The Senate’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2024 supports President Joe Biden’s proposed pay raise of 5.2% for the Pentagon’s civilian workforce.
The department would also increase pay for dual-status civilian technicians that are co-employed by the Air National Guard or Air Force Reserve.
Other provisions of the Senate’s bill, unveiled in a summary Friday, urge hiring and recruiting of high-demand positions. These efforts include expanding direct hiring authority to jobs in aircraft operations, public safety, law enforcement, first responders and for those who work in the inspector general’s office overseeing efforts in Ukraine.
The measure would also streamline direct hiring authority for science and technology lab applicants with college and advanced degrees.
Despite calls from House Republicans to skim $1 billion off the President’s budget request for the civilian workforce and otherwise reassess its size, the Senate bill would give the department more flexibility to hire, especially for senior executive personnel.
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The House Armed Services Committee’s advanced its version on Thursday, which will send it to the floor to meet the Senate’s companion. These bills will go through further negotiation until they are each passed and sent to the President’s desk for his signature.
“Civilian employees are critical to our military defense and actually should be taking on more responsibilities, not less, to free up our service members to focus on their war-fighting duties,” said Everett Kelley, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest federal union, said. “Cutting civilian employees without reducing workloads means more of that work gets shifted to our already overburdened service members or unregulated and costlier contractors.”
The House’s version does, however, direct the Pentagon to ensure depots, arsenals and shipyards are adequately staffed.
House Republicans would also cut the deputy inspector general position for Diversity and Inclusion and Extremism in the Military, currently held by Theresa Hull.
Both versions point to talent shortages in IT and the department’s risky use of unsecured legacy systems that pose a risk to national security. The House’s approach is to consider how automation, AI and private-sector technology can be brought on and to collaborate with colleges to recruit juniors and seniors who have cyber-related degrees.
The Senate version requires a study be done on creating a “Cyber Force.”
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The House bill also preserves historic policy riders that ban federal funding of Critical Race Theory and abortions, including for travel related services for federal employees. The plan includes a reduction of $100 million for Department of Defense programs “operating under the auspices of diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
The Senate’s summary would require another report on the " legality, oversight functions, and processes” of the department’s abortion policy.
Molly Weisner is a staff reporter for Federal Times where she covers labor, policy and contracting pertaining to the government workforce. She made previous stops at USA Today and McClatchy as a digital producer, and worked at The New York Times as a copy editor. Molly majored in journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
