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Washington, D.C.—President Colleen M. Kelley of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) today welcomed President Bush’s signature on the 2002 Treasury Appropriations Bill, calling the measure “an important step forward” in recognizing the value of federal workers and in making federal employment more attractive to the high-quality job seekers the government must attract and retain.

The funding measure, which the president signed over the weekend, includes important provisions that were among NTEU’s legislative priorities, Kelley said, including a 4.6 percent pay raise for federal civilian employees in 2002, as well as making permanent a program of child care tuition assistance, which had required annual renewal by Congress.

“More can and should be done” to make it easier for federal agencies to recruit and retain the best among the nation’s workers, Kelley said, including reining in sharply-rising costs for health care, creating a greater sense of job security by stopping accelerating efforts to contract out government work, and providing agencies with sufficient resources to accomplish their missions. “These important steps are not now being taken,” she said, “and it is imperative they be done.”

Still, the NTEU leader said, the 2002 Treasury, Postal Appropriations Bill represents “a growing understanding in Congress” of the needs of federal employees and their agencies alike.

President Bush signed the Treasury funding measure even though he had proposed in his initial budget request for next year a 3.6 percent pay raise for federal civilian employees, and continued to express support for that position even as it allowed a continued widening of the gap between public and private sector pay.

NTEU President Kelley, who is a member of the Federal Salary Council, said that closing that gap, as called for the Federal Employee Pay Comparability Act (FEPCA), “must remain one of our nation’s primary goals.”

Otherwise, she said, federal agencies “will continue to lose out” to the private sector in efforts to recruit and retain both the numbers of employees they need and those with the specialized skills to perform the increasingly complex work of government on behalf of the public.

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