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Washington, D.C.— With today’s release of a spending package for 2016, the leader of the largest independent union of federal employees urged Congress to act quickly to avert a government shutdown and ease the fear and anxiety that federal employees are feeling as the December holidays approach.

”The omnibus appropriations bill and a tax extenders package—both of which Congress is likely to consider this week—contain a number of provisions that will directly affect federal employees,” said National President Tony Reardon of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

“During deliberations, NTEU focused on representing the interests of the federal workforce to ensure their pay was protected and their agencies received necessary funding,” said President Reardon. “Final passage of these measures will allow federal employees and federal agencies to get back to the business of serving the public.”

The omnibus spending bill is silent on an across-the-board federal pay raise for calendar year 2016. This would allow the administration’s recommended average increase of 1.3 percent to take effect in January. It’s also silent on locality pay areas for next year, which means the administration’s plan to add 13 new locality pay areas to the 33 existing regions—a decision NTEU strongly supported—will move forward in 2016.

“While NTEU will continue advocating for higher pay raises in the future,” said Reardon. “We are pleased that this raise, with the first locality adjustment in six years, was not blocked by Congress.”

Other key provisions that will impact federal workers in the bill include:

• The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) would be required to provide credit monitoring and identity theft protection services to individuals affected by the recent data breaches for 10 years. NTEU, which seeks lifetime protections, called the 10-year plan with $5 million in liability protection a significant improvement over the current plan to offer one year of protection with $1 million in protection to those affected by the personnel records breach and three years to those ensnared by the breach into their background investigation files. “Senators Barbara Mikulski and Ben Cardin are to be commended for securing these protections for federal workers harmed in the cyberattack,” Reardon said.

• The date of commencement of the so-called Cadillac tax on certain health insurance plans would be deferred by two years—to 2020 instead of 2018 as called for under current law. This would give NTEU more time to work to protect the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

• The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) would receive $11.23 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2016, an increase of $290 million over the current level, specifically for customer service, identity theft and cybersecurity. Though $1.7 billion less than the administration’s request of $12.9 billion, the final amount is an improvement over the House proposal to cut the IRS budget by almost $838 million compared to the current level.

• The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would receive $132 million more than its FY 2015 appropriation.

• The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) would receive $41 billion in discretionary funding—$1.3 billion above the enacted level for 2015. The bill includes $11 billion for Customs and Border Protection (CBP), $349 million above 2015 level. That amount would support 23,775 CBP Officers at ports of entry in FY 2016.

The tax-extenders measure would establish permanent parity between the parking and transit benefits. However, both benefits would be capped at $250 a month for 2015 and $255 for 2016. Under current law, the parking benefit is $250 a month, and in recent years the transit amount has been $130. This parity would be retroactive to Jan. 1, 2015, and remain in effect for the future.

NTEU, the nation’s largest independent federal-employee union, represents 150,000 employees in 31 agencies and departments.