Originally published Cuts to civil service protections remain in Senate committee’s reconciliation proposal on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/congress/2025/06/cuts-to-civil-service-protections-remain-in-senate-committees-reconciliation-proposal/ at Federal News Network
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Despite taking some proposed cuts to federal benefits off the table, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is still looking to remove civil service job protections for federal employees as part of the GOP reconciliation process.
The Senate committee’s proposal for the “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” released Thursday, kept three of four key sections impacting the federal workforce that House lawmakers passed last month. HSGAC’s legislative text also made a handful of revisions and added several new provisions not seen in the House’s version. In total, the committee projected its legislative text for the reconciliation bill would yield $24 billion in savings.
One notable provision HSGAC maintained from the House’s final version of the reconciliation bill would make newly hired federal employees choose between losing their civil service protections or facing a higher contribution rate to the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS).
But in HSGAC’s version of the provision, the costs to feds are higher. If new federal hires choose to become “at-will” employees, they would take on a 5% increase to their FERS contribution rate — yielding a 9.4% contribution rate. But if they opt to keep their civil service protections, they would incur a 10% increase to their current FERS contribution rate — resulting in a 14.4% contribution rate.
In contrast, the House version of the legislation would have required a FERS contribution rate increase of 5% for any newly hired employees who choose to keep their civil service protections, while no changes would have been made for feds who choose to become at-will employees.
The Senate committee’s proposal would impact any feds who are hired after the bill becomes enacted. Current federal employees would not be affected by the proposal. HSGAC leadership said the change would generate $20 billion in cost savings over the next decade, and “yield a more productive and accountable federal workforce.”
But Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), acting ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, called the HSGAC proposal a “backdoor” for implementing Schedule F, and said it “will enable a massive expansion of the purge of nonpartisan public servants in favor of partisan loyalists.”
The National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE) also warned that the committee’s provision would have a dual negative effect.
“It would tax retirement benefits, creating a 5% pay cut for somebody under the system, while also undermining the merit-based civil service by having an additional 5% cut if you decide to retain those merit-based civil service protections,” said John Hatton, NARFE’s staff vice president for policy and programs in an interview. “Those protections don’t exist for the purpose of the employee — they exist to protect against politically based firings of federal employees.”
Charging a fee for MSPB filings
The Senate committee’s legislation, led by Chairman Rand Paul (R-Ky.), would also charge a $350 fee to file an appeal with Merit Systems Protection Board. The provision would impact both current and former federal employees, as well as federal job applicants.
Currently, federal employees can file with the MSPB at no cost. But Republicans on the Senate committee argued that charging for MSPB filings would bring federal employees more in line with what’s seen in the private sector.
Under the proposal, feds who win their appeals would be refunded the fee. The provision mirrors one contained in the House’s final version of the reconciliation bill.
“The fee would ensure all costs of proceedings are recovered rather than subsidized,” the committee wrote in a justification of its bill. “Legitimate claimants will be reimbursed, while those with baseless claims will be disincentivized to waste the government’s time and resources.”
Many federal unions and employee organizations, however, have opposed the creation of a fee for MSPB filings.
If enacted, the provision would generate about $2 million of revenue from MSPB filing fees, according to a House committee document.
Audit of FEHB enrollees
Agencies would also have to audit any current or incoming family members enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program to ensure their eligibility for the benefits, according to HSGAC’s reconciliation text.
House Republicans included the same proposal in their version of the legislation, which narrowly passed in a floor vote last month.
Under the FEHB provision, agencies would be required to audit any federal employees’ family members when they are first added to FEHB plans. The provision would also require any currently enrolled FEHB family members who are found ineligible to be removed from the program.
Unlike many of the other reconciliation provisions from Republican lawmakers, the proposal to add an audit system in the FEHB program has not gained much opposition from federal unions or other organizations.
The Government Accountability Office estimates the Office of Personnel Management pays nearly $1 billion per year on ineligible FEHB enrollees.
Creating costs to federal unions
Two new provisions HSGAC Republicans added to their reconciliation proposal would impact federal unions as well. For one, committee lawmakers are proposing to charge a 10% fee for any federal employee paycheck deductions that go to “certain tax-exempt organizations” — or namely, payments that go toward federal union dues.
“For elective payroll deductions to organizations like federal government labor unions, the government should at least break even,” the lawmakers wrote in their proposal.
A separate provision would charge federal unions for any time or resources that are spent on “official time,” or on-the-clock hours that go toward work such as negotiating union contracts or resolving employee disputes.
Neither of the two provisions on federal unions was included in the House’s version of the reconciliation package.
The American Federation of Government Employees strongly opposed the Senate committee’s series of proposals on the federal workforce.
“These provisions represent a direct assault on federal employees and their labor unions and will make it that much harder for federal agencies to recruit and retain the qualified employees they desperately need to serve the American public,” AFGE National President Everett Kelley said Friday. “Under this bill, federal employees will see their take-home pay slashed and their fundamental workplace rights obliterated.”
Reconciliation provisions still subject to change
Republicans are currently eyeing a July 4 deadline to reach a final version of the reconciliation bill — and there may be more changes coming to the text of the legislation as lawmakers continue their deliberations.
Once the legislation goes to the Senate floor for a vote, congressional leaders would then have to compromise on any differences between the House-passed and Senate-passed versions of the bill before it can become law.
Democrats continue to criticize the GOP’s plans to remove civil service protections from federal employees as part of the reconciliation process.
“This Republican bill infringes upon collective bargaining rights of millions of hard-working, middle-class Americans and undermines basic employee protections and due process rights,” Lynch said Friday.
Already, a handful of provisions that were included in earlier versions of the House’s bill appear to be off the table. Prior to the House floor vote last month, lawmakers removed two other provisions that had looked to cut federal benefits.
HSGAC’s new proposal also notably did not include any language on eliminating the FERS annuity supplement — a provision that was in the House-passed version of the reconciliation package.
“My hope would be that it’s off the table if it’s not in the draft Senate bill — and that it won’t be added back in,” NARFE’s Hatton said. “I hope that senators will agree with our general argument that you shouldn’t cut back on vested benefits that are based on earnings from previous work.”
Hatton added that some of the Senate committee’s provisions could be challenged according to the “Byrd Rule,” which bars any language in the reconciliation process that focuses primarily on non-financial or policy changes, with only incidental budget effects.
“Our best hope is that some of these provisions are removed on that basis,” Hatton said. “But then there may be some additional, substantive opposition to these provisions.”
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Originally published Cuts to civil service protections remain in Senate committee’s reconciliation proposal on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/congress/2025/06/cuts-to-civil-service-protections-remain-in-senate-committees-reconciliation-proposal/ at Federal News Network
Originally published Federal News Network
