Local Government Workers To Get 2.64% Raise in '07

P resident Bush offered some holiday cheer yesterday by issuing an executive order that provides pay raises next year for federal employees, military personnel, Cabinet officers and members of Congress.

Washington-Baltimore federal employees will receive a 2.64 percent increase under a salary formula that gives higher adjustments to metropolitan areas where federal pay has lagged the furthest behind the private sector. The average civil service raise will be 2.2 percent under the order.

Members of the armed forces will also see their base pay rise next year by an average 2.2 percent, though some military personnel will receive higher increases because they are in hard-to-fill positions or have special skills.

Salaries for House members and senators will climb to $168,000, up from $165,200. Congress has put the raise on hold, however, because Democrats first want to approve an increase in the minimum wage, which they believe will prove popular with voters.

Cabinet secretaries will make $186,600 in 2007, up from $183,500 this year. The vice president's salary will be $215,700, rising from $212,100. (The president's salary has been fixed at $400,000 since 2001.)

The new pay tables show that a captain in the armed forces with four years of service will earn $52,704 in base pay next year and that a typical Foreign Service officer with five years of service will earn $62,935 in base pay.

Federal employees in the Washington area average 16 years of service and earn an average of $89,128, federal data show.

In most years, Congress has approved a federal employee raise by this time of the year and the presidential order merely ratifies that decision.

But Congress has not acted on a civil service raise for next year, in part because the Senate could not clear most of the fiscal 2007 spending bills. The government, except for the departments of Defense and Homeland Security, is operating on an interim funding measure, known as a continuing resolution, that expires Feb. 15. The Defense and DHS bills were passed and signed into law by Bush.

With no congressional action on the federal raise, Bush signaled last month that he would issue his order and trigger the publication of new salary tables. Most of the raises will take effect Jan. 7, officials said.

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), who will be the House majority leader next year, called the Bush announcement "disappointing" but not a surprise. If Congress had completed work on the transportation-Treasury spending bill, he said, federal employees would be receiving an average raise of 2.7 percent, slightly higher than what Bush has ordered.

"This illustrates once again that when the legislative branch fails to use the power of the purse strings as the Constitution provides, the executive branch fills the vacuum," Hoyer said.

The leader of a union that represents employees in 30 federal agencies suggested that Bush acted like a Grinch. "The reality is that about half the members of the federal workforce will receive a meager pay raise of only 1.8 percent in 2007 -- the lowest amount in 18 years," said Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union.

Federal pay is allocated according to geographic areas, and employees outside 31 specially designated metropolitan areas will receive the 1.8 percent raise. The highest-percentage raise goes to federal employees in the New York City area, 3.02 percent.

The NTEU and the American Federation of Government Employees said they will lobby Congress to increase the civil service and military pay raises when lawmakers return next month.

Congress also has not acted on judicial pay for 2007, and Bush's order keeps the judiciary at its 2006 rates. If Congress does not approve a pay measure for judges, the chief justice of the United States will continue at $212,100, with associate Supreme Court justices at $203,000 and federal district court judges at $165,200 annually.

Santa's Fly Zone

Santa Claus has turned to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency for a new digital navigation system to help Rudolph plot his sleigh route around the globe. It's called the NGA Toy Delivery System X-100, and tech-savvy kids will want to watch at http://www.nga.mil.

Talk Shows

Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) and David M. Walker, head of the Government Accountability Office, will be the guests on "Inside Government" at 10 a.m. today on http://federalnewsradio.com and WFED radio (1050 AM).

Navy Capt. James J. Shannon, a program manager for future combat systems, will be the guest on "The IBM Business of Government Hour" at 9 a.m. Saturday on WJFK radio (106.7 FM).