Evening star., 1946-04-16
Federal Pay Bill
Until
End Of Month
Conferees Are Unable
To Reach Agreement
On Personnel Slash
By Joseph Young

Federal pay bill conferees today
failed To reach agreement on the
major provisions of the legislation
and delayed their next meeting until
after the Houses Easter recess.
The chief obstacle to final agree.
ment is the inability of the members
to draw up workable amendment
which would have the effect of re-
ducing Government personnel by an
estimated 100000 persons.
Conferees expressed the belief that
once this is done. agreement would
be reached on the pay provisions
of the bill
The General Accounting Office to-
day informed the conferees that the
latest Dirksen reduction in force
amendment was about as impracti-
cal from an administrative stand
point as the earlier amendment pro-
posed by the Illinois legislator and
adopted by the House as part of the
Federal pay bill.
Sentiment among conferees indi-
Gates that some sort of an amend
ment with the purpose of cutting
Government personnel will eventu-
ally be included by them in their
final version of the bill. They in
structed GAO representatives to
draw up a workable proposal for
study when the conferees meet
again on Tuesday, April 80.
Would Handicap Some Agencies.
In its appraisal of the Dirksen
amendment, which would restrict
Government agencies from spend
ing more money during 1947 than
they did during 1916, the GAO said
that such blanket provision would
seriously handicap expanding agen-
cles legitimately in need of addi-
tional operating expenses.
| GAO officials agreed to draw un
a substitute proposal which might
be more applicable.
The only agreement reached bv
the conferees today was approval
OF the House approved provision
that legislative employees would be
allowed to retain their 10 per cent
increase in salary in lieu of over
time, which was granted them last
July.
Judicial employees, with execution
OF Supreme Court workers. would
not be allowed to retain the 10 per
cent overtime provision.
One of the bills sponsors said to-
DAY his group would be willing to
accept observation-disclosures proviso
70 the bill if, in turn, supporters of
the amendment agree to a more lib
eral pay boost for Government en-
ployes.
He pointed out that current plans
call for the Government to dismiss
more than 100000 employees by June,
l947-more than enough to satisfy
advocates of amendments to reduce
the Federal payroll
Amendment "Meaningless.'
"As I see it, any such amendment
is virtually meaningless, and it would
be worth our while to accept such a
proposal if by so doing we can get
a more liberal pay BILL" the leeisla-
tor said. His sentiments were sec.
onded by other conferees backing
the bill
They indicated, however. they
would oppose any amendment
which would cause the pay bill not
to become effective until a desig-
mated number of employees were
fired.
/ Meanwhile, Chairman Randolph
OF the House Civil Service Commit
tee indicated he would seek ap-
proval of fiat l6 per cent wage
increase for Federal workers. An
alternate 15.5 per cent graduated
pay raise is being prepared by Rep
resentative Rees, Republican, Of
Kansas.
In any event, it appears that an
almost entirely new bill will be writ
ten from the fiat s400-a-year in
crease House measure and the grad
uated IL per cent Senate bill,