White House Repeats Raise Position

The Bush administration, in a report on managing federal spending, has reiterated its stance against across-the-board federal raises and in favor of raises more targeted to performance and labor markets. The workforce is diverse and “deserves a targeted approach to setting and adjusting pay rates; an across-the-board pay increase will not achieve the desired result because it may be too small an increase where we do have workforce needs and too large an increase where we do not.” Agencies are “linking the performance expectations of their leaders and managers to the agency’s goals and are cascading those performance expectations throughout their organizations. The President and Congress are working to determine the pay policy that best allows agencies to target specific personnel needs and opportunities, and gives agencies better tools with which to address skill gaps and recruit, retain, and reward the quality people they need to accomplish their missions,” the report said.