New Figure Adds Clarity, Confusion

Even as Congress has moved all year toward providing a 4.1 percent raise, the Bush administration has been continuing to argue for the 2.6 percent increase it offered in its original budget proposal earlier this year. Thus it came as somewhat of a surprise to some federal compensation experts that the President did not use his authority to again formally recommend that figure. By allowing the 3.1 percent figure to come into play, they say, the administration may have effectively consented to a raise at least that large, undercutting part of its argument that boosting the raise to 4.1 percent carries an unacceptably high dollar cost. One other possible outcome, they add, is that the 3.1 percent figure would become the baseline for the across-the-board component of the raise, with the money to pay the additional 1 percentage point divided up as locality pay.