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By: FEDweek StaffA House subcommittee has taken the first of what will be many steps on Capitol Hill toward determining a January 2021 federal employee pay raise, approving a spending bill that doesn’t specify an increase but that leaves room for one.
By remaining silent on a raise in approving the general government appropriations bill, the panel followed a strategy often used in recent years of effectively endorsing the administration’s recommendation on a raise without explicitly saying so. Under federal pay law, if Congress does not specify a figure for the following year by the end of one year, the President’s recommendation take effect by default.
In this case, President Trump earlier this year recommended a 1 percent raise—to be paid across the board with no differences by locality—and also at the same time issued a statement that if Congress does not legislate a figure, he would impose that amount as the default raise.
That was a departure from past practice, in which such statements typically are issued in late August, just ahead of a deadline in the law for making such a statement.
Federal employee organizations said they were disappointed that the bill does not contain a specific figure even though it still leaves room for a raise. Allowing a default raise would in effect mean that 1 percent would be upper limit for a raise, at a time when organizations have been seeking 3.5 percent.
A figure still could be specified as the measure moves to voting in the full Appropriations Committee and then on the House floor—or, less likely, in the Senate which has not started drafting its version.
Congress is moving toward providing a 3 percent raise for uniformed military personnel as the White House recommended.
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