Pay raise/shutdown … it’s OK to exhale

After a year of being the target in a one-sided game of Russian roulette, federal workers can relax. At least for a couple of weeks and probably longer than that.

The on-again-off-again 2016 pay raise is secure. Thanks to locality pay, feds in the Washington-Baltimore area will get a 1.5 percent boost. Feds in San Francisco-San Jose will get slightly more.  Those in LA, New York City and other high private sector wage areas will get about the same as DC-based employees. But most will still earn more than their counterparts here.

Tens of thousands of civil servants in places like Roanoke, Louisville, Boise, Helena, Ogden, Norfolk and Akron, who are in the so-called RUS (Rest of the U.S.) locality pay zone will get a 1 percent raise.

To see whether you are in  stand-alone locality pay area, or are part of the geographically giant RUS zone, click here.

The various shutdown threats, which lasted nearly six months, ended last week when Congress finally got its act together and passed a trillion dollar budget the President said he would sign. Had the last shutdown threat prevailed you could have spent Christmas at home, minus a paycheck and not knowing when (or if) the furlough would end, and if you would have been reimbursed (as in the 2013 shutdown) for not working. If you had planned a vacation anytime during any shutdown you would have had to cancel it. The powers that be say that nobody can use annual leave during a shutdown. If you doubt it, check here.

The good news takeaway is that the pay raise is coming and furloughs are not.

While the pay raise isn’t much, it’s 100 percent bigger than 2013, 2012 or 2011 when there was no raise. Feds got a 1 percent increase this year (2015) and last year.

Retirees whose increases are tied to inflation did not get cost of living adjustments in 2011 or 2010, primarily because of falling oil prices. The 2015 COLA was 1.7 percent; in 2014 it was 1.5 percent and in 2013 the inflation catch up was 1.7 percent.

Health insurance premiums for both workers and retirees continued their steady rise each year, going up an average of 7 percent (your share of the premium) for 2016.

The last minute budget deal removes most of the threats of sequestration cuts to agencies next year.  It also extends government paid credit monitoring for 10 years for current and former feds whose personal data was stolen in three major hacks. It also raises the value of liability protection to a maximum of $5 million, up from the current $1 million level.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Meredith Somers

During World War II, the crew of British submarine the HMS Trident kept a fully-grown reindeer on board as company. The reindeer’s name was Pollyanna and was given as a gift to the crew by a Soviet naval admiral in 1941.

Source: BBC

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