Home Media Center News Releases

Washington, D.C.—In a letter to leaders of the House Appropriations Subcommittee, a bipartisan group of 29 members of the House Financial Services Committee, including its chairman and vice chairman, is urging full funding of pay parity for employees of the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).

President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU), who has been leading the fight for SEC pay parity, called the letter “a significant show of unity for doing what is right.” NTEU represents about 2,000 SEC employees.

In particular, Kelley praised Financial Services Committee Chairman Michael Oxley (R-OH) and Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), for “their welcome leadership on this issue.”

After organizing SEC employees in June 2000, NTEU took up the cause of SEC pay parity legislation that had been languishing in Congress for nearly a decade. Congress approved the measure, and the president signed it earlier this year, but the administration’s proposed fiscal 2003 budget fails to provide funding to make pay parity a reality.

NTEU has continued to make the case that only pay parity with other federal financial regulatory agencies for SEC employees will stem a turnover rate, particularly among professionals such as attorneys and accountants, that is nearly triple that of comparable agencies.

President Kelley said that allegations swirling around the recent bankruptcy of Enron Corporation “make it imperative” that government regulatory agencies “retain the highly-qualified employees they now have and put themselves in a position to compete with the private sector for the best talent available.”

The Financial Services Committee members’ letter was sent to Reps. Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairman, and Jose Serrano (D-NY), ranking member, of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State and the Judiciary.

In it, the signers asked the subcommittee to “fully fund” the pay parity provision of the recently passed Investor and Capital Markets Fee Relief Act. “Pay parity provisions were a central element of the legislation,” they wrote, leading to its “overwhelming bipartisan approval.” It passed by 402-22.

“Lack of pay parity with other agencies that conduct oversight of the financial services industry,” they wrote, “has resulted in major staffing problems at the SEC,” adding that SEC receives funding from a dedicated fee, “so that full funding for pay parity is not in competition with any other program under the subcommittee’s jurisdiction.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 25 agencies and departments.