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B-289496 1 (2001-12-21)

handle is hein.gao/gaocrptamti0001 and id is 1 raw text is: GAO ,Accountability * Integrity * Reliability United States General Accounting Office Washington, DC 20548 B-289496 December 21, 2001 Mr. Alan M. Hantman Architect of the Capitol Washington, D.C. 20515 Subject: Temporary Employees' Allotments Dear Mr. Hantman: This responds to your December 5, 2001, request for our opinion concerning your authority to transfer fringe benefit payments of temporary employees to union employee benefit trust funds on a pretax basis. For the reasons discussed below, you are authorized under current law to make direct payments on behalf of temporary employees to such trust funds, provided the employees have elected to make allotments and assignments of pay to the trust funds. However, such direct payments may be made on a pretax basis only where specifically authorized by statute or regulation. The Office of the Architect of the Capitol (Office of the Architect) has followed the practice of hiring, on a temporary basis, employees who are members of unions. Private employers typically agree to make contributions on behalf of their unionized employees into various employee benefit trust funds established by the unions that provide medical, welfare, training and other assistance to union members. The Office of the Architect has in the past paid to its temporary employees, in addition to their normal wages, an amount for fringe benefits equivalent to that contributed by private employers to the trust funds. As pointed out in your letter, a decision by this Office (B-189553, October 13, 1977) held that the Office of the Architect did not have the authority to make contributions directly into employee benefit trust funds. However, recently enacted legislation (Legislative Branch Appropriations Act, Fiscal Year 2002, Pub. L. No. 107-68, § 133(b), 115 Stat. 560, 582 (2001)) gave the Office of the Architect authority to permit employees to make allotments and assignments from their pay. Accordingly, you are of the view that your agency may transmit directly to union employee benefit trust funds that portion of employees' pay that represents fringe benefits. Your letter further indicates that your office and several labor unions disagree over whether the recently enacted legislation authorizes your office to deduct fringe benefit payments from employees' pay and deposit such allotments

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