The House and Senate Armed Services Committees this week will start writing the Defense Department authorization bill, an annual measure that in many years is the vehicle for changes in federal personnel policies, both at DoD and government-wide. For example, Congress often uses the measure to impose restrictions on contracting-out at DoD, which has most of the jobs subject to conversion to contractor performance. The measure also is the measure setting the military pay raise, which in most recent years has been the standard-bearer for the federal employee raise in the name of pay parity between the two groups. Congress is expected to grant routine approval to the White House’s request for a 3.5 percent military raise in January 2005, the figure indicated by a pay law applying to the military. For the last several years the department also was granted authority to pay higher raises to certain uniformed personnel, making the average military raise actually higher than the average federal employee raise. The White House has not requested targeted military raises for 2005, although some in Congress believe they still are needed.