Key Panel Reshuffled

The appropriations committees of Congress are being reorganized by the new leadership, in part to end a situation that existed in the last several years in which the House and Senate had different numbers of subcommittees on those panels. As part of the reshuffle, there will be a change in jurisdiction over federal pay and central management agencies such as OPM, OMB and GSA, as well as appeals agencies such as MSPB and FLRA. That will be moved from what had been the Transportation-Treasury subcommittee to a new Financial Services and General Government subcommittee, which also will oversee financial and regulatory agencies. The effect could be to somewhat raise the profile of federal employee issues in the appropriations panels, since those issues often were overshadowed by major transportation, housing and judicial issues that were under the jurisdiction of the Transportation-Treasury panel. The chairman of the House subcommittee will be Rep. Jose Serrano, D-N.Y while Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., will head the Senate subcommittee.