Budget Also on Plate

Also getting attention over the next several weeks will be the annual appropriations bills, which leaders are hoping to get enacted before the start of the new fiscal year October 1 despite getting a late start due to the Presidential transition. Congress already has backed continued parity between civilian and military raises, which if enacted likely would mean an average January federal raise of 2.9 percent, or possibly 3.4 percent–the first indicator of the military figure used as a marker will be in the DoD authorization bill. The appropriations process has been used in recent years to impose a series of restrictions on contracting out of federal jobs and a current ban on starting new studies could be continued. The Obama administration has proposed an extension, and is continuing a separate review of which jobs should be subject to such studies. Meanwhile, proposals are pending in Congress to impose new restrictions on the underlying policies, stop ongoing studies that have dragged out, and bring in-house some of the work that already has been given to contractors.