Senate Following Lead on Raise

The Senate this week could vote on its version of the Transportation-Treasury spending bill (HR-3058) that like the House version would set the January 2006 federal pay raise at 3.1 percent in the name of maintaining parity of raises with uniformed military personnel. The Senate committee-passed version would require that in contracting out studies the in-house bid must be based on a “most efficient organization” and it bars contracting-out unless the projected savings from contractor performance would be at least 10 percent or $10 million. That approach differs somewhat from the House-passed restrictions on contracting, which essentially would override those and other policy changes that the Bush administration made two years ago.