Decision Time Near on Raise, Other Issues

Congress is pushing toward a scheduled adjournment for the year at the end of next week, piling up planned votes on a number of issues including funding the government for the rest of the fiscal year, now more than two months old, after a stopgap expires December 11. Several options are being considered to avoid the type of partial government shutdown that occurred last year, including a catchall measure covering all agencies for the rest of the year except for DHS, which would get only a short-term extension due to disputes over immigration policy. Any budget measure carrying beyond the turn of the year that does not address the 2015 federal pay raise would allow a 1 percent raise to take effect by default. The House plans to vote this week and the Senate next week on the annual DoD authorization (S-1847), which extends several special benefits for employees assigned to danger zones and continues through 2019 an authority allowing agencies to rehire retirees part-time for certain periods without an offset between their salaries and their annuities. And a tax policy bill (HR-5771) that also would go first to a House vote would boost the allowable tax-free subsidy that many agencies pay employees to use public transit in their commuting from $130 to $250 a month retroactive to the start of 2014, when it dropped on the expiration of a previous temporary increase; however, it might then drop again for 2015, depending on how the final language is written.