WASHINGTON, D.C. –  Today, U.S. Senators Mark R. Warner and Tim Kaine are celebrating new progress in their efforts toward securing a much-deserved pay raise for federal employees in Virginia Beach and Norfolk starting in January of 2019. In November, the Federal Salary Council confirmed its recommendation for these raises, a process that was started in 2015, and tomorrow the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) within the Trump Administration will formally publish in the Federal Register the final rule that includes these raises, indicating that they will be set by the President. Kaine and Warner have pushed OPM to take the necessary steps to implement a pay raise for federal employees in the region. In Virginia Beach and Norfolk, the cost of living has greatly outpaced federal salary increases, and while federal employees in the region could have been receiving higher pay for the last year, OPM’s delay in implementing the pay scale adjustment exacerbated the situation for Virginia families who had been long-expecting a raise. 

“We are thrilled that the hardworking federal employees in Virginia Beach and Norfolk will finally receive the long-overdue pay raise we’ve pushed for to counter the high cost of living,” the Senators said. “These individuals work hard every day to serve our country, and it’s a shame that many of them have struggled to get by as the cost of living has outpaced federal salary increases. We hope that President Trump will quickly set these pay rates to offer Virginians peace of mind as they head into the holiday season.”

Last year, Kaine and Warner wrote to the Acting Director of OPM concerned that federal employees in the Hampton Roads region were led to believe they would see a pay raise for calendar year 2017 and asked that the agency take quick action to implement the pay scale adjustment. And earlier this year, Kaine and Warner spoke out against President Trump’s threat to deny all federal employees a 1.9 percent cost of living adjustment in 2019, his latest attack on hardworking public servants. If authorized, this pay scale adjustment for federal employees in Virginia Beach and Norfolk would be on top of the 1.9 percent cost of living adjustment for all federal employees nationwide, which is awaiting Congressional approval as part of the end-of-year spending package.

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