June 2019 Federal Employment Law Training Group Newsletter
Close Doesn’t Count in the Lottery or in MSPB
My grandfather has played the lottery for as long as I can remember. One year for his birthday, my mom took me to a party store to get a lottery ticket for Grandpa for his birthday. Since I was only about 10, mom bought the ticket – but I picked the numbers. As most 10-year-olds would, I selected numbers that corresponded to the ages of the people in my family; conveniently the Michigan Lotto was a six-number game and there were six people in my family, so it was perfect. Almost perfect, anyway. Turns out the ticket was one number off of the grand prize. Grandpa was this close to winning a million bucks, but instead he won nothing.
Do you ever find yourself this close to something really great? Well, in the world of federal employment law we’re sooooo close another milestone: we are (maybe) about to get an MSPB again. Later today, there is a committee vote on the third and final nominee. If it goes well, the full Senate will then be ready to vote on all three nominees, which means we could have a fully seated Board within weeks. I just hope this turns out better than Grandpa’s lottery ticket.
With that, let’s take a look at FELTG’s June 2019 newsletter with articles on topics including investigatory problems with the Special Counsel, a 75-cent insurance policy for federal supervisors, and more.
Take care,
Deborah J. Hopkins, FELTG President
Connect with me on LinkedIn to get updates on the MSPB nomination in real time!
Barr and Mueller Should Come to FELTG Training
By William Wiley, June 12, 2019 Yeah, they each messed up. And if they had participated in the FELTG Conducting Workplace Investigations program (next offered August 5-9 in Denver), they would have not. In case you’ve been adrift at sea without social contact for the...
A 75-cent Purchase Can Save Your Entire Case – and Help You Sleep at Night
By Deborah Hopkins, June 12, 2019 In my travels across the globe teaching federal supervisors about the federal government’s accountability systems, one of the most-often-asked questions involves what supervisors can do to better their chances of defending their...
Don’t Be Like Ben – The Perils of English-only Rules
By Meghan Droste, June 12, 2019 Benjamin Franklin, one of my high school’s most famous dropouts, is generally praised in our history books as a founding father, an inventor, and a printer. Did you know that he was also one of the first prominent voices in the...
The Good News: Handling Problem Employees Really Is That Easy
By Ann Boehm, June 12, 2019 I first attended FELTG’s MSPB Law Week, I excitedly returned to my agency hoping to spread the good word about how to handle problem employees. Instead, I was repeatedly told, “It’s not that easy.” I was reminded of this recently when a...
Tips from the Other Side: June 2019
By Meghan Droste, June 12, 2019 To close out our discussion of discovery tips, at least for now, I thought I would bring you a cautionary tale to illustrate just how important these points can be. As you know, any party that fails to meet its obligations in discovery...
Knock, Knock. Who’s There? The Efficiency of the Service.
By Dan Gephart, June 12, 2019 Since Father’s Day is this Sunday, I think it’s probably the safest time for me to come clean about an embarrassing habit. I tell Dad jokes. I mean, I tell Dad jokes a lot. My sons were barely teenagers before they developed an...
Drafting Unauthorized Absence Charges: How to Write the Specification(s)
By Deborah Hopkins, June 12, 2019 One of the more common categories of questions we get at FELTG involves the exceedingly technical area of drafting disciplinary charges. Here’s a recent note that came to us: I have an employee who is being charged with unauthorized...