Pay Order May Be Coming

Under federal pay law, the President has an annual opportunity, with an August 31 deadline, to make a federal pay raise recommendation that could become the default raise for the following January if Congress does not enact a specific figure. That would be an opportunity for President Bush to once again back the 2.9 percent January 2009 raise he recommended earlier this year rather than the 3.9 percent figure working its way through Congress. In some years a President makes such an "alternative" raise recommendation and in some years he doesn’t; even when he does, the action typically becomes a moot point later because Congress generally enacts a raise figure, and once that bill is signed into law that figure overrides any earlier action. There have been years, however, when the President’s alternative raise took effect by default because a raise number was not enacted by the end of a calendar year. In several of those cases, a higher raise was paid retroactively following enactment of overriding legislation early in the next year.