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Washington, D.C. – Federal employees are one step closer to a 2019 pay raise after a strong bipartisan vote Thursday by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The president’s proposal to freeze federal pay next year was rejected by an overwhelming margin when 29 Republican and Democratic senators voted instead to give employees a 1.9 percent adjustment. The amendment to kill the raise received only two votes.

The raise is contained in the FY 2019 Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill that now goes to the full Senate for consideration.

“Federal employees in every state and U.S. territory should be heartened by this committee vote today,” Reardon said. “When the administration says federal employees don’t deserve fair pay, it is especially gratifying to see some of the most powerful senators from both parties strongly reject that notion.”

The pay raise was added in the subcommittee that is led by Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) and Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE). Both senators gave powerful statements in support of federal employees before urging the full Senate Appropriations Committee to vote for the raise.

NTEU has endorsed separate legislation to give employees a 3 percent increase next year.

“The men and women of the federal civil service are middle class workers who have bills just like everyone else, and NTEU is proud to tell them that they have strong allies on Capitol Hill who appreciate their work and are willing to provide a modest increase,” Reardon said. “I want to commend Senators Lankford and Coons, as well as Senators Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) for their bipartisan work in support of federal employees.”

The Financial Services and General Government spending bill also maintains the long-standing moratorium, supported by NTEU, on competitions between federal employees and private contractors. The A-76 competitions, named for Office of Management and Budget Circular A-76, erode the in-house capacity of agencies to perform critical functions by outsourcing the public’s work to for-profit companies.

The legislation, however, does not provide adequate funding for the Internal Revenue Service to perform its core mission of serving taxpayers.  Although the bill provides an increase over what the administration initially recommended, it is not enough to make up for $715 million in lost funding since 2010.

“The data on enforcement and taxpayer assistance is clear: You can’t sufficiently serve more taxpayers with more complicated tax returns when you have 22,000 fewer professional employees,” Reardon said. “We hope Congress will provide additional funding to help the agency enforce the tax code, answer a growing number of questions about the changes in the tax law and collect the revenue that is owed to the U.S. Treasury.”

NTEU represents 150,000 employees at 32 federal agencies and departments.