Pay Order May Be Coming

By: fedweek

Under federal pay law, the President has an annual opportunity, with an August 31 deadline, to set 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 3 percent January 2008 raise he recommended earlier this year rather than the 3.5 percent figure working its way through Congress. In some years a President makes such a recommendation and in some years he doesn’t; even when he does, the action typically becomes a moot point because Congress generally enacts a raise figure as part of an appropriations bill in the autumn, and once that bill is signed into law that figure overrides any earlier recommendation. This year, the House has passed an appropriations bill specifying a 3.5 percent average general schedule raise in January and the Senate committee-passed version of the measure sets the same amount.