House lawmakers at the end of last week approved an Interior, Environment and Related Agencies appropriations bill for FY 2024, legislation that includes funding for continuation of current pay for wildland firefighters. Not surprisingly, the National Federation of Federal Employees—the union representing affected employees—is applauding this important step.
But the union and the firefighters it represents remain vigilant and are pushing hard for passage in the Senate, and for getting past the current danger—yet again, as all feds know—of a possible shutdown. The deadline to avert one looms, Nov. 17, just barely over a week away.
“This is a positive step in the right direction to avoid the looming pay cliff facing wildland firefighters,” NFFE National President Randy Erwin said in a statement, heralding the positive move.
Federal employees know that annual pay increases are not guaranteed. Congress or the president must act to make sure that it happens. In fact, there have been several years in recent decades when—though Social Security recipients and many private-sector employees got at least some inflation-indexed boost—for feds, there was no uptick at all.
For most years, there is a year-over-year pay hike. And, as most feds know, since the early 1990s, feds who work in more costly cities and suburbs get an added step up in compensation—according to a formula that tracks the usually even faster inflationary pressures in such areas.
But a new study released this month, the Annual Report of the President’s Pay Agent, echoing several previous such reports, finds that the formula used to calculate locality pay is inadequate to the purpose. Generally, it underestimates the faster rate of pay inflation for certain in-demand jobs—therefore making federal agencies less competitive at attracting new and experienced applicants with skills in those fields.
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