Fiscal issues put federal workers in crosshairs — again

To minimize the impact on civilians, the union suggested that Defense:

l“Freeze new service contracts.”

Joe Davidson

Joe Davidson writes the Federal Diary, a column about the federal workplace that celebrated its 80th birthday in November 2012. Davidson previously was an assistant city editor at The Washington Post and a Washington and foreign correspondent with The Wall Street Journal, where he covered federal agencies and political campaigns.

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l“Prohibit the conversion of work performed by temporary federal employees or term employees to contractors.”

l“Ensure that no portion of functions performed by both federal employees and contractors be shifted from federal employees to contractors, so equal or greater cuts must come from the contractor workforce.”

l“Match any reduction in federal employee costs that is achieved by furloughs with cuts in service contract expenditures.”

Union President J. David Cox Sr. said, “Cordoning off contractor costs and focusing almost exclusively on cutting just federal employees is bad budget policy. Worse, it will force more extensive cuts in services for each dollar eliminated than if the costs of contractors were subject to the same level of cuts as civilian employees.”

Speaking of cuts to civilian employees, the National Treasury Employees Union is protesting a separate attempt to hit up federal employees to fill budget holes. This time it’s a Republican congressman’s plan to take money from transit benefits for feds and slice federal agency budgets to fund relief for victims of Hurricane Sandy.

In a letter to Congress, union President Colleen M. Kelley said a proposal by Rep. Mick Mulvaney (S.C.) would require cuts of 1.63 percent for all agencies. That “would only further impede the federal government’s ability to continue providing the critical services the American people rely on, whether it is securing our nation’s border, ensuring our food supply is safe, or protecting consumers and investors,” she said.

Another Mulvaney proposal to offset the cost of emergency aid by eliminating the federal worker transit benefit would single out and punish them, she added.

This, Kelley said, would “unfairly target employees who have already sacrificed so much in recent years.”

The congressman said he thinks the government can provide storm relief “while finding ways to pay for it.”

For Mulvaney, one way is to tap the wallets of federal workers.

Twitter: @JoeDavidsonWP

Previous columns by Joe Davidson are available at wapo.st/JoeDavidson.