Time for Key Decisions Running Short

Congress will take a recess next week and afterward has only two scheduled weeks of work before adjourning for the year, having made little progress in its first two post-election working weeks on issues affecting federal employees. Still to be decided is a budget for agencies for the remainder of this fiscal year after a current stopgap measure expires December 11. One option is to enact a measure lasting the remainder of the fiscal year, although some in Congress favor a series of only short-term measures to use the threat of a partial government shutdown as leverage on issues such as immigration policy. If whatever bill eventually is enacted carrying beyond the end of this calendar year is silent on a raise, a 1 percent increase would take effect in January by default. Various employment policy provisions could hitch a ride on such a measure, or on another priority bill that has not moved yet, the annual DoD authorization. One decision that has been made is that starting in January Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, will take over the key House panel that handles federal employment policies, the Oversight and Government Reform Committee. As a subcommittee chairman, Chaffetz has been active in oversight of the Secret Service and has been the main sponsor of a bill to require the firing of federal employees who are seriously delinquent on their taxes. He also supported a now-stalled bipartisan bill to allow employees who retire or separate for other reasons to invest payments for unused annual leave in the TSP.