HR 7781 — Parity for Tribal Educators Act

Summary

Makes employees of tribally controlled schools eligible to participate in the Federal Employees Retirement System and to receive a FERS pension.
Makes employees of tribally controlled schools eligible to participate in the Thrift Savings Plan.
Requires the Bureau of Indian Affairs to pay the government contributions for FERS and Thrift Savings Plan participation.
Allows covered employees to elect to opt out of FERS and Thrift Savings Plan coverage under procedures established by the Office of Personnel Management.
Applies to employees of tribally controlled schools that operate under contracts or grants under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act or the Tribally Controlled Schools Act of 1988.

AI-generated plain-language summary of the bill text — neutral, and may be imperfect. See the full text below for the exact wording.

Sponsor (1)

Rep. Vasquez, Gabe (D-NM) [#2]

3 cosponsors

Money behind the sponsor

Top reported contributors to Gabe Vasquez’s campaign committee (2024 cycle) — who funds the bill’s sponsor, not a claim about this bill. Data from FEC.

Employer not reported $84,794
SINGLETON SCHREIBER $36,300
MCGINN, MONTOYA, LOVE & CURRY $24,500
UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO $24,028
NEW MEXICO STATE UNIVERSITY $13,625

Organizations whose employees gave the most — itemized individual contributions grouped by the donor’s reported employer (FEC Schedule A). Full finance for Gabe Vasquez → · Outside spending →

Actions (2)

Mar 3, 2026 Referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. · house
Mar 3, 2026 Introduced in House

Similar bills (6)

Bills with similar text or summary — includes reintroductions across Congresses. Ranked by semantic similarity of the bill text (computed locally); a neutral discovery aid, not a claim the bills are duplicates.

Text versions (1)

Introduced in House · Mar 3, 2026

Only one text version is on file, so there’s no earlier version to compare against yet.

Full text

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

March 3, 2026

Mr. Vasquez (for himself and Mr. Johnson of South Dakota) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

A BILL

To provide that employees of tribally controlled schools are eligible to receive a pension under the Federal Employees Retirement System and to participate in the Thrift Savings Plan, and for other purposes.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the “Parity for Tribal Educators Act”.

SEC. 2. FERS PENSION AND TSP ELIGIBILITY FOR EMPLOYEES OF TRIBALLY CONTROLLED SCHOOLS.

(a) FERS Pension and TSP Eligibility.—

(1) In general.—A covered employee shall be deemed to be an employee (as that term is defined in section 8401 of title 5, United States Code) for purposes of subchapters II and III of chapter 84 of such title.

(2) Government contributions.—The Bureau of Indian Affairs shall pay the Government contributions under sections 8423 and 8432 of such title for the purposes of carrying out paragraph

(1).

(b) Opt Out.—Notwithstanding subsection (a), a covered employee may, under procedures established by the Director of the Office of Personnel Management, elect to not be covered under such subsection and not be deemed an employee (as that term is defined under such section 8401).

(c) Covered Employee Defined.—In this section, the term “covered employee” means any employee of a tribally controlled school (as defined in section 5212 of the Tribally Controlled Schools Act of 1988 (25 U.S.C. 2512)) that operates under—

(1) a contract under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (25 U.S.C. 5301 et seq.); or

(2) a grant under the Tribally Controlled Schools Act of 1988 (25 U.S.C. 2501 et seq.). <all>

Comments

Loading comments…