Federal RuleAug 21
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DOL Rewrites Disability Rules for 'Merit-Based Opportunity' Push
RuleLabor DepartmentFederal Contract Compliance Programs OfficeSignificant Wallet
119-s-1170119th CongressWALLET
Taxpayer-Funded Union Time Transparency Act
Sponsored By: Senator Ernst, Joni [R-IA]
Introduced
Summary
Annual public reporting of official time used by federal employees would require agencies to disclose the costs, hours, and benefits tied to union activity and trigger regular audits of agency accounting practices.
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- Agencies would have to publish a detailed report by June 30 each year covering the total cost of official time, reasons for authorizations, and aggregate spending on bargaining, grievance processing, and dispute resolution. The Comptroller General would audit agency accounting practices at least once every four years.
- For each employee granted official time, agencies would report the employee’s position, annual basic pay, any bonus value, benefit costs, the total hours spent on official-time activities, and the share of that employee’s work hours those hours represent.
- Reports would also disclose the number of hours agency property was used free or at a discount, square footage of real estate made available to labor organizations, reimbursements collected, and the monetary value of space, maintenance, arbitrators, experts, mediators, travel, and lodging.
- Each agency must submit its report to Congress and publish it on the agency’s public website to provide oversight and public access to the data.
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
1 provisions identified: 1 benefits, 0 costs, 0 mixed.
Annual agency reports on union time
This bill would require the head of each federal agency to send a yearly report to Congress and post it online by June 30 each year. Each report would cover the prior year and list detailed information about official time under 5 U.S.C. § 7131. Agencies would report total costs, and for each employee given official time: position, annual pay, bonuses, benefit costs, hours used, and percent of their work time. Reports would also list pay for bargaining and arbitration, fees to arbitrators, travel and real estate provided to labor organizations, reimbursements collected, and other related expenses. The Comptroller General would audit agencies' accounting practices at least once every four years and brief committees if GAAP is not used.
Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Ernst, Joni [R-IA]
IA • R
Cosponsors
Sen. Blackburn, Marsha [R-TN]
TN • R
Sponsored 3/27/2025
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
View on Congress.gov