Senate Budget Proposal Supports Parity Between Federal Employees and Contractors

The Senate Democrat’s 2014 budget proposal released this week says that it offers a “smarter approach” than the House GOP budget proposal to save taxpayers money when it comes to addressing potential cuts to the federal workforce.

The Senate Democrats’ 2014 budget proposal released this week says that it offers a “smarter approach” than the House GOP budget proposal to save taxpayers money when it comes to addressing potential cost savings related to the federal workforce.

The House budget proposal called for all federal employees to pay more towards their retirement plans as well as cut the federal workforce through attrition.

However, the Senate budget plan had this to say regarding a “smarter approach” to the federal workforce:

Federal workers play a key role in running a smart and efficient government. These workers have borne the brunt of recent deficit reduction efforts, with years of pay freezes and many workers facing furloughs in the coming months caused by the indiscriminate and untargeted sequestration cuts.

Last year’s House Republican budget would further harm these workers by significantly increasing their contributions to the Federal Employee Retirement System, effectively cutting their take‐home pay in every paycheck.

The Senate Budget supports a smarter approach to savings through federal employee and contractor reforms that will explore opportunities to better leverage the federal government’s buying power and to review contractor compensation. The President’s budget and bipartisan deficit reduction proposals have recommended reforms, which will save the taxpayers money, provide greater compensation parity between federal personnel and government contractors while encouraging the retention of an experienced, high‐quality federal workforce.

About the Author

Ian Smith is one of the co-founders of FedSmith.com. He has over 20 years of combined experience in media and government services, having worked at two government contracting firms and an online news and web development company prior to his current role at FedSmith.