The Office of Personnel Management has sent Congress a
budget justification document saying that while both
the federal civilian and military would get a 2.2 percent
increase in January 2002 under the White House’s budget
proposal, the Bush administration “has not embraced pay
parity for parity’s sake. It is not meaningful to compare
military and civilian annual pay raises when there are
so many varied elements of both military and civilian
compensation,” the document says. That comes as some
employee organizations and members of Congress termed
the proposal for same-sized raises a recognition by the
White House of the desirability for equal raises for
both groups–which Congress has ordered in most years for
the last two decades, often over White House recommendations
for smaller increases for federal employees. The 2.2 percent
amount “is a generous increase that will boost our recruitment
and retention efforts,” the document says.
