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Washington, D.C.—A key senator on federal employees issues today strongly reiterated her support for civilian-military pay parity, saying the administration’s proposal for a lower federal civilian pay raise in 2005 is “wrong and needs to be changed.”

Sen. Susan M. Collins (R-ME), chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, told nearly 400 members of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) at the opening session of the union’s annual Legislative Conference that “pay parity is not a partisan issue.”

The administration’s budget proposal for 2005 calls for a 1.5 percent pay raise for federal civilian employees, while proposing a raise of 3.5 percent for members of the military. NTEU supports the higher raise for all federal workers, civilian and military.

Along with Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-MD), Sen. Collins has co-sponsored a resolution calling for pay parity, and she has joined in a bipartisan letter to the Senate Budget Committee in support of pay parity.

In her introduction of Sen. Collins, NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley called the Maine senator “the most important member of Congress as it pertains to federal employees,” describing her as “truly concerned about and interested in federal employee issues.”

In addition to her support for a higher civilian pay raise in 2005, Sen. Collins urged Congress “to monitor the process” by which the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is seeking to put in place a new personnel system.

“We must not lose sight of the importance of merit, fairness and transparency” in any new system, she said, expressing her concern over preliminary DHS regulations that adversely impact the due process rights of employees and fail to provide for an independent appeals process for adverse action matters.

“You’ve got to move that outside the agency to get a guarantee of fairness,” she said.

In her remarks to the NTEU chapter leaders and legislative activists, President Kelley emphasized that, without a change in administration in the November election, the DHS proposals “are just a preview of what is to come for every federal agency.”

As she did when the DHS proposals were announced late last month, she called them “extreme,” and said their real purpose has nothing to do with DHS or the safety of the nation. “It is all about unilateral control within the department, and with no accountability,” she said.

NTEU is working to reshape the final regulations in a manner that allows employee voices to be heard and their rights to be protected.

The NTEU members will spend nearly three days on Capitol Hill visits, seeking to educate members of Congress on a half-dozen priority legislative issues, including both the need for a fair pay raise and the DHS issues, as well as contracting out issues, proposed reductions-in-force in the Internal Revenue Service, rising federal health care benefits and retirement issues.