FederalDaily.com > Senate Passes 3.1 Percent Pay Raise

FederalDaily - October 24, 2005

Senate Passes 3.1 Percent Pay Raise

The Senate has approved the Transportation, Treasury, the Judiciary, and Housing and Urban Development 2006 spending bill. Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Paul S. Sarbanes, both Maryland Democrats, said the legislation “marks a major victory for federal employees.” The senators said the bill helps to level the playing field in federal employees’ fight against unfair contracting out procedures and provides pay parity for all federal workers. Under new contracting provisions, federal employees are permitted to submit their own best bids, and contractors are required to demonstrate a savings of at least 10 percent or $10 million. The bill also includes a 3.1 percent cost-of-living-adjustment for all federal employees, including wage grade employees, civilian employees at the Department of Defense and all employees at the Department of Homeland Security. This is the same pay raise that is budgeted for military personnel, and it is more than the president proposed for federal employees—2.3 percent. Both the National Treasury Employees Union and the American Federation of Government Employees immediately issued statements applauding the Senate’s passage of this bill.

AFGE Suggestions for Improving FEMA

American Federation of Government Employees National Vice President Andrea E. Brooks responded to calls for reforming the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) by offering the union’s five solutions:

Replace top FEMA managers who have little emergency management experience with qualified, experienced emergency management experts.

Re-staff FEMA by filling career-level vacancies with qualified, experienced individuals.

Make participation in FEMA’s emergency teams, which are activated in the event of a disaster, a requirement of employment.

Institute a policy of non-interference for the Department of Homeland Security with regard to the response effort in the event of a disaster.

Evaluate and revise the “National Response Plan” to make it a useable and agile document.

VA Needs to Improve Acquisition Functions

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is among the largest federal acquisition agencies, spending $7.3 billion on product and service acquisitions in 2004 alone. But according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), recent reports by the VA and other organizations identified weaknesses in the agency’s acquisition function that could result in excess costs to the taxpayer. The Naval Supply Systems Command (NAVSUP) has previously made recommendations to the VA to improve acquisition functions. But GAO said progress made by the VA in implementing the key recommendations from the NAVSUP report has been limited. GAO said the steps the VA has taken range from “no action” to “partial action” to implement NAVSUP’s recommendations. For example, no more than partial action has been taken on the recommendation to improve employee morale. To read the full GAO report, go to www.gao.gov/new.items/d06144.pdf.

Agencies Should Better Track USERRA Complaints

The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) of 1994 protects millions of people, largely National Guard and Reserve members, as they transition between their military duties and their civilian jobs. The act protects them from discrimination based on their service in the uniformed services. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported last week that the federal agencies responsible for dealing with USERRA issues are less than successful. GAO said because informal complaint figures have not been captured on a consistent basis, agencies cannot identify total USERRA complaint trends. Further, the systems that the Departments of Defense (DoD), Labor (DOL) and Justice and the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) use to track USERRA complaints are not compatible. And although DoD, DOL and OSC have educated hundreds of thousands of employers and servicemembers about USERRA, the agencies don’t know if they are targeting employees who actually have servicemember employees. To read the GAO report, go to www.gao.gov/new.items/d0660.pdf.