U.S. Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) called on members of Congress to overrule an executive order signed by President Donald Trump that rescinds a 2019 pay increase for civilian federal employees.
“I will continue to fight to retain the federal civilian employee pay increase that was promised to our government’s dedicated public servants,” Rep. Turner said on Dec. 30, 2018 following President Trump’s order the same month to cancel a 2.1 percent across-the-board pay raise that was set to take effect in January.
Also in December 2018, the president issued another executive order forcing a partial government shutdown that impacted hundreds of thousands of federal employees who have been furloughed or required to work without pay.
“Congress must reject the president’s imprudent decision to cancel the pay increase for our valuable federal civilian employees,” the congressman said. “Congress still has the ability to override this executive order as we work to end the partial government shutdown.”
Trump originally told Congress in August 2018 that he would cancel the 2019 pay raise for federal workers because he said the federal budget couldn’t support it. Trump’s executive order also cancelled a scheduled increase in the “locality-based comparability payments,” a yearly adjustment of paychecks based on the region of the United States where such workers are posted, according to the order.
The Dayton, Ohio, region, for instance, is home to more than 15,000 federal civilian employees, including more than 12,000 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, according to Rep. Turner, who strongly opposed the executive order when Trump first announced it last summer.
In fact, Rep. Turner wrote in an Aug. 30, 2018 letter sent to former U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) urging that the increases for civilian federal workers be reinstated before the end of the fiscal year.
“Federal civilian employees are the foundation of our government’s day-to-day operations,” Rep. Turner wrote. “Our country relies on these employees to carry out critical duties across all sectors of government, from national security and healthcare to economic expansion and infrastructure development.”
To recruit and retain a skilled federal government workforce, Turner argued that “Congress must ensure a competitive pay scale befitting the federal employee workforce, including civilians.”
“The President says we cannot afford this pay raise. However, it is my firm belief that our country cannot afford to make the federal government a less attractive place to work and risk losing these often-undervalued employees to the often higher-paying private sector,” wrote the congressman, calling the president’s decision “short-sighted.”
“We must work together to balance the budget but not on the backs of federal civilian employees,” he added.
The ongoing partial government shutdown went into effect on Dec. 24, 2018.