White House Opposes Pay Provisions

The Bush administration, as might be expected, has stated its opposition to several provisions of the Transportation-Treasury spending bill, stating that boosting the raise to 2.7 percent would cost an extra $600 million and would exceed average increases in private sector pay. “Any recruitment or retention challenges facing the Federal Government are limited to a few areas and occupations and are not addressed by arbitrary across-the board increases,” it said. The administration also objected to requiring the full raise to be paid at DoD and DHS, saying that would “unnecessarily complicate” the new pay systems at those departments. And it said that linking blue collar pay to local general schedule rates would “disregard” the design of the wage grade pay system, causing some to be overpaid in comparison with the private sector.