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Benefits Cuts Dropped from One Big Beautiful Bill?!
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Jun 29, 2025
The proposed cuts to federal employees' benefits that have been debated in both the House and Senate have been removed from the latest draft of the One Big Beautiful Bill text. Here are the details. Related Articles Benefits Cuts Off the Table in Latest Draft of Senate Legislation https://www.fedsmith.com/2025/06/28/benefits-cuts-off-the-table-in-latest-draft-of-senate-legislation/ Referenced article Senate Republicans remove pension overhaul provisions from megabill text https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/06/28/congress/senate-gop-removes-pension-overhaul-from-megabill-00430853 Chapters 0:00 Introduction 1:00 Provisions That Have Been Eliminated 4:36 Conclusion
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0:00
so this will be welcome news I think for
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most federal employees
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politico is reporting that all of the
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proposed benefits cuts that have been
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batted back and forth in the House and
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Senate inside of the one big beautiful
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bill over the last couple of months have
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been dropped in the latest copy of the
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the legislative text in fact there are
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only three items remaining from the
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governmental affairs provisions one of
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those is uh FEB improvements that's the
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proposal that would add audits and
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accountability to the federal employees
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health benefits program to ensure that
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only qualified dependent are included in
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the program that's the gist of it um the
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other another item is the pandemic
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response accountability committee and
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appropriation for the office of
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management and budget i'm not even going
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to cover what those two are they're
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boring but the key point for federal
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employees to know is that all of the
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other pro provisions have been
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eliminated as I said so what are those
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one of them is the atwill employment
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option and higher contribution rates to
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FURs that's the federal employees
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retirement system and that came out of
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both the House and the Senate in various
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forms it kind of included a combination
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of those two at different times but
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basically it would have required federal
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employees to contribute more of their
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annual salaries towards their retirement
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for for um ultimately became for newly
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hired federal employees
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and also there was an atill employment
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option attached to it at one point again
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for newly hired federal employees they
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could opt to be at will and that would
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be in exchange for a lower contribution
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rate to FURs if they opted to keep their
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civil service protections they had to
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contribute more to FURs mspb filing fee
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also been dropped that would have
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imposed a $350
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uh fee to file claims or appeals with
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the Merit Systems Protection Board and
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the fee would be refundable for
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successful appeals
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another was the fee for federal
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employees pay deductions this came out
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of the Senate that proposal would impose
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a 10% fee to cover administrative costs
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for optional payroll deductions for
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certain taxexempt organizations namely
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unions and the reason the uh the Senate
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Committee on Homeland Security and
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Governmental Affairs was putting that
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forth is they noted that the government
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incurs costs for those payroll deduction
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services and they believe that the
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government should at least break even on
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on recouping those costs bonuses for
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cost cutters that was another proposal
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that was basically taking past
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legislation that Senator Ran Paul had
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proposed separately at different times
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putting it into the reconciliation bill
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the one big beautiful bill and it would
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pay bonuses to federal employees who
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reported wasteful spending typically
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that you see at the end of a fiscal year
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the use it or lose it spending that that
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tends to come up it was targeting that
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charging unions for the use of federal
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resources this targeted the use of
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official time and unions would have been
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required to reimburse the government for
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official time and for the use of federal
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resources
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rescending postal service EV electric
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vehicle funds
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um under the inflation reduction act
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about a billion dollars was earmarked to
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go toward buying electric vehicles for
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the postal service and the accompanying
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infrastructure for those it would have
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rescended that and require the postal
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service to sell any unused
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infrastructure or electric vehicles
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elimination of the FUR's annuity
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supplement
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um in its
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last known form it would that's
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something that would have kicked in
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January 1st 2028 as I recall but that
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that's been dropped as well and also the
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proposal to change from high three to
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high five that that is no longer in in
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this draft legislation so again that
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that's basically all of them um
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and this will be as I said I think
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welcome news for most federal employees
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the legislative process is is complex
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and I've been saying all along when
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these first started getting floated in
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the House a couple of months ago i think
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it was back in April don't panic over
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this there's a long way to go some of
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these proposals date back decades i know
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the high three to high five proposal
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um that dates back to the 2000s that I
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know of and I I think maybe even
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predates that
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but
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um we saw them change a lot along the
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way to get to this point and now again
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they appear to have been dropped
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entirely
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but while this is good news for most of
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you I think I would caution you that
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it's still subject to change politico
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for instance in its report said that
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these could come up again as the bill
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continues to go through the legislative
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process and be introduced as amendments
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these proposals could reappear andor be
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modified the reality is we're not going
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to have final answers until the bill
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becomes law um but for those of you who
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are concerned about this it's certainly
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a step in the right direction towards
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what you were likely hoping that that
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these would be removed so that's where
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things stand currently um again still
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subject to change but
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but they have been dropped as Politico
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reported from the latest draft of the
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the reconciliation bill the one big
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beautiful bill be sure to subscribe to
6:17
our channel also visit the fedsmith.com
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website because we will continue to
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provide updates as they become available
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have a good day everyone
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