Bush proposes 2.6 percent pay raise for 2003

President Bush on Monday proposed a 2.6 percent average pay raise for federal employees in 2003. Bush's 2003 budget proposal also called for a 4.1 percent military pay raise. The proposals mark the second year that the Bush administration has attempted to give larger raises to military personnel than to civilian personnel, breaking a long-standing tradition of pay raise parity for the military and the civil service.

Last year, the Bush administration proposed a 3.6 percent raise for civilians and a 4.6 percent raise, plus additional targeted raises, for military service members. In the end, Congress mandated a 4.6 percent raise for civilians and the military. Targeted raises pushed military pay increases to an average of 6.9 percent, according to the Bush administration.

"We believe that a distinction can and should be made between [civilians and] people who are in harm's way at time of war," Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels said at a budget briefing Monday.

The civilian pay raise would be split between an across-the-board increase and locality-based increases. Based on recent history, the across-the-board increase could be 1.6 percent, with the remaining 1 percent divvied up on the basis of work locality.

Daniels noted Monday that using the change in the Employment Cost Index as a basis for adjusting federal pay, as has been done in recent years, would have resulted in a 3.6 percent civilian raise next year.

"But that's only a starting point," Daniels said. "We thought giving back 1 percent--or lets's say taking 1 percent less from this rule-of-thumb index--would be something federal employees would feel was fair."

Last week, members of Congress sent a letter to President Bush asking for civilian-military pay parity in 2003.

"Our military and civilian employees make significant contributions to the welfare of this country everyday and should be compensated in an equitable manner," said the Jan. 30 letter, signed by Reps. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., Jim Moran, D-Va., Tom Davis, R-Va., Connie Morella, R-Md., Frank Wolf, R-Va., Al Wynn, D-Md., and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C.