The House and Senate Budget committees tomorrow will begin writing their budget resolutions for fiscal 2006 -- the first in a series of legislative steps that help shape federal workforce issues, including next year's federal pay raise.
Leaders of congressional committees and key lawmakers have sent letters to the budget committees outlining areas of concern and changes they are urging in the president's budget plan.
 
Friday's Question:
| | |
|
The two Republican-controlled committees that oversee the federal workforce, for example, break with President Bush's budget recommendation and call for equal pay raises for military and civil service employees next year. Bush has recommended a 3.1 percent raise for the military and a 2.3 percent raise for the civil service.
"I urge you to provide for pay parity in the budget for FY 2006," Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said in her letter to Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg (R-N.H.).
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.), the ranking minority member on Collins's committee, added in his own letter: "Our commitment to adequate military pay must again be matched by ensuring parity in pay increases for civilian employees."
The House Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.), sent a "views and estimates" letter to the House Budget Committee that also supports parity in pay adjustments for General Schedule employees next year.
The resolutions prepared by the budget committees serve as guidelines to the Appropriations committees, which put together the annual spending bills. They typically set macro tax and spending policies but sometimes stall in each house because of partisan differences.
Federal employees and retirees may have more at stake this year than previous years. The chairmen of the budget committees may resist efforts to include a pay parity provision, in part to hold down the number of issues that split with White House policy.
Given the rising federal deficit, the budget committees also may order other congressional committees to find cost savings in the programs that they oversee -- a process called reconciliation. If such cuts are ordered, the committees that handle federal employee programs -- Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and Government Reform -- would face tough choices because most of the money under their jurisdiction is in the federal retirement and health insurance programs.
In addition to addressing the federal pay raise, Collins and the House committee called for adjustments on U.S. Postal Service pension and health care obligations as a way to hold down mailing costs.
The House committee also signaled support for a new personnel system for federal law enforcement officers as a way to bring uniformity to compensation, an expansion of tax-free mass transit subsidies to federal employees in the Washington area and a tax code change that would allow federal retirees to
pay their health insurance premiums on a pretax basis.
Collins and Lieberman called attention to an array of issues at the Department of Homeland Security. The senators, for instance, expressed concern that Bush's budget does not contain adequate funds for the Homeland Security inspector general, noting that the IG office does not appear to have enough investigative staff members to probe allegations of waste, fraud and abuse in the giant department.
The senators also suggest that the budget's call for placing federal employees on performance-based pay systems is premature and should wait until after Congress has had a chance to examine the changes in pay and personnel rules that are being made at the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security.
Collins noted that the Senate committee expects Homeland Security "to involve employees and their representatives" in the implementation of the new personnel system.
Retirements
Zoltan Bagdy retired Feb. 3 after 39 years at the Labor Department, including 35 years with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, where he served as an executive in compliance assistance, training and outreach.
Bill Glinka, supervisory special agent for the Department of Homeland Security in South Burlington, Vt., retired Thursday after more than 27 years of federal service.
George Paine, desk officer for Australia and New Zealand at the Commerce Department, retired Thursday after 38 years of government service.
William Shumann, a public affairs specialist at the Federal Aviation Administration, retired Feb. 28 after 7 1/2 years with the agency.
Kathleen Taylor, chief of the employment and labor law division at the Commerce Department, retired Feb. 3 after 31 years of federal service.
E-mail: barrs@washpost.com
