Congress returns next week from a five-week recess but has scheduled only three weeks of work, a total of 12 days, before planning to recess again through the elections. In that time, a main order of business will be to enact stopgap funding for the fiscal year that begins October 1, with a temporary measure likely extending until sometime in November or even early December, where the budget would be left for a lame-duck session already planned. There is little expectation of a partial government shutdown as happened last year when the new fiscal year arrived with no budget in place. Most likely some or even all of the regular appropriations bills—which set agency funding levels that in turn drive employment levels and a host of other policies—will be merged into a catchall bill, which might extend through the entire new fiscal year or only just into part of it. Such bills commonly become the vehicle for policy changes, including potentially proposals to impose further limits on attendance at conferences and to restrict performance awards for employees who are delinquent on their personal taxes or who have committed misconduct. Also, a move could be made to extend the recently enacted limits on appeal rights for SES members at VA to the SES at other agencies or to other levels of employees.