Update 1-3-04
I hope everybody rang in the New Year not only safely, but with great
possibilities for the 365 days ahead. I personally got to toast a glass
of cranberry juice (actually a swig directly out of the bottle, I’m such
a pig) as the clock ticked to 2004 because I was working a mid
babysitting what little traffic there was.
I have little to report in the way of legislative
activity. Congress, like the FAA and to some extent NATCA, entered a
hibernation state for the holidays and is just now showing signs of
awakening. The next item for us is a cloture vote (an attempt to limit
debate) on the Consolidated Appropriations Bill (omnibus) of 2004, which
is scheduled for January 20th. This is the bill that
includes transportation spending and is in trouble due to a lot of
largess and pork that was packed in during conference. I detailed most
of that in earlier updates so for now all you get is a list of items
encompassed in the legislation of interest to many of us.
- The Federal Contract Tower program
cost sharing program received $6.5million.
- DOT is required to implement ATC
age waiver by March 2004. This allows up to age 61 and for now is
voluntary. No info on what requirements there will be or if this
could be grandfathered for recent force-outs. Needless to say we will
be watching with interest how the Agency implements this.
- The Presidents budget request
included funding for 302 more controllers. This was stripped out in
conference in large part due to our administrators ridiculous
statements that we are now overstaffed and don’t need to worry about
retirements yet. Nice going Marion.
- Increased funding to raise the
level on ATC supervisors.
- Prohibits funding for MOU’s not
filed in a central registry after 1/1/2004
- Included language dealing with A76
process changes.
- Agencies covered are required to
consider cost as a factor in contracting. This language was a
compromise after the Conference stripped out nearly all of the
bipartisan language under pressure from the White House.
- Federal pay raise for 2004 at 4.1
percent. As I mentioned in the last update you can expect to see this
as backpay once the legislation is passed and signed and after payroll
figures out how to do it.
If anyone has a particular
federal candidate that they would like to see receive NATCA PAC funds,
please contact me THIS WEEK with those requests.
Grant Anderson
ganderson@natca.org
Pin# 50501
Cell 417-894-6887 |
