty one different government agencies and cali was first elected to the union's top post in august of two thousand and twelve glover has served as the national legislative director for the council of prison locals of the american federation of government employees since two thousand and five mr glover is also a senior officer a senior officer specialist for the bureau of prisons in the red pennsylvania where he has served for twenty years prior to his time at the bureau prisons mr glover served in the united states army patricia part bartz work for the internal revenue service for with thirty years where she served as a lead examiner in the i correspondence examination group since retiring from the i r s by it's now serves as a vocal member of the national active and retired federal employees association the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth that the records show that all the witnesses have replied in the affirmative that miss norton on behalf of the national federation of federal employees in f f e and one hundred ten thousand federal employees we represent i thank the subcommittee for holding this hearing this critical issue has gone on addressed since hundred four when james hudson a veteran and u s park service employee died at the lincoln memorial leaving his widow and seven children destitute he had no life insurance because of his temporary status after legislation was introduced to remedial this hudson's widow common commented something good has come out of the death of my husband this legislation means no one else will have to go through what this family went through the bill subsequently died in committee since then we have seen hundred prediction come true that continued use of long term temporary employment has created a permanent underclass in the federal workforce how long is temporary last in the federal government for some employees of the u s forest service temporary has lasted more than thirty years we all would like to think that the federal government is a model employer as well it should be but thousands of employees hired into temporary positions receive no health insurance benefits no life insurance fits no retirement benefits no step increases and no competitive standing for internal placement into career jobs federal land management agencies in particular overused temporary employment even though land management work occurs every year a loophole in the regulations allows agencies to use an unlimited number of successive temporary appointments some agencies are using this loophole to the maximum extent roughly thirty five to forty percent of the workforce is of the forest service and national park service are hired as temps each season i brought with me today joe katz of dover idaho who's sitting here joe's worked as a temporary employee of the forest service almost every year since one thousand nine hundred seventy five however he remains a temporary worker to this day has been hired terminated each year under a string of temporary appointments joe is a marine who served his country hon bly in vietnam he's held his current position in trails and recreation for twenty one of the past twenty two seasons yet he still has no career position i've also brought lisa mcanany of high upon california who sitting there she began working for the forest service as a firefighter in one thousand nine hundred seventy eight and has worked for the agency almost every season since then she has performed the same regular and recurring work as a certified timber cruiser since one thousand nine hundred five yet she too has never received a career position joe and lisa exemplify the boots on the ground that actually get the agency's work done temporary employees like joe and lisa making valuable contributions to the mission of the four service many worked for years even decades and never get a career seasonal appointment thousands of long term temps work for five or more seasons this is simply outrageous long term temps are only part of the story most temps move on to other employment within a few years taking their experience and training with them because they are misclassified as temps this huge retention problem goes unnoticed and unaddressed with high turnover safety sufferers recently a long term temporary employee who serves on a fire crew told me that eight of the members on her eleven person crew were rookies i can tell you from my personal experience as a firefighter that is a recipe for disaster this is a tough problem there's no way under current laws and regulations to read designate jobs held for decades by long term temps as a permanent seasonal career jobs they really are a career job with exactly the same duties as the long term temporary job is considered a new job and as m s p be noted in one thousand nine hundred four legal and procedural barriers prevent the consideration of many temporary employees for career positions regardless of how well they have performed to avoid a purge a pathway to permanence for long term temps must be the first step in reform it would be an just an unwise to discard these dedicated public servants and their knowledge and experience after their many years of service if i only get one point across at this hearing i hope it will be this to make clear to the subcommittee and federal agencies that a pathway to permanence must be put in place before reform can begin in closing we would propose an accident of legislation to grant competitive standing to long term temporary employees so they can compete for any career or job just like other federal employees may do afford priority consideration to any long term temporary employee whose job is converted to career status and give long term temporary employees creditable service time for their temporary service for certain purposes this proposal has no price tag it has no man it is consistent with the one nine hundred ninety four recommendation of o p m and the national partnership council it would simply provide agencies with the tools to allow reform to begin with this is done use of temporary employees by the government as you heard there are too many stories out there very real stories that are happening today and while temporary employment status we all recognize can be useful to an agency one that is properly applied  also a status that lends itself to abuse and that can be an unfair working condition for an employer temporary employees do not participate in fars or in the right to family and medical leave or in leave for military service and these policies must be defense might be defensible for a true temporary employee of one year or less but it becomes a severe denial of rights when the status is abused regulations are very clear that agencies are prohibited from using temporary status to avoid the costs of employee benefits to extend the probationary period or to avoid competitive hiring however we are concerned that these regulations are too often ignored today i would like to highlight a particularly unfair situation that confronts current and former employees of the f b i see who performs temporary service early in their careers but this issue i'm going to describe would impact every temporary employee who is currently under that status today the f thousands of temporary employees in the one nine hundred eighty s and they were known as l g employees or liquidation great employees their duties included managing and liquidating the assets of failed banks and savings and loans however they were excluded from any credit for retirement under first they continued to serve in one year appointments with thousands of them serving longer than five years and many renewed for over fifteen years in those appointments these employees were clearly temporary only in name the f b i c hired them under special authority and had acquired in one nine hundred thirty eight and had never surrendered that authority however that authority had only been used to hire temporary bank specific teams of liquidation personnel in the early one nine hundred eighty s the f d i c adopted a new policy of establishing regional offices dealing with multiple bank liquidations it is this action that into you considered an abuse as such work had historically phase it out in their misuse of this temporary classification and phase it out over two and a half years from january ninety four to june of ninety six continuing the denial of retirement credit during the time with the passage of the first sixty six federal employees without retirement credit because they had years as temporary employees were able to buy back credit for the years prior to nine hundred eighty nine by paying for the retirement deductions that were not tak but former l g employees were not allowed to buy back their credit for temporary service after one thousand nine hundred ninety the result is that valuable service time from january one eighty nine until the date they actually became eligible to participate in furs and have made the doc sions was essentially law are forfeited now we understand that the intent of congress in the one nine hundred eighty six far as legislation was to encourage agencies to cease over using temporary employees and abusing the classification congress allowed a two year window as agencies transitioned but it was not expected that the f b i see a government corporation with considerable administrative autonomy would continue to abuse the temporary service early in their careers years of service they performed between eighty nine and when they were given permanent status so long as they're willing to make a payment for these years of credit equal to the retirement deductions they would have contributed if they had been allowed we proposed this credit would only be available to those who were victims of the unfair f d i c policy we are not asking that it be extended to those who never accepted or acquired permanent federal positions we believe that allowing these misclassified l g employees the opportunity to buy back their last retirement credit would be an equitable and just resolution to the unfairness that they faced by being misclassified for so many years as temporary workers in a few days we expect the president will be signing the dog frank wall street reform and consumer protection act and i would like to thank you chairman lynch for your efforts on that bill especially in crafting the aspects dealing with federal personnel policies this groundbreaking consumer protection legislation is witness to the importance of the work of the front line employees at the f b i see and other financial regulatory age i don't think it is too much to ask that those men and women who are working so hard as bank examiners liquidation specialists and credit union consumer compliance specialist be given retirement credit for all of their years of service in the federal government thank you again for this hearing and i would welcome any questions you might have thank you president kelly mr glover you now recognize the five minutes for an opening statement chairman lynch congresswoman norton member subcommittee my name is phil glover i'm the national legislative coordinator for the council prison locals american federation of government employees we represent twenty eight thousand correctional workers nationwide serving in one hundred  fourteen federal prisons i have served as a representative of the union since one thousand nine hundred one and i've been involved in many representational legislative issues throughout my service this issue was brought to us by members at our local who as they start to look at retirement this service credit issue arose i want to thank you for the opportunity to testify today at the hearing on existing temporary employee authorities and their adverse impact on temporary employee status and benefits our problem here prisons is the fact that many federal correctional workers who are participants in the federal employees retirement system are unable to make a service credit deposit into furs for temporary civilian service performed after january one hundred eighty nine federal correctional workers as well as well as other federal law enforcement officers are covered by special retirement rules under five c a four section eight forty two two zero eight employee working in law enforcement can retire after twenty five years of service at any age and in fifty years of age after twenty years of federal service with mandatory retirement at age fifty seven it has been determine that working with violent offenders requires a youthful and vigorous workforce this has been in effect for correctional officers and federal correctional workers since one nine hundred fifty six the mandatory retirement age was changed in one thousand nine hundred from fifty five to fifty seven years of age our members perform dangerous work inside federal b o p correctional institutions we supervise murderers gang members terrorists and other dangerous and makes since the brutal stabbing murder of a correctional officer in june of two thousand and eight by two prison inmates at us p atwater we have had at least three hundred eighty vicious inmate on work or assaults in the b o p system after twenty to twenty five years working in these facilities under such stressful conditions most people are ready to leave once our employees attain their retirement age it is normal depending on their individual circumstances to retire this is where the problem arises regarding service credit for temporary civilian service five c a far section three zero four and three zero five do not allow a deposit for temporary civilian service after january first hundred ninety many bargaining employees in the b o p s been hired using temporary employment rules this is done for many reasons such as to get a specialist on board quickly or to hire large groups of correctional officers to start up an existing prison a permanent employees status similarly d o j and the national finance center records show that between eighty nine and two thousand and ten there were over sixty two hundred employees initially hired by b o p as temporary employees and then again after a short period of time were transitioned into permanent employees status many of those be opium ploys or non protein retirement age many of them didn't realize they were hired in temporary employment status we had a situation recently where one employee was hired before the january one hundred nine date and this could make a deposit for service credit while another employee hired one month later was informed he could not this clearly unfair another situation that confuses the issues the employees service state for seniority purposes is the date they began receiving paychecks in b o p however their retirement date could be a year to three years later depending on the date they gain permanent employment status it is also unclear why this regulation was changed in the first place in the change from the civil service retirement system to first which passed in one thousand nine hundred six the ability to make a deposit for service credit was maintained it wasn't until one thousand nine hundred nine that credible service was denied to employees who were willing to make the deposit we've identified employees who  much as three years temporary employment time in the beer presence these employees have worked alongside full time employees who can retire at the appropriate age and time in service requirements the employee with temporary service time is used in the same manner as those with full time service they respond to emergencies they handle difficult inmates and may have been on the voluntary disturbance control team or other emergency operations they must pass a full fifteen year background check pas correctional training and going code georgia and handle a firearm temporary employees in the b o p also have arrested thirty pursuant to eighteen u s c thirty fifty if congress would change a provision back to the one thousand nine hundred eight language we believe it should include all current current employees in closing all law enforcement officers including b o p correctional workers should be able to make the service credit deposit in the first for temporary civilian service performed after january one thousand nine hundred eighty nine and i'll be happy to answer any questions i can thank you thank you very much mr glover ms parts now recognize an opening statement of five minutes chairman chairman lynch and members of the subcommittee my name is patricia bartz i'm from new jersey and i appreciate the opportunity to testify on behalf of the national active and retired federal employees association about my experiences in those that as bedroom worker i was employed with the internal revenue service at the philadelphia service center from january nine hundred seventy retiring on july thirty first two thousand and one from nine hundred seventy until nine hundred eighty six i was a seasonal employee hundred sixty nine i took the civil service test for federal employment shortly after i was called to take an eighty s hour on page training course as a data transcriber in early january of hundred seventy i was hired to work transcribing tax returns as a seasonal worker i worked from january to june that first year when i was called back the next filing season i worked a similar period an additional months to work on the quarterly return eventually i was working ten months each year one of those years during my fourteen seasonal years as a data transcriber i work every day except one being furloughed on a thursday and brought back on a monday this was done to break my time if i had work the extra day i would have been been made a permanent employee and entitled to all the rights and benefits that accrue to that status during my time in data transcription i was promoted to a lead data transcriber my duties include instructing other employees and filling in for the supervisor i enjoyed my work and i only left the department because i could not become a permanent employee and advance to a higher grade in one nine hundred eighty four i was accepted as a seasonal time examiner in the correspondence audit department i took this position because it offered a higher grade and a chance to become a permanent employee after about a year and a half i became an employer a permanent worker during my career in the examination department i was selected to be a lead tax examiner and instructor my duties in this department including handling problem cases and telephone calls for other tactics acting as a supervisor when the supervisor was not in the office and holding yearly up assists and taxable changes each october when the federal employees retirement system was introduced to the federal employees in january of one thousand nine hundred seven the employees like me who were in the older civil service retirement system were cancelled to remain in servers this turned out to be bad advice at this time the seasonal employees and furs were credited with a full year's service time if they worked at least four months out of the year the service employees contacted our bargaining unit the national treasury employees union about receiving the same credit for their years of service before for as was implemented this request was denied by i r s management at the service center their decision not only affected our years of service it also affected our timing grades were step raises in the general schedule pay series the first employees were receiving a full year service credits her time in grade and years of service for retirement it is my feeling that we should have been credited with our service the same as the first employee if this had been the policy i would have thirty one years and seven months of service instead of twenty six years and seven months this policy greatly affected my retirement annuity and that of the other fellows sir's workers i enjoyed working for the agency and always respected by my supervisors still as a matter of fact i believe i have been on fairly denied benefits which i should have been able to access i understand the subcommittee is interested in reviewing a proposal that would allow temporary employees who have extended years of service to qualify for permanent job status as well as a plan to allow such workers to credit their temporary status towards retirement nor welcomes this discussion and we would like to participate in the development of these reasonable proposal mr chairman thank you for focusing attention on temporary and seasonal hiring authorities and on how such service affects our status and benefit  i appreciate your allowing me to set today on behalf of myself and other active and retired employees who work part of their public service careers as seasonal or temporary workers i would be happy to answer any questions you may service the peace corps i think we talked about earlier with the folks on the national forest service but unless i'm missing something there is no preference for a purple person who has done that job as a temporary worker in becoming a career employees in other words what i'm saying what i'm saying is that they are treated basically the same as a person who comes off the street so they're not getting any advantage they're coming into the process as if they had never worked in their current job  and i think that is wrong and i think there's got to be some way to acknowledge the temporary service that employees that at the very back of the line that they get some recognition and some type of preference in terms of filling those career positions i know that i believe it was mr sampson who testified in the first panel that said that roughly forty percent i just walking in off the street and  temporary employees joe i would say to your specific question that is something that would help whether you and you could be funded a number of ways even if you just started by giving them first consideration so that they had to you know they were on the short list at least to be considered today they have to literally apply through the outside process as if they never worked for the government and we went through this very recently up in your part of the country with the end of or service center you know the in that case i would say the i r s had appropriately used some temporary hiring authority as they were ramping down the submission processing operation but then when new work was added to landover and new positions rather permanent positions were added all of those temporary workers many of whom had been there for four years had no first consideration right to even be considered for those permanent jobs so something like you describe would be a giant step forward to fix that part of the problem i would suggest though that another part of the problem just from things i've heard here today and from some situations that we've seen it in t is the question to the agencies of how many of these temporary employees our temporary positions are really temporary positions i mean i don't know how you justify in the f d i c when we had employees hired year after year for fifteen years or how and mr dugard could speak  better to this than i on on you know those who have joined him today i mean if people are doing the same job year after year even if it's only for six months then that is in my view a permanent seasonal position it is still seasonal it's not comma doesn't create work or doesn't exist but it's a permanent seasonal position not a temporary seasonal position and that would that alone would change the status of those employees and their eligibility to retirement and contributions for health insurance and to f m l a and to all of the you know all of the rights and benefits that permanent permanent career workforce has in the federal government so i think that that's as big a piece as figure out how to be able to get them first consideration are some priority is to you know really press hard on these agencies as to how they're designating these positions it just is there some are there some that should be temporary probably but the numbers that i duties working under you also temporary employee they were all seasonals yes they the eliot had to the supervisor was a permanent employee and she had a what we call the timekeeper was the for the groups were was a permanent bully everybody else was a seasonal employee now and the next page after about a year and a half you became a prominent worker once i was picked up by correspondence audit yes once you were picked up by the other department correspondence department all you got on that prominent registry or that permanent list list for that job i applied applied for several jobs of and i was in data over the fourteen year period but and i was accepted for quite a few of them but they always the department always said that they could release me at that time and that eliminated that job  in the process of applying for the permanent job and my evaluations that i received over the years where as like a great help to be picked up by the other department and i was on a roster yes for a permanent job i was on a roster for a permanent job but as i said as the permanent jobs will come up and we're not just myself other people would apply if it was in the height of their filing season they would not let you go i think  competition was like anybody else coming off the street rather counter intuitive to believe that got myself on a roster for a bart able to show that i was on precisely the same job it's hard to believe that that would help me in some way in the competition with others who may have indeed been doing similar doing this work for this federal agency in a temporary status doesn't even say consideration should be given no no my words a first consideration would be a giant step forward from where we are today and i'm only using that as an example for those who would oppose some used because the agency is certainly free to use their internal hiring process which under the current regulations a temporary employee is not even eligible to apply under the internal process so that avenue  excluded from from the get go so they only have the extra no hiring process that the rest of the public has available to them so they're competing with with everybody else out on the street for those think one we could if we grant competitive standing to our long term temporary work for still have the ability not only to apply through the external hiring process but also through the merit systems hiring that we could do would be as you describe it as coleen has talked about this is afford some sort of priority consideration to long term temporary employees particularly if the agency decides to make their current temporary position a permanent position it's my belief that if we have an employee that's been in a series of positions doing the same job five six seven years ten years thirty years essential that those people are incumbents in those positions and the fact of the matter is that the position was misclassified by the agency as a temporary position when in fact when you look at the recurring nature of the work it's really it's really a permanent position for in reality and so it's my belief that those folks need to be given priority consideration for those positions for which they've been doing the federal government there is relatively few federal agencies that that have employees that have that expertise for service bureau land management national park service fish and wildlife service bureau of indian affairs those are the five federal agencies that primarily have a wild land fire fighting workforce these people are specially trained the agencies have invested a lot of time and resources and money in terms of training these people they have highly  specialized training they hold qualifications it takes many years of training and experience out on these fires for people to work their way up into leadership positions and in the fire organization and it is not uncommon to see on wild land fire while an fires temporary employees that are part of a fire crew that actually have more experience   as a country and in these and in these agencies if we if we fail to acknowledge the professional work the experience and the skills that these folks have and don't make an honest effort to retain these and we just let these people go we really risk having a brain drain in the area of wild land fire fighting which as mrs norton pointed out has some potential catastrophic safety implications if we have inexperienced people out there trying to lead and leave these crews as well as put these fires out thank you very  most of these agencies or all of these agencies have a centrally permit they do have some permanent permanent seasonal positions in their fire organizations these folks work only but they're permanent employees they typically  work six nine months out of the year but the bulk of the firefighting workforce hired in the federal government are temporary employees and where where the federal government gets their temporary while an firefighting workforce is really lot of hours and they they tend to get a lot of overtime so it's a good way for college students that are out of school to earn some money to help them out to pay their tuition and books the second function or group of folks that tend to be drawn into these kinds of of positions is just you know average people out on the street for service for the most part has has a presence in more rural communities across america particularly out in the western u s these jobs these firefighting jobs are highly coveted by people to live in small towns the forest service is often the largest employer in the town and also pays probably for the most part the highest wage so these jobs are are really sought after by local residents in these in these rural communities and and really have a huge impact on those local economies but but what we see with these temporary jobs is you know if these folks are are expected to be hired year after year and as a temporary not afforded any benefits not afforded retirement afford healthcare what we see in terms of retaining this workforce is after a certain amount of time these folks leave in our route away by county fire  departments by city fire departments by state or street organizations who can often pay more than the federal government and offer these folks permanent jobs and better wages so we're losing a lot of our wildland firefighting workforce through you know when we see one or two that might be especially bright we snap them up but generally it's understood that they're on a lot of opportunities so that's a rare occasion but since they're only there prisons and president kelly how do i how do i devise a solution that's going to be able to sort of capture all those different situations and provide some type of you know you want to have some flexibility for management to bring in temporary employees when needed but this type of the abuse you know where people are are in there for decades you know eight or ten years brought back and  retirement that and i don't know what he denied health care benefits i don't necessarily think that's the way that the federal government should be operating as an employer and so you know i think some of our federal management agencies are are adopting this strategy as a way of balancing their budgets and they're doing on the backs of these temporary employees and as simple as that and we're allowing it to happen and we've got to figure out some way to you know to to push back to say ok you know this person is coming back for the fourth consecutive year you know if they come back for the fifth they are going to have to earn something or there needs to be some pathways to career employment made for these people where you know as you say when a position becomes permanent it goes from temporary to permanent i think the assumption should be the priority should be to hire the people who are in that job and doing that job originally when a change is over but there's also got to be some way of of not necessarily just not displacing a veteran going for a job but but next in line so to speak there should be an opportunity to put these temporary workers in line right behind them i head of the general i'm just trying to figure out a way to to develop a system that would accommodate those realities well again german launch i think there's a couple i would probably take it out in a couple of different directions and we would be glad and to be glad to work with the committee i'm sure we all would on you know language to fit like kind of eat or to fix each of these problems the when i was getting ready for this hearing i was focused on the i r s and the f d a i see because the i rest hires a lot of seasonal employees i did not come in here intending to say that i think the i r s is doing a great job but i have to tell you after listening to everything i heard today they are doing a great job they really i don't know what happened back in you know in the seventy's in the eighty's you know in midst towards a situation and and i'm sure those facts you know drive you know why she's here today i can tell you that today the i r s employs tens of thousands of seasonals and most of them are permanent seasonal with all the rights that go along with permanent employment even though their schedule might only be a four or six or nine month a year job it's the seasonal is the the funds are schedule not what benefits that they have and as i said they they don't always hire it as permanent but i think over the years and to is help them perhaps see you know the criteria that should be used so that when they were doing the ramp downs submission process and they use that but even though today  the the i rest is seems to be doing it at least as well if not better than most agencies i think what you've also heard here today or a lot of is a lot of harm that has been done in the past that we're hoping we could have congress help us to give employees who have been harmed by not being able to read wasn't there for the f d i c employees who got no credit for up to fifteen years of work and now are federal employees but don't have credit for that fifteen this heard it this way on the first panel i was a little surprised to hear o p m say that if you're going to work six months or more then you're a permanent seasonal if you're going to work six months or less it's up to the agency decide whether you're a temporary or permanent and that they grant these waivers that i think they will question about these waivers i don't know how closely anybody looking at those waivers but it seems to me that if they ask for it they get it and where i would like to see the agency pushed pretty hard and held to a standard as you're suggesting that you know that they should be able to make a case that forty percent of the workforce is really temporary i mean if they need employees in those jobs in those parks for six months a year four months a year seven months a year they need them every year i think that's a permanent job it's not temporary right and but nobody seems to be there extreme limitations on the federal budget and we've got a massive deficit you know i think rightly congress is sharpening us pencils and looking at every expenditure that we make however i think there's a certain yes that you bring out in your argument for those employees who you know because of the seemingly arbitrary application of regulation against them they've been taken out of a position that they originally were you know they had benefits and how would you envision giving an opportunity to the bureau of prisons folks that i guess they could buy back in your service credit we had employees being hired at that time in large numbers so some were hired under the eighty eight rule some were hired under the eighty nine rule and so what happened is if you were hired after one january eighty nine you could not buy back your service you could not buy back in for the service credit so we have employees actually one that was able to buy back six months of temporary service and one one month later that wasn't allowed to buy back six months of temporary service and so that person has to work inside the federal prison for another six months prior to his retirement and at that point in your career after after working in the system for twenty to twenty five years you're tired and you're ready to go generally what i one want to at least dad is as part of this discussion is that time massachusetts was converted from a military base to a federal prison hospital they were trying to get employees on board quickly to get that person up so you might hire sixty to one hundred employees as a temporary in a temporary status because they've already identified they want that boy they've already had an interview they're waiting on paperwork they're waiting on a background check and they are there want to get them on board the thing is though if you're in there working in the same circumstances as every full term employee you don't have any different real work rules as far as responding to an emergency handling a disruptive inmate handling some of the situations that we handle on a daily basis and so what our human is is once they make you permanent you should be able to step back and re re credit that service the service that they have from when they started because they've been made permanent and they should at least get the reach back and say this time should count and i'll read deposit i mean we're not talking about the government necessarily we're talking about the employee being able redeposit for the right service credit so that's the piece that we're particularly interested because all the fors employees now are hitting their twenty year marks obviously and now they're starting to realize what they did right and it's now incumbent upon the union that represents them to go out and do something about it and while there's still time maybe for those last five years that they make those contributions that they would have made so they're actually buying the they're making making bad years into good years incredible service correct ok we've got to figure out that balance because there is not a lot a lot of extra resources out there and so if i could also say this in a scoring of this you would have numerous employees who may get back some of this temporary time and actually retire the bureau would then bring in employees at a much lower grade g s five is what our correctional situation extremely well how many people do you think i'm way over my time by the way but how many people are in your situation barthes circumstance actually i don't have any if i was i was not surprised but when i read most parts of testimony this morning was the first that i knew you know that you or others were facing that problem that's it's not anything that i have any data on ok i think you know you've got fairly discrete circumstances there that might be addressed if the population were small enough if it's but i think you have all suffered enough i appreciate all the testimony you've offered to us today i'm going to leave the record open as indicated to begin the hearing for three days in case other members have some questions i know that mr connelly of a junior has some questions but not for this panel and so while the the record open to allow them to submit written testimony i want to thank you each for your work on behalf of federal employees i want to thank you for coming forward before this com offering your testimony to help us work this is a complicated situation but i'll make a commitment that we will work with you to try to figure out how how to get at these inequities that are obviously out there and and also try to diminish them going forward so that we don't have these big gaps in time where we have these temporary employees out there that we build a system that credits credits temporary employees so they can use that they can use that time to get into career positions so that we don't have this big delta between the time they begin as a temporary employee and the time they get on as as career employees and also a way to recognize the value of that service in the hiring process so that it's a priority and it's recognized as valuable service i mean it's it's it's astounding that we recognize priorities for different reasons but time in the job you know active relevant excellent service in the job is ignored our side stepped in and said we treat people as if they're just walking in the door  and have never worked in the job before so i thank you for your willingness to testify and to help the the committee with its work i wish you all a good day thank you this