THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2026 53 AFSA NEWS FAM Changes: What AFSA Members Need to Know AFSA Governing Board Meetings, May 20 and June 20, 2026 At its May meeting, the board approved the addition of a name to AFSA’s Virtual Memorial Plaque, as well as an “approval of revision” to include language to provide nominations accepted for consuls and diplomats serving before 1924. At its June meeting, the board approved the appointment of John Fazio to the Committee on Elections. In addition, the board approved the selection of an awardee for the AFSA Special Achievement Award. n One of the most common questions we hear from members is a variation on “Is AFSA tracking all the changes that are going on in the FAM?” The answer most definitely is “Yes, we’ve got this.” Since early last year, in the absence of official consultations with the department, we’ve developed many of our own processes to keep up with what is going on and maintain records that might be useful down the road. One of these activities involves charting substantive changes as they appear in the published Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM). As of this writing, we have documented 43 such changes in 3 FAM—the section that deals with personnel matters—and numerous changes in other sections of the FAM and the Foreign Affairs Handbook (FAH). (We are not including FAM changes that involve small wording changes or procedural updates that do not appear to have major impacts.) Our hope is that when AFSA regains its union status, we can once again engage 3 FAM 4170—“Review of Official and Personal Capacity Public Communications.” This rewrite expanded the types of communications that fall under this policy as well as the changed review processes for both official and personal communications. For updated guidance from AFSA, see https://afsa.org/guidelines-official -writing. 3 FAM 4370—“List of Offenses Subject to Disciplinary Action.” This update modifies the “Douglas factors” (Douglas v. Veterans Administration, 5 M.S.P.R. 280 (1981)) that are used to assess the severity of the penalty and removes the “like penalties for similar actions” standard from the process of promulgating penalties. AFSA take: The department is no longer following standard and long-established guidelines in handling discipline cases. 3 FAM 6213.6—“Foreign Service Mandatory Retirement.” The elimination of subsection 6213.5 ended the annuity exception, which had provided that the timein-class (TIC) of a member of the Service who was not yet eligible for an immediate annuity would not expire until the member became eligible for such an annuity. AFSA take: If you reach your TIC limit, you will be separated whether or not you are immediately eligible for a pension. Affected members can reach out to AFSA for assistance. 3 FAM 3280—“Special Needs Education Allowance.” There are several important updates including that qualifying services must now be authorized by MED/CFP prior to incurring costs in order to be eligible for reimbursement. In addition, the timing for reviews has changed as has the list of reference school districts. For updated guidance from AFSA, please see the SNEA Updates AFSAnet. in productive discussions to repair many potholes now encumbering the Foreign Service career path. But we’re not waiting until that day. Many of the recent changes formed the basis of our agenda this year on the Hill, which focused on legislative fixes such as returning to long-established reduction-inforce rules and restoring the annuity exception. The unilateral nature of these FAM/FAH revisions made by the department have also been the basis for several unfair labor practices and implementation disputes filed by our General Counsel’s office. AFSA’s staff regularly reviews the FAM, but we also want to encourage any members who become aware of changes in either the FAM or the FAH to bring them to our attention, so that we can update our records. You can reach us at member@afsa.org. n To highlight this issue:
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy ODIyMDU=