Pay Pals

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., has offered to work with the White House to develop an alternative to the 1990 Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act.

Hoyer said that if the White House continues to disregard FEPCA, then another arrangement should be developed. He sent a letter Tuesday to Clay Johnson, the deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, offering to cooperate on a solution.

FEPCA was signed into law by President George H.W. Bush, and Hoyer was the lead sponsor of the bill. It was designed to close the gap between public and private pay levels, but the necessary pay raises have never been fully funded. Indeed, the White House supported a 1.5 percent average federal employee pay adjustment in fiscal 2005, but Congress mandated a 3.5 percent average raise instead. That increase was signed into law in late December. Under FEPCA, federal employees would have been due a 2.5 percent raise in 2005, plus locality pay increases averaging 10.6 percent..

"If the past is any guide, the Bush administration will not follow the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act in proposing a fair pay adjustment for federal employees in his proposed 2006 budget," Hoyer said. "Any alternative must be fair to federal employees by valuing federal work in a manner that is equal to the private sector. Anything less will endanger the federal government's ability to recruit and retain quality federal employees to serve taxpayers."

In his letter, Hoyer acknowledges that he has not had success implementing FEPCA under either Democratic or Republican administrations.

"Every administration with which I have dealt since FEPCA was enacted has maintained that FEPCA does not accurately value the work of federal civilian employees compared to the work performed by their private sector counterparts," he wrote. "My response has been to invite an alternative proposal that is believed to be more accurate. In the 14 years FEPCA has been the law, no alternative proposal has ever been advanced."

OMB spokesman Chad Kolton said that Johnson had reviewed the letter, but "there are no imminent plans to produce any sort of specific [alternative pay] proposal at this point."

"Our view is that we regularly engage members of Congress on the issue of how to most effectively structure pay," Kolton said. "We all have our eye on a common goal … but there is obviously a lot of work to be done on developing consensus."

Hoyer noted that he has offered to work with Johnson on FEPCA and performance pay issues in the past, but "regrettably, your office has not followed up on my offer."

Still, Hoyer made it clear that he would not be deterred.

"As debate on the administration's budget for fiscal year 2006 commences, I renew my offer to you," the letter said. "I am certainly available to discuss this matter at any time."