House backs 2.7 percent civilian pay raise for 2007

The full House Wednesday evening approved a 2.7 percent pay increase for civilian federal employees in 2007.

Representatives voted for the raise as part of the fiscal 2007 Transportation-Treasury appropriations bill, which passed by a vote of 406-22.

President Bush proposed a 2.2 percent raise for both military and civilian employees, but in May, the full House approved a higher 2.7 percent military raise as part of the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act.

Shortly after that action, 10 members, led by Reps. Tom Davis, R-Va., chairman of the Government Reform Committee, and House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., sent a letter to appropriators asking for the same hike for civilians.

"Both our federal civilian and military employees fight on the front lines for our freedom, seek cures for diseases, respond to our natural disasters, protect the borders of our country and provide needed government services to the American people," Davis said in a statement following Wednesday's vote.

A policy statement released by the administration said the president "strongly opposes" the higher raise, citing an additional $600 million cost and noting that the 2.7 percent exceeds the average increase in private-sector pay as measured by the Labor Department's Employment Cost Index.

The bill expressly included Homeland Security and Defense department civilian employees in the 2.7 percent raise. Those two departments have new pay-for-performance systems in the works that are intended to eliminate automatic pay raises for all employees.

In a statement following the vote, Hoyer said the "Washington area delegation works hard every year to provide federal employees with a fair pay adjustment that follows the principle of pay parity, including Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security employees."

The president's statement specifically urged deletion of the 2.7 percent raise for those departments because of the personnel system changes -- particularly those at the Pentagon, which rolled out its new system for the first 11,000 employees in April.

"The provision is ambiguous as to how the increase would be applied to employees covered under these departments' modernized pay systems and will unnecessarily complicate their implementation," the statement said.

This year was the first time that President Bush proposed equal pay raises for both groups, but the move did not forestall the annual pay parity battle in Congress.