President Biden Releases Fiscal Year 2025 Budget Request

SUMMARY:  The Administration released President Biden’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Budget Request and proposed a 2.0 percent pay increase for federal employees.

Today, President Biden released his fiscal year (FY) 2025 budget request.  Key provisions are listed below.

·        The request proposes a 2.0 percent pay raise for 2025 and is silent on the amount, if any, for locality pay.  This is completely unacceptable. Federal employees are the backbone of our country, yet you continue to be underpaid. We will continue to work with our allies in Congress to pass the FAIR Act – which would provide an average 7.4 percent pay raise for 2025-- and call for the President to increase his proposal.

·        The budget also includes a request for additional funding to secure the border and stop illicit fentanyl and other contraband from entering the US, including funding to hire over 1,000 additional CBP Officers.  This is a good start, however, given the dire shortages that continue to increase each year, NTEU will continue to urge Congress and the Administration to fund additional CBP Officers, Agriculture Specialists and Trade Specialist at ports of entry based on the most recent CBP workload staffing models.

·        While most agencies saw only modest increase or flat funding in this request, several NTEU-represented agencies would see more significant increases in FY 2025 if this budget were adopted, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy, the National Park Service and the Bureau of Fiscal Service.

·        The budget request includes NTEU-supported language that would permanently fix wildland firefighter pay for wildland firefighters at the Bureau of Land Management and other agencies.

·        The request calls on Congress to pass legislation to block Schedule F and protect the non-partisan civil service and anticipates that OPM will finalize new regulations to reinforce and clarify longstanding civil service protections and merit system principles in 2024.

·        The budget request proposes a national, comprehensive paid family and medical leave program administered by SSA that would provide workers, including federal workers, with progressive, partial wage replacement to take time off for family and medical reasons.

·        There is no increase in annual funding requested for the IRS for FY 2025, however, the President’s budget request does propose an additional $104 billion in mandatory funding through 2034 to support ongoing efforts to improve taxpayer services and compliance and modernize aging technology.