Trump Appears to Waver on Pay Freeze

https://www.govexec.com/pay-benefits/2018/09/trump-appears-waver-pay-freeze/150998/ Trump Appears to Waver on Pay Freeze

• By Erich Wagner • September 4, 2018 • 120 Comments

Just 24 hours after formalizing his plan to freeze the pay of civilian federal employees, President Trump appeared open to backtracking on the proposal.

Last Thursday, Trump issued an alternative pay plan that would freeze federal workers’ pay at 2018 levels, a move required by the end of August to avoid significant automatic salary increases as mandated by the 1990 Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act. The pay freeze was first proposed in the White House’s fiscal 2019 budget plan in March.

But on Friday, following outcry from federal unions, Democrats and some vulnerable Republican lawmakers, Trump signaled that he would consider changing his mind. During a ceremony to mark the signing of an executive order on retirement planning, the president said he would “study” the issue over the weekend.

“I’m going to be studying, you know, the federal workers in Washington that you’ve been reading so much about,” Trump said. “People don’t want to give them any increase. They haven’t had one in a long time. I said, 'I’m going to study that over the weekend.' It’s a good time to study it—Labor Day. Let’s see how they do next week. But a lot of people were against it.”

Most federal employees live and work outside of the Washington, D.C. area, and feds most recently received a 1.9 percent pay raise in January of this year.

Neither the White House nor the Office of Management and Budget responded to requests Tuesday to clarify Trump’s comments.

On Capitol Hill, House and Senate negotiators will debate this month whether to send a 1.9 percent raise for civilian employees to Trump for enactment as part of a minibus spending agreement that also includes funding for the departments of Interior, Agriculture, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and other agencies. The Senate has included the raise in its version of the minibus, but the House did not.

Before negotiations can formally begin, however, the House must move for the chambers to go to conference committee. It is not slated to do so this week, according to a schedule from House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. A Republican House aide said the bill is still “being hashed out” by staff.

Instead, lawmakers will negotiate a minibus that includes funding for the Defense Department and other agencies first. In both chambers, that bill includes a 2.6 percent raise for members of the military. Federal employee unions put their support behind the Senate pay raise plan for civilians last week, but have also begun advocating for pay parity between civilians and military personnel. Congress traditionally has provided raises in equal measure for both civilians and service members, but last year, lawmakers allowed Trump’s plan to increase military pay by an extra 0.5 percentage points over civilians go into effect.

“There is already a precedent for a raise for federal employees this year: the military,” said Tony Reardon, national president of the National Treasury Employees Union. “Service members will receive a 2.6 percent increase starting in January, and civilian employees also deserve an adjustment. We support those in Congress who are working to provide pay parity between civilian and military federal employees.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ https://www.federaltimes.com/federal-oversight/congress/2018/09/05/house-democrats-urge- rejection-of-trump-pay- freeze/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily%20brief%209/5/18& utm_term=Editorial%20-%20Daily%20Brief

Congress House Democrats urge rejection of Trump pay freeze By: Jessie Bur 1 day ago

Democratic members of the House representing districts in and around Washington, D.C., wrote a letter to House and Senate leadership Sept. 5, urging them to counteract the president’s intent to freeze federal pay for 2019.

Reps. Gerry Connolly and Don Beyer of Virginia; Steny Hoyer, John Sarbanes John Delaney, Anthony Brown and Jamie Raskin of Maryland; and Eleanor Holmes Norton of D.C. called for an end to the “vilification” and “ongoing assault” on federal employees.

“It is beyond cynical that the president would cite serious economic and fiscal concerns to justify his decision to cancel a pay adjustment for middle class workers while he tweets constantly about economic gains and touts a tax bill that exploded the deficit by $1.5 trillion,” the congressmen wrote.

According to Donald Trump’s letter announcing his intent to freeze federal pay, the move would go toward reducing federal spending and moving employee compensation more in line with a performance-based system.

But critics say it is yet another attack in a series of Trump administration actions against the federal workforce. “The Trump administration has advocated repeatedly for draconian cuts to federal employee pay and compensation. The president has targeted the ability of federal employees to resolve workplace disputes, challenge unfair treatment and collectively bargain the terms of their employment. Now he wants to balance the budget on the backs of federal workers in order to obscure his fiscal mismanagement,” the congressmen wrote.

“Federal employees have endured these attacks while making sacrifices of their own. Over the last six years, they have contributed $200 billion to deficit reduction, undergone federal pay and hiring freezes, lost family income to sequestration-related furloughs and increased their pension contributions. We cannot recruit and retain the talent we need to support a 21st century federal workforce if this assault on public servants continues.”

Currently, the Senate version of the general government appropriations bill includes a 1.9 percent pay increase for federal employees, which would counteract the intended freeze, while the House version of the bill makes no mention of federal pay either way.

The letter urged congressional leadership to make sure that the Senate version’s pay increase makes it into the conferenced version of the appropriations bill.

“The men and women of the federal workforce are the same hardworking Americans we honored on Labor Day in communities across the country,” the congressmen wrote.

“We urge you to recognize their dedicated service to our nation with a minimum pay adjustment of 1.9 percent, as already endorsed by an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote in the Senate.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/09/02/trump-taking-hard-look-at-pay-freeze-plan-for- federal-workers-following-pushback.html Trump taking 'hard look' at pay-freeze plan for federal workers following pushback

By Bradford Betz | Fox News

President Trump's proposal to halt pay raises for federal workers drew pushback from Virginia Republicans Corey Stewart, left, a U.S. Senate candidate, and U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock, who is up for reelection.

President Trump on Saturday evening appeared to signal that he may be rethinking a plan he announced last week to cancel a proposed 2.1 percent pay raise for federal workers. The president retweeted a Twitter message posted earlier Saturday by Republican U.S. Senate candidate Corey Stewart of Virginia, in which Stewart wrote that federal workers had endured "8 years of hell under Obama, with several rounds of pay freezes and benefit cuts."

Trump "can fix this, and I trust that he will," Stewart wrote.

Just one day earlier, Stewart -- typically a staunch Trump supporter -- had emailed a statement criticizing the pay-freeze plan that Trump disclosed Thursday.

"Federal workers endured 8 years of hell under Obama, with several rounds of pay freezes and benefit cuts ... [President Trump] can fix this, and I trust that he will."

- Corey Stewart, Republican U.S. Senate candidate in Virginia

“I almost never differ with President Trump, but in this case I do,” Stewart said in the statement, according to the Washington Post.

“Federal employees in Virginia wake up early, face punishing traffic and work hard to serve their nation and support their families,” the statement continued. “These workers need and deserve a pay raise.”

Another Virginia Republican, U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock, also spoke out against Trump's plan.

"We cannot balance the budget on the backs of our federal employees and I will work with my House and Senate colleagues to keep the pay increase in our appropriations measures that we vote on in September,” Comstock said last week, according to the Hill.

- U.S. Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va.

The Democratic National Committee also derided Trump’s proposed pay freeze as “another slap in the face to American workers.”

At a Friday appearance in North Carolina, it appeared that Trump may have given the comments some consideration.

“I’m going to be doing a little work over the [Labor Day] weekend,” Trump said, according to a White House transcript cited by the Hill. “I’m going to be studying, you know, the federal workers in Washington that you’ve been reading so much about. People don’t want to give them any increase. They haven’t had one in a long time. “I’m going to be doing a little work over the [Labor Day] weekend. I’m going to be studying, you know, the federal workers in Washington that you’ve been reading so much about. People don’t want to give them any increase. They haven’t had one in a long time."

- President Trump

"I said, I’m going to study that over the weekend. It’s a good time to study it -- Labor Day. Let’s see how they do next week. But a lot of people were against it. I’m going to take a good hard look over the weekend."

In a letter Thursday to House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Senate president pro tempore Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Trump had said that current agency budgets could not sustain additional pay for federal employees.

“We must maintain efforts to put our Nation on a fiscally sustainable course,” Trump wrote, explaining his opposition to raising salaries.

“[B]oth across-the-board pay increases and locality pay increases will be set at zero,” for 2019, the president wrote. He added that “Federal employee pay must be performance-based, and aligned strategically toward recruiting, retaining, and rewarding high-performing Federal employees and those with critical skill sets.”

But by Saturday it seemed the president may soon alter the plan he proposed Thursday.

Stewart on Nov. 6 is looking to defeat incumbent U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, a Democrat who was Hillary Clinton's running mate in the 2016 presidential election. But Kaine has a 23-point lead in a Virginia Commonwealth University poll, the Hill reported.

Comstock, meanwhile, is facing a tough challenge from state Sen. Jennifer Wexton, a Loudon County Democrat, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

Bradford Betz is an editor for Fox News. Follow him on Twitter @bradford_betz.

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https://www.news8000.com/news/politics/national-politics/trump-will-study-issue-of-federal- worker-pay-after-moving-to-freeze-it/789409096

National Politics Trump will study issue of federal worker pay after moving to freeze it Told lawmakers Thursday that wages would freeze

By:

• KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN

Posted: Sep 01, 2018 04:50 PM CDT

Updated: Sep 01, 2018 04:50 PM CDT

WASHINGTON (CNN) - President Donald Trump said he's planning to spend the weekend studying up on the issue of government compensation a day after alerting lawmakers he was moving to freeze pay for federal employees.

"I'm going to be doing a little work over the weekend," Trump said in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he was touting a new administration initiative on retirement savings. "I'm going to be studying the federal workers in Washington that you have been reading so much about. People don't want to give them the increase; they haven't had one in a long time. I said I'm going to study that over the weekend."

Trump raised hackles on Thursday when he sent a letter to Congress alerting of his intention to cancel a scheduled increase in federal pay. The move can be reversed if the House and Senate agree on a budget measure that includes the increase.

Corey Stewart, the conservative Republican running for Senate in Virginia, made a rare break from the president on Friday in opposing the move.

"I almost never differ with President Trump, but in this case, I do," Stewart said. "Federal employees in Virginia wake up early, face punishing traffic and work hard to serve their nation and support their families. These workers need and deserve a pay raise. I encourage President Trump to reconsider his position."

The budget proposal Trump unveiled earlier this year included a pay freeze for federal workers. In his letter on Thursday, he described an increase in pay as "inappropriate" given current economic conditions. Still, Trump has touted a booming US economy, and various measures he has signed over the past year -- including a two-year spending plan and GOP tax cuts -- are expected to add to the federal deficit.

Trump appeared to indicate on Friday he would re-examine the issue of federal pay, which he suggested he had not considered in depth previously.

"Good time to study, Labor Day," he said. "Let's see how they do next week; a lot of people were against it. I'm going to take a good hard look over the weekend."

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ https://www.govexec.com/federal-news/fedblog/2018/08/trumps-pay-freeze- plan/150958/?oref=govexec_today_nl Why Trump's Pay Freeze Move Shouldn't Have Surprised Anyone

• By Katherine McIntire Peters • August 31, 2018 • 204 Comments

It’s a ritual only a wonk (or a federal employee) could fully appreciate: Every year since 1994, the president, by the end of August, must submit to Congress a plan for paying federal employees in the following fiscal year.

That’s what President Trump did yesterday. This “alternative” pay plan is required under the 1990 Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act (which actually took effect in 1994). Otherwise, the law triggers an extraordinarily high across-the-board pay increase, based on a pay-gap analysis by the Federal Salary Council. The council’s analysis, which sets the gap at 32 percent, is itself “based on a staggeringly complex methodology that cannot be validated,” according to federal pay expert Howard Risher.

Long story short: every president files an alternative pay plan in August. Even the language Trump used in recommending the pay freeze, citing economic hardship, is essentially prescribed by law.

You wouldn’t have guessed any of that based on the outrage on Twitter after the White House released Trump’s plan Thursday. Whatever you think about stiffing federal employees on pay, the biggest surprise was that anybody was surprised.

The White House back in February said it would seek a pay freeze for all civilian employees in 2019. The House endorsed the freeze in July, while the Senate has approved a 1.9 percent increase. Ultimately, Congress will work out its differences in a conference committee and that will determine whether or not feds get a raise. Trump is not uniquely tight-fisted with federal employees—another point lost in the hullabaloo Thursday. As Government Executive reported in a retrospective of President Obama’s impact on federal compensation: “Federal employees will never forget the three-year pay freeze from 2011 through 2013 under Obama—which Congress also was responsible for.” What’s more, “locality pay, which is a portion of the overall federal raise, was frozen for much of Obama’s time in office, from 2010 to 2015.”

Katherine is deputy editor of Government Executive Media Group, a division of Atlantic Media, where she oversees editorial coverage for GovExec.com. She previously was executive editor of Nextgov.