Congress has sent the President a spending bill that would raise the cap on senior executive pay for the first time in four years.
The measure was included in the Treasury-Postal appropriations bill, which the Senate approved Wednesday on a 55-45 vote. The House approved the bill on Tuesday, 220-207.
By law, base pay for members of the Senior Executive Service is tied to pay for members of Congress, and has been capped at $115,000 since 1993.
This year, though, Congress voted not to include language in the Treasury-Postal bill turning down a $3,000 cost-of-living increase, meaning that senior executives at the highest pay levels will also be eligible for a raise.
The complete 1998 SES pay scale will be issued later this year.
A provision originally passed by the Senate to ban games from government computers was removed from the Treasury-Postal bill in conference at the request of House negotiators. The provision would have prohibited agencies from purchasing equipment with installed games and would have required information systems managers to remove games from all government computers.
In a statement, Sen. Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C., the sponsor of the computer game ban, said, "I've received assurances that this issue will be studied so we can find the best and least expensive method of removing games from government computers. No one I've spoken with or heard from has yet to make the argument to me that these computer games are necessary."
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