Proposals Could Require Federal Employees to Pay More

Congress is back at work from a two-week recess, but key issues involving federal employee benefits addressed in budget plans passed by both chambers are on the congressional back burner at least temporarily. The budget measures differed in various ways, although both would require employees to pay higher retirement contributions on the order of six percent of salary more. They also assumecuts to achieve spending limits, which the House, at least, assumes would be done by targeting the FERS “special retirement supplement” and the government’s contributions to FEHB premiums, reducing the rates of return in the TSP’s government securities G fund, and cutting the federal workforce by attrition. Neither version takes a position on a January 2016 pay raise, a silence that for the last two years has helped pave the way for the White House’s recommendation—for 2016, that would be 1.3 percent—to take effect by default. A House-Senate conference is needed to resolve differences, mainly in the areas of projected defense spending. Assuming a compromise is produced, there would be another round of voting—although the measure would not then be presented to the White House. Following that, the savings assumptions would have to be turned into specific language that would have to go through the normal legislative process. Those appropriations bills could start moving in the weeks ahead; that is a months-long process in itself.