With just a few months left in the 118th Congress, lawmakers are pushing forward their priorities for the federal workforce with an array of new bills, while also rehashing some long-standing legislation.
House and Senate appropriators still appear far from reaching a spending agreement for fiscal 2025, and a 2% federal pay raise seems likely on the horizon, but there are still plenty of other legislative efforts that would have direct impacts for federal employees.
For instance, one largely bipartisan bill, the Chance to Compete Act, would bring major reforms to the federal hiring process. If enacted, the legislation would create a host of new requirements and expectations for agencies to transform the way they recruit and evaluate federal job candidates.
Although the House passed the Chance to Compete Act near the start of 2023 in a vote of 422 to 2, the Senate has been slower to act on its companion bill — until just recently. On July 31, the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee unanimously advanced its version of the bill in a vote of 11 to 0.
The 2023 Chance to Compete Act, first introduced by Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), would codify and expand several recruitment strategies that some agencies began incorporating during both the Trump and Biden administrations. The bill, if enacted, would require agencies to implement many hiring practices that have already been shown to work well.
Under the legislation, subject matter experts would have to conduct resume reviews, agencies would have to implement technical job assessments while phasing out candidate self-assessments, and hiring managers would have to place more emphasis on candidates’ actual skills rather than their education. The Office of Personnel Management would also have to support agencies as they better incorporate the use of shared certificates.
The current progress on the federal workforce bill now mirrors how far the Chance to Compete Act made it through the previous 117th Congress. In 2022, the legislation similarly cleared the House and advanced out of HSGAC, but the bill did not pass by the end of 2022. It’s still unclear whether the current version of the legislation will advance further by the end of this Congress.
Republican legislators have recently introduced bills that target federal employee pay, benefits, hiring, and remote work flexibility If passed, these GOP-backed measures would impose pay freezes, reduce locality pay, and codify controversial employment categories like Schedule F Supporters say the proposals aim to cut costs and improve efficiency, while federal employee groups argue they are unfair and would harm recruitment.
Pay Freezes and Locality Pay Cuts
In October 2024 Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) introduced the Federal Employee Return to Work Act in the Senate. The bill would eliminate locality pay for any federal employee who teleworks even one day per week instead paying only base General Schedule rates regardless of location.
Cassidy argued the bill would “ensure taxpayer dollars are used efficiently.” A companion bill was later introduced in the House by Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA).
Locality pay adjustments account for regional cost-of-living differences. In 2023 rates ranged from 15.37% (San Francisco) to 14.16% (Dallas). Federal employee groups oppose reducing locality pay, which has bipartisan support in Congress.
In December 2024, Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced a bill freezing federal employee pay at 2023 levels for FY2025. Pay would be frozen for one year across the board, including the General Schedule, Foreign Service, and Veterans Health Administration.
Blackburn’s bill also calls for capping total workforce size through FY2027, limiting new hires over three years after the freeze ends.
Schedule F
Senator Blackburn’s package of DOGE Act bills also includes a measure to codify Schedule F, a new employment category created by President Trump in 2020.
Schedule F made it easier to fire employees in policy-making, policy-determining, and public-facing roles by stripping civil service protections. A federal judge struck down most of Trump’s Schedule F executive order in 2021, but it remains a GOP priority.
Blackburn’s bill would fully authorize Schedule F, covering approximately 40,000 federal employees by some estimates. Employees in national security agencies would be exempt.
Federal unions strongly oppose Schedule F, arguing it puts veteran expertise at risk for political purposes. The Senior Executives Association said Schedule F could “do long-standing damage to the professionalism of the career federal workforce.”
Hiring Limits
Blackburn’s DOGE Act bills also aim to limit federal hiring, aligning with Trump’s pledge to reduce the workforce. One bill would immediately freeze all new hiring for one year (with exemptions for security agencies). Hiring would then be capped for 3 additional years.
Another DOGE bill calls for cutting discretionary spending by 5% across most agencies, likely resulting in hiring freezes to meet the mandate.
Critics argue restricting hiring will harm efforts to recruit cybersecurity, IT, and other essential talent as federal retirements escalate. For example, the Office of Personnel Management predicts over 30% of the IT workforce will be eligible to retire by 2025.
Reduced Remote Work
Both Senator Cassidy and Senator Blackburn’s bills target federal employee remote work access.
Cassidy’s legislation reducing telework locality pay is based on an argument that taxpayer-funded salaries shouldn’t be location adjusted if employees work from home. Blackburn’s bill package would require agencies to submit a report to Congress on expanded pandemic telework/remote work and create a plan to return more employees to physical offices.
Federal employee groups contend that hybrid and remote policies actually improve recruitment and retention, particularly for high-demand technology roles. Surveys show most feds want to keep expanded flexibilities post-pandemic.
Recent Republican proposals take aim at federal employee pay levels, hiring, and remote work flexibilities in the name of efficiency and cost savings. However, advocates argue the measures would negatively impact recruitment, retention, and technical expertise across government. With Democrats controlling the House, the bills face an uphill battle to become law in 2025. Their introduction reflects ongoing partisan debates around the size, scope, and policies governing the federal workforce.
A closer eye on telework, locality pay
Separately, a pair of bills that Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) introduced on July 30 would target federal workforce pay and benefits in multiple ways. One bill, the Federal Employee Return to Work Act, would completely cut locality pay for federal employees who telework at least one day per week.
Instead, according to the legislation, federal employees who telework would receive only their basic pay rates. If enacted, the bill could lead to 25% pay cuts for some employees, or even larger, depending on their locality pay area.
The bill would make exceptions for employees who telework due to a disability, as well as Foreign Service members, federal law enforcement officers and active-duty military members.
Cassidy’s other newly introduced bill, the Federal Employee Locality Accountability in Retirement Act, would exclude locality pay from retirement annuity calculations for new federal employees entering the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS).
Cassidy said his legislation aims to end what he said is “telework abuse.”
“Federal employees get paid extra to work in higher-cost cities. But what if they don’t show up to work? Why should they get paid?” Cassidy said in a statement. “If you don’t show up for work, you don’t get paid at the same rate just for teleworking.”
The legislation follows multiple other attempts from Congress members to investigate or alter telework policies for the federal workforce.
Continued efforts to prohibit official time
Another Senate bill once again aims to change the use of official time in the federal workforce. Legislation that Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) introduced on July 31, called the No Union Time on the Taxpayer’s Dime Act, would prohibit federal employees from using on-the-clock hours for union-related activities.
The bill aims to address what Lee said is “misuse” of official time — and instead propel feds to work on union activities in their own time, at their own expense.
“Taxpayers should not be burdened with the cost of federal employees engaging in union activities,” Lee said in a July 31 statement.
Over at least the last decade, Republican lawmakers have made multiple attempts to scrap official time for feds, but so far, no bills related to official time have come close to passage.
A fiscal 2019 report on official time from OPM — the most recent publicly available — shows that official time hours decreased 28% between 2016 and 2019.
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FAQ
What is the bill for federal workers to return to work?
What is the federal pay cap increase for 2024?
5305 for most GS workers is capped at $191,900 in 2024, which is the rate for level IV of the Executive Schedule (EX-IV). When the premium pay cap for two weeks (or one year, if applicable) is reached, workers may still be asked to do extra hours without getting paid extra.
What is the Federal employee pay Act?
In 1945, S 807, the Federal Employees Pay Act, changed the basic pay rates of all Federal employees except those in the mechanical forces. This was the first change since 1930. Before the upper brackets, the War Overtime Pay Act of 1943 paid at the rate of time and one-twelfth for all work over 40 hours per week.
What is the Back to Work Act of 2024?
Setting a general ceiling of 2040 days in a pay period for federal agency telework is what the Back to Work Act of 202024 would do. Give each agency a fair amount of freedom, such as letting them get waivers for certain types of jobs where telework is needed to meet agency needs.
Will federal employees get paid if they telework?
People who work for the government and do telework at least one day a week would not get any locality pay under the Federal Employee Return to Work Act. Instead, according to the legislation, federal employees who telework would receive only their basic pay rates.
Will federal employee pay be cut?
By Ian Smith at 6:45 a.m. on August 5, 2024, in Federal Employee Pay News. Leave a comment. Newly introduced legislation could mean lower pay for most federal workers. The bills were introduced by Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and target telework and locality pay.
Will federal employees be paid at Locality pay?
Federal employees covered under the bill would be paid at the Rest of U. S. locality pay area rate under the General Schedule. The Federal Employee Locality Accountability in Retirement Act (S. For federal workers in the Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS), 4833) would not count locality pay when figuring out their retirement payments.
Will the federal employee return to work act remove locality pay?
If passed, the Federal Employee Return to Work Act would don’t pay locality pay to any federal worker who works from home at least one day a week. Federal teleworkers would instead only receive their base pay rates. The House bill, introduced this week, comes after Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La. ) introduced the legislation in August.
Are House Republicans pushing for cuts to federal employees’ pay & benefits?
As lawmakers move forward with spending bills for fiscal 2024, some House Republicans are asking their colleagues to push for cuts to federal workers’ pay and benefits.
Are Republicans targeting federal employee pay & benefits?
Republican candidates are also attacking federal employee pay and benefits, saying that federal workers are paid 2017% more than their private-sector counterparts, when benefits are taken into account.
