In accordance with the Family and Medical Leave Act, House Chief Administrative Officer Dan Beard announced enhancements Monday to the House Officers’ Family and Medical Leave Policy. [IMGCAP(1)]

Starting Aug. 1, qualified employees who work in the offices of the CAO, Clerk, House Sergeant-at-Arms or Inspector General will receive up to six weeks of paid FMLA leave. Employees also can now take leave to care for a seriously ill sibling, defined as biological, adoptive, foster, or stepsister or stepbrother.

Starting Oct. 1, the yearlong period in which an employee is entitled to 12 workweeks of unpaid FMLA leave will be calculated on a rolling 12-month basis, measured backward from the date an employee uses the leave.

Benefits were equalized in June for the 1,200 workers who serve the House officers. The new standards are expected to create more efficiency, officials have said.

Information Breach. The Capitol Police Department is offering its officers free credit monitoring and identity theft insurance after an outside vendor handling payroll processing inadvertently compromised some officers’ Social Security numbers.

According to a internal notice distributed by Chief Phillip Morse on Friday, the exposure occurred during two incidents in March and June and included personal information from a payroll file.

After an internal investigation, the department concluded that “some officers may have inadvertently had their information exposed, but there isn’t any information to indicate that the information was compromised,” spokeswoman Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said on Monday.

Nevertheless, Schneider said, the department is being “overly cautious” in the matter and providing credit monitoring and identity theft insurance for officers. The brass also are taking precautions to prevent the accidental release of such information in the future, she said.

— Elizabeth Brotherton and John McArdle