The House Appropriations Committee was active in June working on funding for Fiscal Year 2023. This is welcome news, given the fact Congress funded FY 2022 in March, after more than five months of continuing resolutions.

As of June 30, each House appropriations bill has advanced out of the committee, albeit predominantly on party-line votes. The Senate is planning to begin marking up their FY2023 funding bills upon their return from the Independence Day State Work Period. Legislators have not struck a bipartisan deal on overall discretionary spending levels, but the Senate plans to move forward in the hopes of making progress.

FMA is working with our colleagues in the Federal-Postal Coalition on a letter to all decision makers, urging Congress to provide funding for all agencies on time for FY2023. In recent years Congress has relied on CRs, flirted with a lapse of funding, or allowed a partial- or full-government shutdown, and FMA will work to prevent another similar outcome in this cycle.

As part of the appropriations process, FMA is working to achieve the biggest pay raise possible for managers in 2023. At this point, it appears feds will receive a 4.6 percent raise, as included in President Biden’s budget request. The Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill, which is where Congress could insert a different raise, “stayed silent” on federal employee pay, effectively endorsing the Administration’s request. A 4.6 percent raise would be the highest in twenty years. However, given the state of the economy and rising inflation rates, FMA still supports the 5.1 percent raise as proposed in the FAIR Act (H.R. 6398 / S. 3518) by Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) and Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI). We will continue pushing for the larger pay raise as the process unfolds.