For January 2024, the White House has recommended a 5.2 percent federal pay raise, although that could lowered as part of debt ceiling negotiations. Image: Orhan Cam/Shutterstock.com
The House Appropriations Committee has started to advance the spending bills needed to fund federal agencies for the fiscal year that starts October 1, starting with approval at the subcommittee level of bills covering DHS, VA-military construction, Agriculture-FDA, and Congress itself.
The key bill for federal employees, the general government bill, is not yet on the schedule. That bill typically is where Congress sets a figure for the federal pay raise for the following year, if it chooses to do so. In many recent years, including the last two, it instead has remained silent, allowing the President’s recommendation to take effect by default.
For January 2024, the White House has recommended 5.2 percent, what would be the largest raise in four decades. Federal employees and some Democrats in Congress are pushing for an even larger raise of 8.7 percent, but even a 5.2 percent raise may be out of reach, given the potential for capping agency spending under a possible agreement on raising the federal debt ceiling (see related story).
The general government bill also often is used as the vehicle for changes to policy, by denying funding. House Republicans already have indicated their intent to use that tool, adding language to the DHS, Agriculture-FDA and VA bills to bar spending on Biden administration diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, including those directly affecting the federal workforce. While those provisions would affect only those two departments, similar language could be attached to the general government bill when it comes up for voting.
Another potential target would be agency telework policies, with the potential for including language similar to that in a bill the House passed early in the year requiring agencies to return telework to pre-pandemic levels and keep it there unless they can make a business case for higher levels.
The committee also has signaled that it may use that power on individual agency elements, with proposed language in the VA bill to defund that department’s office of public affairs due to what it calls “inaccurate and politically motivated press releases” about the potential impact on veterans of a House Republican-passed debt ceiling bill that would cap discretionary spending at agencies other than DoD. The bill covering Agriculture meanwhile would deny the White House request for additional staff at that department’s headquarters.
A summary of the DHS bill however says it does include additional funding for the TSA to maintain pay for screeners there at higher levels approved last year and that are due to begin in July.
Voting at the full committee level has been delayed pending the outcome of negotiations over the federal debt ceiling and potential language in such an agreement to set overall spending levels for fiscal 2024 and beyond.
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