By Stephen Barr
Thursday, September 28, 2006

Concerned that Congress is moving toward providing a 2.2 percent pay raise for the military next year, a leading veterans' group said that with troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, this is not the time to skimp on a raise.

The House approved a fiscal 2007 defense appropriations bill late Tuesday that would raise military pay by 2.2 percent, effective in January. Senate negotiators have signed off on the raise, but the full Senate has not voted on the spending bill.

More than just the military raise may be at stake because the military raise usually spills over into the civil service. Congress in most recent years has adopted a "pay parity" policy that calls for equal raises for the two workforces.

The Military Officers Association of America, known as MOAA, yesterday urged Congress to approve a 2.7 percent across-the-board raise for the armed forces. "As a nation, we ought to do better for our military than we are about to do," said Norb Ryan Jr. , president of MOAA and a retired vice admiral.

MOAA and other military groups made some progress toward a 2.7 percent military raise earlier this year when the House approved it as part of a fiscal 2007 authorization bill for defense programs. The Senate version, however, stuck with the White House's recommendation for a 2.2 percent raise.

The bill moving this week through Congress, for appropriations, provides funds for defense operations for the coming year. The authorization bill, in contrast, sets broad policy and spending guidelines. In most years, they are in sync on raise and other personnel issues.

House-Senate negotiators on the defense authorization bill will not comment on the status of the pay raise or any other item until they have wrapped up their agreement, known as a conference report, a spokesman for the Senate Armed Services Committee said.

Ryan said that regardless of which proposed raise gets adopted, it would be the smallest military raise in 11 years. Over much of the past decade, MOAA and other advocates for military personnel have pushed to close a salary gap with the private sector, and from 2000 through 2006 Congress approved increases slightly higher than the average wage growth in the private sector, as measured by a Labor Department index.

Approving the proposed 2.2 percent raise for 2007 will send the wrong message to military families, Ryan said, noting that some U.S. forces in Iraq have been extended involuntarily and that some troops are being asked to return to Iraq after less than a year at home.

The raise issue is also complicated by a separate appropriations bill that covers federal workforce issues. The House approved a 2.7 percent raise for the civil service in that bill. The Senate version, which awaits a floor vote, recommends the same size raise.

The chairman of the key Senate subcommittee, Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.), has warned that, given the difference with the proposed 2.2 percent military raise, there could be pressure to "bring civilian pay down to that level."

In a move that may be more about symbolism than substance, House and Senate negotiators on the defense spending bill have prohibited the Pentagon from spending money on disputed parts of the new National Security Personnel System (NSPS).

The provision, sponsored by Reps. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.), Walter B. Jones Jr. (R-N.C.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), would prevent the Defense Department from carrying out plans to restrict union rights and revise procedures for disciplining civil service employees.

A federal district court has blocked those parts of the NSPS on grounds that they fail to ensure collective bargaining rights, do not provide an independent third-party review of labor relations decisions and would leave employees without a fair process for appealing major disciplinary actions. The case is on appeal.

The Pentagon has contended that the Inslee amendment is unnecessary because NSPS officials are complying with the court's injunction.

After Sen. Daniel K. Akaka (D-Hawaii) and others proposed a compromise, House and Senate negotiators narrowed the original Inslee amendment so that the Pentagon can go ahead with changes in how the department's civil service employees are evaluated on their job performance. If the Pentagon wins on appeal, the spending ban would be lifted, according to the provision.

"The Defense Department never should have implemented a personnel system that denies basic worker rights," Inslee said.

Gregory Junemann , president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, said the funding ban "is reflective of key lawmakers' growing frustration that management's unilateral creation of NSPS has been one fiasco after another."

Diary associate Eric Yoder contributed to this report. E-mail Stephen Barr atbarrs@washpost.com.