Pay Raise Among First Orders of Business

The new Congress gets to work next week facing the need to deal with budget issues left over from the previous Congress, among them the still unresolved calendar year 2003 general schedule pay raise. An interim funding measure will expire January 11, meaning that some action must be taken by then, if only to enact the latest of the series of such measures that have kept the government funded since the current fiscal year started last October 1. As things currently stand, GS employees are due a 3.1 percent across-the-board raise effective with the first full pay period of the new calendar year. However, advocates of a 4.1 percent increase will move to have that figure enacted, either as part of a regular appropriations bill or as part of another stopgap funding measure.