Unfinished business: The House has passed only six of the needed 12 regular appropriations bills and the Senate has not moved any. Image: GagliardiPhotography/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffThe Senate has followed the House in recessing until after Labor Day, leaving to September – and likely later – decisions on a number of key issues affecting federal employees.
When legislators return, they plan to be in session for only three weeks before recessing at the end of September, which also is the end of the current fiscal year. That raises the need to enact funding to head off a possible government shutdown when current spending authority lapses. That almost certainly would be a temporary measure rather than full-year funding.
The House has passed only six of the needed 12 regular appropriations bills and the Senate has not moved any even through the committee level—although it has drafted a version of each. An extension likely would continue until sometime in late November or even into December, since Congress will again stand in recess in October through the week after the November elections.
Along with issues of agency spending—and therefore staffing—levels for the new fiscal year the appropriations process determines the federal employee raise for 2023. Both chambers have moved to allow President Biden’s recommendation for a 4.6 percent increase to take effect by default by taking no position on the raise.
Also to be resolved is language to put into law a ban on moving career employees into the excepted service as then-President Trump ordered in late 2020 by creating a new Schedule F. That order would have stripped civil service protections from tens of thousands of career employees involved in policy matters and was revoked by President Biden almost immediately after taking office.
Language in the Senate version of an appropriations bill would require a change in law, not just an executive order, for any such move in the future. Language to the same end, although somewhat different in approach, also has passed the House in a separate bill, the DoD authorization.
The House’s DoD bill further would create a pay add-on—in addition to the 4.6 percent average general raise—of 2.4 percent for employees of that department making less than $45,000 a year. The Senate bill does not contain similar language, which the White House opposes on grounds that it would create disparities between DoD employees and those of other agencies at the same pay grades and in the same locations.
The DoD bill is high-profile and is considered a “must-pass,” raising the possibility that it will reach final enactment before the autumn recess, even though the full Senate has not yet voted on its version.
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See also,
What Are Desk Audits? Understanding Position Classification Appeals
Key Senate Bill Backs 4.6 Percent Raise, Would Ban Future Schedule F
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Your FERS Annuity is Worth More Than You Think
