Recently every week I lead off with FAA reauthorization and the uncanny occurrences associated with that circus.  But this week, just to keep you guessing, I wont. 

2004 Pay Raise

The White House, as you recall, thought enough of the job you do to recommend a 2% pay raise for the civilian employees.  Thanks so much.  This in the face of a 4.1% recommended raise for the military.  I wish I could say that this was an isolated incident but it is just deja’ vu all over again from last year.  Fortunately most of the folks in Congress think a little more of you and felt this wasn’t fair.  Led by Steny Hoyer Congress has fought back insisting, one again, for pay parity.  Now the “Federal Salary Council” is expected to release recommendations for an average 4.1% raise but there may be some tinkering with locality pays in some metropolitan markets.  For those of you in the Central Region who are not in the “rest of the country” locality I don’t believe any of you will see a change.  I don’t have all the details but it seems we will see all of no locality rate changes here in this region.  If that changes I’ll let you know.

And before any of you plug those changes into your Quicken, just remember that this a'int a done deal partner and also that the 4.1% is a combination of a 2.1% across the board raise and an average 1.4% locality increase.  Your mileage may vary.

FAA Reauthorization

John Mica was opining that he felt the bill could be brought to the floor for to recommit this next week.  What that translates too is that he is hopeful to have the votes to accomplish this without changing anything in the privatization portion and leave it to the Senate to deal with.  This has not been the case so far thanks in large part to the calls you have made to Congress to educate them and express your opposition.  Be advised that our adversaries are trying to take a page out of our playbook and have been generating their own calls and it has been swaying some in Congress to the other side.

I know this calling has been tedious for some of you.  But you have to understand that this is issue is incredibly crucial and the cost of losing is great.  Frankly I don’t know how this will all turn out, being right is not necessarily good for anything in DC, but we have already come farther than many ever thought we could and we have a good chance of this going our way in the end.  But only if we get your continued support from the field in influencing this.  Expect another grassroots effort soon to once again contact your elected representatives.  It’s only your job conditions, pay and future we’re talking about here so no big deal right?  In fact, if you’re on a break or have a moment call the 1-866-I-FLY-SAFE number again this week a time or three.  You’ll rightly be able to claim that warm fuzzy if we come out on top of this. 

Please call me if I can help.