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Washington, D.C.—The leader of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) applauded bipartisan action in Congress to approve a 4.1 percent pay raise for federal civilian employees, but warned that funding “continues to fall short” for critical homeland security needs.

NTEU President Colleen M. Kelley welcomed the additional pay for federal civilian employees in the $397.4 billion Omnibus Appropriations Bill approved by the House and Senate last night. The bill funds government agencies through the Sept. 30 end of the current fiscal year. The legislation includes the 11 appropriations bills that were not concluded by the end of the last Congress.

The 4.1 percent pay raise matches that provided members of the military for 2003 and “is a reflection of congressional recognition both of the fairness of civilian-military pay parity and of the continuing contributions of federal civilian employees,” she said.

NTEU led the fight for the higher civilian raise, which will be retroactive to the first pay period in January. Earlier, President Bush was forced to allow a 3.1 percent raise to take effect, an amount higher than the 2.6 percent raise he proposed in his 2003 budget.

President Kelley noted that the fight over fair pay for federal workers continues, with the administration proposing only a meager two percent civilian pay raise in 2004, while proposing an average 4.1 percent raise for the military. “NTEU strongly supports higher pay for members of the military,” she said, “but we support just as strongly fair and competitive pay for federal civilian employees, particularly given their front-line work in efforts to strengthen homeland security.”

The NTEU leader continued to criticize what she called “a disturbing lack of appreciation” by both the administration and Congress of the need to adequately fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). NTEU represents some 12,000 employees of the Customs Service who, on March 1, will join some employees from 22 agencies and departments in the new agency.

“As a nation, we are asking the men and women of the agencies that will make up the DHS to take on an extraordinarily wide range of difficult and critical tasks,” she said. “It is fair, smart and important that we provide them all the resources they will need—and this is not yet being done.”

NTEU is the largest independent federal union, representing some 150,000 employees in 29 agencies and departments.