Both the House and Senate versions of the key financial services-general government spending bill effectively support granting a January 2016 federal employee raise by remaining silent about it. That has been the practice the last two years, and once again would mean that the White House’s proposal would take effect by default, assuming no specific number is enacted into law by the end of this calendar year. The White House has proposed 1.3 percent and is expected to repeat that number in a late-August order needed to set a default raise in those circumstances. Like the House measure, the Senate version also would continue the practice of the last several years of denying any raise to political appointees while raising the executive schedule pay rates on paper. That would in turn raise the pay caps of career employees paid under several high-level pay systems. Unlike the 1 percent raises for 2014 and 2015 set under the action by inaction procedure that were paid entirely across the board for employees below those levels, some of the 2016 raise likely will be carved out as locality pay and the funds for that portion divided up proportionately according to indicated local pay gaps. That would be necessary to launch the planned 13 new localities for 2016, a plan that itself still needs to be finalized. The Senate measure also would keep in place a longstanding ban on starting new “Circular A-76” cost studies that can lead to contracting out of federal jobs.