President Trump on Thursday headed off a potential substantial raise for federal workers in the event of a congressional budget deadlock, repeating his call for lawmakers to freeze the salaries of 2 million federal employees in 2019. Without Trump’s intervention, a 1990 federal pay law would give federal workers a default raise of nearly 30 percent if Congress failed to reach a decision on an increase before the end of the calendar year. “Under current law, locality pay increases averaging 25.70 percent, costing $25 billion, would go into effect in January 2019, in addition to a 2.1 percent across-the-board increase for the base General Schedule. “I strongly oppose eliminating the pay raise for civilian federal employees and will work with my colleagues to have the pay raise included in our appropriations,” Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) said in a statement. Across-the-board pay increases and locality pay increases, in particular, have long-term fixed costs, yet fail to address existing pay disparities or target mission critical recruitment and retention goals.”The budget proposal sought creation of a $1 billion fund to reward high performers and pay incentives for hard-to-fill positions.

Source: Washington Post August 30, 2018 18:38 UTC