Recent GAO Reports on the Federal Employees' Compensation Act

This testimony discusses three recent GAO reports on the workers' compensation program for federal employees, which provides benefits to government workers suffering from work-related injuries and occupational diseases. These reports address (1) the recovery of continuation-of-pay benefits in cases in which third parties were liable for injuries, (2) selected comparisons of provisions under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA) with provisions of other federal and state workers' compensation laws, and (3) issues associated with changing benefits for older FECA beneficiaries.

GAO noted that: (1) the federal government's workers' compensation program is authorized under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA); (2) this program, which is administered by the Department of Labor, provides employees suffering from work-related injuries and occupational diseases with various types of benefits, depending on the nature and extent of the injury and their ability to return to work; (3) GAO recommended that FECA be amended to allow the government to obtain refunds of COP benefits when injured employees recover damages from liable third parties; (4) injured employees are to continue to receive their regular pay for up to 45 days when they are absent from work for traumatic injuries; (5) because of interpretations of FECA by the Employees' Compensation Appeals Board and a federal court, the government no longer has a legal basis to obtain refunds of injured employees' COP benefits in third-party injury cases; (6) in effect, these employees receive a double recovery of income for their first 45 days of absence from work due to injury; (7) although the formula for calculating benefits under FECA was similar to most other laws, FECA's authorized maximum weekly benefit amount was greater; (8) unlike most states, FECA provides claimants with a spouse or a dependent with an additional benefit of 8 1/3 percent of salary; (9) under other workers' compensation laws, employees must be out of work for a 3- to 7-day waiting period before they can receive wage-loss benefits; (10) under FECA, the 3-day waiting period is preceded by a period of 45 days in which employees with traumatic injuries continue to receive their regular pay; (11) GAO's August 1996 report provided information on: (a) selected characteristics of individuals on FECA's long-term rolls; (b) views of proponents and opponents of changing FECA benefits for older beneficiaries; and (c) questions and issues that Congress might consider if crafting benefit changes; and (12) of the $1.28 billion in compensation benefits paid in 1995, about $611 million was paid to beneficiaries on the long-term rolls who were age 55 and older.