More 1.4% pay raise reax: ‘Better than no increase at all’
February 1st, 2010 | 2011 Budget | Posted by Steve Losey
Reactions are starting to roll in on what may be the smallest pay raise in the General Schedule’s history. The three largest federal unions applauded the White House’s return to pay parity, but objected that the modest pay raise would do little to close the pay gap between federal and private-sector workers. The American Federation of Government Employees, National Treasury Employees Union and the National Federation of Federal Employees all pledged to push Congress to increase the administration’s modest pay raise.
Here’s a sampling of comments:
At best, 1.4 percent is a modest adjustment. But in this economy, a modest increase is better than no increase at all.
- NFFE National President William Dougan
Tags: 2011 pay raise, budget, Unions
Orszag on 1.4% pay raise: “To a lot of Americans, that sounds pretty good”
February 1st, 2010 | 2011 Budget | Posted by Gregg Carlstrom
Happy budget day! I’m running from one press conference to another — but a couple of quick notes from the just-ended press conference with OMB director Peter Orszag.
First, he offered a couple of thoughts on the proposed 1.4 percent pay raise for civilian employees and military personnel. The raise is lower than most federal pay raises — lower even than last year’s 2 percent raise, which was widely criticized as too small.
Tags: Christina Romer, Peter Orszag
2011 Budget protects feds, tightens contracting
February 1st, 2010 | 2011 Budget Procurement | Posted by Elise Castelli
Federal employees worried that their jobs will be outsourced to the private sector can rest easy for another year. The 2011 budget proposal continues a governmentwide moratorium on public-private competitions for federal work.
But contractors may face further insourcing under the proposal. While blocking agencies from competing federal work, the budget’s “general provisions” section requires agencies to take a head count of all contractor employees performing services for the government. The so-called “service contract inventory” must also include the name of the vendor, the type of service provided and the cost of that service.
Businesses may also see fewer federal contracts on the street in fiscal 2011 as the White House renewed its call for agencies to meet the $40 billion contract savings target by the end of that year. To meet this savings goal, the White House encouraged agencies to buy in bulk.
Tags: A-76, contracting, insourcing, outsourcing, strategic sourcing
BREAKING NEWS: White House proposes 1.4 percent pay raise
February 1st, 2010 | 2011 Budget | Posted by Steve Losey
The White House is proposing a 1.4 percent pay raise for federal civilian employees in 2011. That is the same pay raise the Obama administration is proposing for military service members.
The budget document can be found here. Keep watching FederalTimes.com for more budget information breaking throughout the day.
Analysts: Obama’s freeze won’t be too painful
January 28th, 2010 | 2011 Budget White House | Posted by Gregg Carlstrom
Much has been written about the politics of President Obama’s call for a partial spending freeze. (In short, they’re hard to figure out: The freeze annoys liberals, it’s too small to placate conservatives, and because it exempts defense spending, it hasn’t earned many plaudits from real fiscal hawks.)
Less has been written about the policy side, partly because the details of the freeze won’t be public until Obama releases his budget on Monday. But the sense I get — and I alluded to this in a quick State of the Union story last night — is that the freeze will really have a minimal impact on federal employees, both on their priorities and their pay.
Tags: Barack Obama, spending freeze, State of the Union address
Obama to slash bonuses, raises for political appointees
January 27th, 2010 | 2011 Budget Pay & Benefits | Posted by Gregg Carlstrom
In addition to calling for a freeze on non-security discretionary spending, the White House also plans to freeze the pay and suspend the bonuses of more than 1,200 political appointees.
Obama will issue a directive in the next few days suspending the bonuses, according to administration officials. That directive will cover more than 3,000 appointees. And his budget request, scheduled for release on Feb. 1, will propose a pay freeze for top political appointees — a move which would affect 1,200 people, including White House officials, department heads and ambassadors (except for career foreign service officers serving as ambassadors).
The White House wouldn’t say how much money it expects to save with this plan — though the savings would be relatively modest, at least compared to the $1 trillion+ federal budget deficit.
Tags: Barack Obama, salary freeze
Nabors: “Not an across-the-board cut”
January 26th, 2010 | 2011 Budget Agencies OMB | Posted by Gregg Carlstrom
OMB deputy director Rob Nabors held a conference call with reporters a little while ago to talk about President Obama’s proposed three-year “non-security discretionary spending freeze.”
As we mention over on the homepage, the freeze only affects a fraction of the federal budget: $447 billion, or about 17 percent of total spending. Nabors clarified that it exempts Defense, Homeland Security, the VA, and the entire State/international affairs section of the federal budget. He also emphasized that the cuts aren’t uniform.
It’s not an across-the-board cut. We have honored the president’s commitment and gone line-by-line through the budget trying to find those programs that aren’t working, aren’t achieving their mission.
So some agencies in that “non-security discretionary” category will see their budgets continue to increase. Education, for example, probably will see some gains.
The flip side is that other agencies could actually see their budgets shrink. That’s simple math: If the $447 billion figure is fixed, and some agencies get more money, others have to receive less. We won’t know for sure until Monday, though, when the administration’s budget request is released. (And of course this all assumes Congress agrees to a freeze, which it hasn’t yet…)
Tags: Barack Obama, Rob Nabors, spending freeze
GPO to send Gibbs his own Kinko’s card
January 12th, 2010 | 2011 Budget | Posted by Steve Losey
A GPO employee oversees the printing of the fiscal 2010 budget last year/Photo courtesy of Government Printing Office
Nobody can say that the Government Printing Office lacks a sense of humor. After FedLine blogged White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ joke yesterday about sending the federal budget to Kinko’s — now called FedEx Office — GPO today said it will send Gibbs his own Kinko’s card.
Technically, it’s a GPOExpress card. Those cards allow federal employees to place a small-scale printing order at any FedEx Office branch and net the government up to 70 percent off of the cost. Public Printer Bob Tapella, who runs the agency, said GPOExpress has helped feds place more than 40,000 printing orders since the program was created in 2005.
But when it comes to the federal budget, GPO said that’s handled in-house. GPO said its printers and the Office of Management and Budget are sometimes still finalizing the budget the night before its release.
“GPO obviously does not take offense to Mr. Gibbs’ tongue-in-cheek comments on the printing of the budget,” Tapella said.
Tags: budget, fun, GPO, Kinko's, Robert Gibbs
The federal budget, brought to you by Kinko’s?
January 11th, 2010 | 2011 Budget | Posted by Steve Losey
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs appeared to announce a new outsourcing initiative at today’s press conference:
MR. GIBBS: I’m not going to get into details and specifics on a budget that will be released at a later day.
Q: It’s at the printers?
MR. GIBBS: And when it comes back from Kinko’s, we’ll be able to talk about it. It’s not really at Kinko’s, though, I was just — go ahead.
That sound you just heard was the Government Printing Office having a collective heart attack. Who knows what would happen to them if the White House actually started sending an intern down to the corner Kinko’s with all 2,500 pages of the budget on a thumb drive.
Tags: budget, fun, GPO, Kinko's, Robert Gibbs