Bipartisan legislation introduced by U.S. Rep. John Katko (R-NY) to fund salary and overtime pay for Secret Service agents this year and next year was approved by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday.
More than 1,000 Secret Service agents had reached the annual ceiling for overtime and salary pay by September, and the Secret Service Recruitment and Retention Act of 2017, H.R. 3731, would ensure that agents continue to be compensated in 2017 and 2018.
U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, spoke in support of the bill ahead of a committee markup on Wednesday. Katko, the chairman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Transportation and Protective Security, introduced the bill with bipartisan support from U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
“The men and women of the Secret Service deserve to be paid for the hours they work, period,” Katko and Cummings said in a joint statement. “They put their lives on the line every day and make tremendous personal sacrifices for our country. We cannot expect the Secret Service to recruit and retain the best of the best if they are not being compensated for the additional work that is demanded of them.”
Gowdy, meanwhile, agreed that proper funding for the Secret Service is critical to “an agency tasked with a zero-fail mission.”
“Extending the pay cap waiver at the Secret Service ensures agents, officers and other employees are properly compensated for the critical work they perform each day,” Gowdy said. “Though raising the pay cap is a necessary short-term fix, meaningful reforms must be incorporated at the agency to properly address high attrition rates and other systemic issues that threaten the success of their protective mission.”