House passes GAO pay bill, minus investigative provisions
Measure would restore pay increases to hundreds of agency employees who have said they were wrongly denied raises in 2006 and 2007.
The House on Monday approved a bill making managerial and pay system changes at the Government Accountability Office after Democrats removed contested provisions that would have beefed up the agency's investigative authority.
In a May vote, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee included provisions in the bill aimed at strengthening the congressional auditing agency's investigative power.
The committee amended the bill to give GAO investigators the ability to administer oaths to agency employees, request information from the Department of Health and Human Services regarding Medicare Part D and demand that Food and Drug Administration turn over any information, even if it involves trade secrets.
GAO has battled the HHS and FDA over those powers, which House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has contended GAO already had.
Democrats removed the provisions affirming those investigative powers from the version sent to the floor. That change was aimed at allowing the bill to pass quickly under a suspension of the rules, which is generally done to speed up passage of noncontroversial measures, aides explained.
The bill, which passed the House by voice vote, includes various administrative changes requested by GAO. In a provision inserted by the bill's sponsor, House Oversight and Government Reform Federal Workforce Subcommittee Chairman Danny Davis, D-Ill., the bill would restore pay increases to hundreds of agency employees who have said they were wrongly denied raises in 2006 and 2007 under changes that altered the salary range at GAO.
Employees in the lower-half of the range, or pay band, did not get raises, though many received ratings of "meets expectations." The shift in compensation procedures, championed by former Comptroller General David Walker, led GAO employees to form a union.
The bill also would create an inspector general's office at GAO. Companion legislation is pending in the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.