Lawmakers Push to Allow Pension Contributions for Former Temporary Feds

Lawmakers from both parties introduced a bill Thursday that would allow all federal employees to make catch-up contributions to their retirement accounts to make up for time they spent in temporary positions.

The Federal Retirement Fairness Act (H.R. 2478), introduced by Reps. Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., and Tom Cole, R-Okla., would allow federal employees who have spent time in temporary and seasonal positions or an intermittent work status to contribute 1.3 percent of their base pay, plus interest, to the Federal Employees Retirement System. Doing so would grant the workers credit toward their defined benefit pension for their time as temporary employees.

Kilmer and Cole first introduced the bill last year, after they were alerted to the fact that federal employees at naval yards and air bases needed to work past retirement age to become eligible for full pension benefits. That bill did not receive a vote in the House.

“Many federal employees begin their careers in temporary positions before transitioning to permanent status,” Kilmer said in a statement Thursday. “This bill will ensure that all federal workers, from the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and beyond, have the opportunity to retire at the same time, regardless of how they started their careers.”

The Office of Personnel Management used to allow former temporary employees to make catch-up contributions, although the practice was discontinued in 1989 after the establishment of FERS.

The bill has broad support from federal employee and management organizations, including the American Federation of Government Employees, the National Federation of Federal Employees and the Federal Managers Association.

“[This legislation] provides long overdue pension parity to those federal workers who failed to receive possible pension credit for their federal service,” said Matt Biggs, secretary-treasurer of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. “This bill recognizes that regardless of an employee’s status as temporary or permanent, workers should not be unjustly penalized.”

The bill’s introduction comes as the Trump administration is pushing for a new retirement system for term employees—workers hired on set contracts between one and four years—that would only offer access to the “401k” Federal Savings Plan , albeit with a more generous employer contribution.

It is unclear how this bill might interact with that proposal, if implemented. A spokesperson for Kilmer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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