The Pay Raise and Other Workforce Provisions in Biden't Budget 

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Ross Gianfortune
This is GovExec Daily, where we bring you the federal stories that really matter.  It's March 14, 2023 . I’m Ross Gianfortune.

Each year, the president releases a budget in the spring with proposals for funding for federal agencies and departments. Joe Biden released his fiscal 2024 budget proposal last month, giving nearly every major agency an increase in discretionary spending over this year’s enacted levels. 

Within the budget are a series of workforce provisions including hiring surges and ways for agencies to simplify hiring. In the budget notes, the White House writes the “the federal government must win the competition for highly skilled talent.” Pay, benefits and workplace flexibilities like telework and remote work are part of the ways that the Biden administration’s budget plan looks to make public service a “model” career path. In keeping with the Biden administration’s previous statements, the budget even has a paragraph denouncing Schedule F and similar policies that would politicize the career civil service.

Relatedly, the Biden administration has emphasized the government customer experience and improving the delivery of services to Americans. The budget puts forward several CX and workforce initiatives aimed at making service delivery more positive for Americans.

GovExec senior reporter Erich Wagner covers the federal workforce. After a short break, he’ll join me  to discuss the workforce provisions in the Biden FY24 budget proposal.

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Ross Gianfortune
President Joe Biden released his budget last week and re emphasized his want for the federal government to become a “model employer” that can compete with the private sector in the race for talent. The budget document contains a series of other workforce and customer service provisions backing up this goal, including a pay raise proposal for federal employees.

GovExec senior reporter Erich Wagner covers the federal workforce. He joins me now to discuss the workforce provisions in White House fiscal 2024 budget request released last week.

Welcome back to the program.

Erich Wagner
 Thanks for having me.

Ross Gianfortune  
So the pay raise, what is it? How does it break down?

Erich Wagner
So the President's proposal for 2024 is 5.2%. On average, we don't know exactly how that'll break down yet. But in his last two budgets, which also didn't really reveal the split between basic pay and locality pay until I think like August, that it has always been 0.5% average going towards locality pay and the rest going to basic pay across the board. So that's what I expect, will be the plan when it's fully fleshed out, although we don't know for certain yet,

Ross Gianfortune  
Has the administration expanded on the pay rates as it expanded in the in the budget document and have employee organizations, labor unions, organizations like that. Had they weighed in?

Erich Wagner
Oh, yeah, you know, this is continues to be part of the administration's push to be, like you said, a model employer to, you know, try to recruit and retain federal employees and sort of rebuild government, federal employee groups, you know, their response was sort of, well, this is a good start. But really, what we're looking for is 8.7%. And that's a number that was proposed by some Democrats in Congress. The idea behind that, I think gets splits out to like 4.7%. And across the board pay increases, and then a 4% average increase in locality pay. You know, some, a lot of that is, the number is the same as what Social Security recipients saw in their cost of living adjustments in January. And, you know, their argument is sort of federal employees have sort of borne the brunt of a lot of, you know, deficit reduction measures and low pay raises and pay freezes over the past decade or so. And so, we needed a big pay raise this year to sort of try to catch up a little bit, that said, you know, both of these proposals have, are likely to get pushback from Republicans in Congress. So it's hard to say, what will happen

Ross Gianfortune  

Have any Republicans said anything about either of those numbers?

Erich Wagner
Yeah, um, you know, I think it was, Representative James Comer, who runs the House Oversight Committee said something to the effect of we, you know, we can't really, you know, we can't really be doing this, because the idea of, you know, paying for, you know, pay increases to track with inflation, is putting more burdens on the backs of the American people who are also dealing with inflation,

Ross Gianfortune  
other workforce priorities, what are they in Biden's budget? And what will they bring forward, if at all?

Erich Wagner
we used to always joke about how the the President's management agenda was sort of this document that presidents would bring out, and then it would just sort of go away. But the Biden ministration is really sort of kept close to the management agenda, both and, you know, it's many, you know, initiatives over the course of the past couple of years. And each of its budget submissions, and this year is no different. You know, there's a lot of talk about continuing to work on and support initiatives, like shared certifications, and skills based hiring, you know, these ways for agencies to sort of work together on job openings, and, you know, collect applicants to then, you know, choose from together, you know, OPM gets into would get an additional $78 million over its current funding levels to work on strategic human capital management and workforce planning. There's obviously the pay raise, like we talked about, and then there's a bunch of sort of targeted spending measures to try to improve customer service and, you know, improve staffing, so that customer service at certain agencies can improve like, Social Security Administration, for instance, and, you know, the State Department is getting 163 million to try to make the passport services, easier to access, both, you know, through the traditional channels, and through a new online portal. And then there's also at the TSA, they've started implementation of big pay raises to try to get that workforce closer to, you know, what federal, what other federal employees make, you know, they that has been a chronically underpaid workforce for decades now. And they're continuing that with a proposed big increase in funding there so that they can, you know, sort of get the rest of the way to the equivalent of general schedule, salaries.

Ross Gianfortune  
We talked about the PMA sort of being a throwaway document, but customer service has been part of that. Certainly, what else does a budget say about customer service? Because I know we're talking a lot about hiring and bringing forth more people, but what else does it have say about CX in government?

Erich Wagner
Yeah, um, I think the big takeaway is they want to, you know, increase staffing at a lot of these understaffed agencies, Social Security's obviously a big one on that front. But they also want, you know, there's a, there's sort of that dual focus between improving staffing and improving, you know, responsiveness through traditional channels and then opening up new ones for people to be able to, you know, you know, get these services done online and in greater passion, you know, similar one, OPM plans to, you know, some of the funding for OPM is going to end up going toward You know, their their efforts to digitize retirement records, which is been a big problem for many years, because so many agencies, you know, had all these records on paper, and they were, you know, in this gigantic bunker in Pennsylvania. And so, yeah, there's, it seems to be a sort of one, you know, rebuild the workforce like they've been trying to do for the past couple of years, and then also sort of modernize a lot of these old processes to make them easier, quicker and more digitally available.

Ross Gianfortune  
We talked about Comer, but let's end on this. What kind of pushback has come from this budget? What are Republicans in Congress? What are Republicans more generally in the political sphere saying about the budget, and to a lesser extent about the workforce priorities?

Erich Wagner
Well, they they say that the, you know, this budget is just way too much money. You know, Republicans now have control of the House. So they have a little bit more leverage in, you know, negotiations throughout the appropriations project process. And obviously, they have been discussing using the debt ceiling talks as a way to try to secure reductions in funding as well. So they do not look particularly kindly upon President Biden's budget. But, you know, it's hard to say how that'll manifest itself. This early in the appropriations process.

Ross Gianfortune  
All right, one follow up on that, though, are we still waiting on a Republican budget? Because I know these negotiations are sort of ongoing. Are they going to bring one forward? Is there any timeline for that?

Erich Wagner
I don't know that there's a timeline. I know that. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has sort of bemoaned a lack of engagement with between him in the White House. But the President has sort of pushed back on that saying, when you show us a budget, we can that we can negotiate with we can talk and that hasn't happened yet.

Ross Gianfortune  
Yeah, it seems the only timeline is whatever the latest debt ceiling catastrophe date is, which right now, I believe is mid August. So five months. That's what we have. Eric, thanks so much for being on the show with us.

Erich Wagner 
Thanks for having me.

Ross Gianfortune
Thanks for listening to GovExec Daily. Our show was produced by Adam Butler and hosted by me, Ross Gianfortune. We want to thank Erich Wagner for joining the program. Our music is the song “Signals” by Catfish Dancing. Be sure to rate, review and subscribe on Apple Podcasts or Google Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. You can email us any feedback at podcast @ govexec.com or hit us on Twitter @ Govexec. Check us out on Facebook or LinkedIn by searching for Government Executive.

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https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2023/03/pay-raise-and-other-workforce-provisions-bident-budget/383924/