Cummings Applauds Committee Passage of Bipartisan Secret Service Overtime Pay Bill

Sep 13, 2017
Press Release

Cummings Applauds Committee Passage of Bipartisan Secret Service Overtime Pay Bill

 

Washington, D.C. (Sept. 13, 2017)—Today, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, issued the following statement after the Committee unanimously passed H.R. 3731, the Secret Service Recruitment and Retention Act of 2017, a bipartisan bill he introduced along with Rep. John Katko to ensure that the men and women of the U.S. Secret Service are paid for the overtime they work in 2017 and 2018:

 

“Congress cannot sit on the sidelines and watch as the men and women of the Secret Service work around the clock without getting paid the overtime they have earned,” said Cummings. “That is why I am so pleased that the Oversight Committee has passed this bipartisan bill so we can now send it to the House floor and then to the President’s desk.  I thank Chairman Gowdy for his support of this bill and for including it in today’s markup.”

 

On Monday, Cummings introduced the Secret Service Recruitment and Retention Act of 2017 with Rep. John Katko, the Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee’s Transportation and Protective Security Subcommittee.  They were joined by a number of additional Republican and Democratic Members of Congress, including Reps. Trey Gowdy, Michael McCaul, Bennie Thompson, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Sheila Jackson Lee, John Ratcliffe, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Daniel Donovan.

 

The Secret Service reports that more than 1,000 agents—a third of the agents in the workforce—have already “maxed out” their annual overtime and salary under the pay cap set forth in 5 U.S.C. § 5547, which prohibits agents from being paid for overtime after reaching the maximum annual salary for the pay rate of GS-15.

 

Under the Trump Administration, Secret Service agents have to protect an unprecedented number of people and private residences, work overtime on par with the grueling 2016 campaign year, and be away from their families on constant travel. 

 

This bipartisan legislation would allow the Secret Service to cover additional overtime earned this year and next year up to level II of the Executive Schedule and require the Secret Service to submit a report to Congress on recruitment and retention efforts. 

 

Last year, similar legislation funded overtime pay for 1,400 Secret Service employees in the 2016 presidential campaign year.

 

The bill is supported by the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, which said the bill is critical “to ensure that these brave men and women are compensated for the inordinate amount of overtime they provide in service to our nation and its security.”

 

115th Congress