Class Action Suit: Payment for Unused Annual Leave

Consular Bureau clarification of waiver authority for WAEs hired for passport processing

We have received a lot of inquiries from confused CS and FS annuitants. The current waiver authority applies only to CS annuitants, who will be able to work for PPT with no financial penalty. That is, they will be able to collect their full annuity and the full salary of their WAE grade, without any reduction to either. We expect that most annuitants will be hired for this PPT work at the GS 11 grade (step will be contingent upon prior experience, among other factors). Because we have this waiver authority for CS annuitants, they are our primary focus right now, and we would like to hire up to 150 of them for this passport effort.

We have a separate, very robust WAE program for FS annuitants. The waiver authority does not apply to them, so they would be working under
the normal WAE hours and earnings restrictions. If FS annuitants are interested solely in domestic passport work, they could also be hired at the GS 11 grade. However, the bulk of our FS annuitants work as WAEs at
our overseas posts, filling in during staffing gaps and assisting with workload surges; those WAEs are typically hired at the GS 13, step 10 rate, contingent upon them having at least one year of prior consular work at the FS 03 level. We have hired FS annuitants at lower grades who do not meet that condition, so all are welcome to apply to us. We are primarily interested in retired consular officers or retirees who have consular experience, but would consider other officers, too, particularly if they have sufficient Arabic, Portuguese, Mandarin, or Spanish skills to conduct consular work in the language.