[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 171 (Wednesday, November 30, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H7006-H7008]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
OVERTIME PAY FOR SECRET SERVICE AGENTS ACT OF 2016
Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the
bill (H.R. 6302) to provide an increase in premium pay for United
States Secret Service agents performing protective services during
2016, and for other purposes.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 6302
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Overtime Pay for Secret
Service Agents Act of 2016''.
SEC. 2. PREMIUM PAY EXCEPTION IN 2016 FOR WORK AUTHORIZED
UNDER SECTION 3056 OF TITLE 18.
(a) In General.--Notwithstanding any other provision of
law, including section 5307 of title 5, United States Code,
and subject to subsection (b), during calendar year 2016--
(1) section 5547(a) of such title shall not apply to an
employee who performs work authorized by section 3056(a) of
title 18, United States Code; and
(2) such an employee may be paid premium pay to the extent
that the payment of such pay does not cause the total of
basic pay and such premium pay for any pay period for such
employee to exceed the annual rate of basic pay payable to
level II of the Executive Schedule under section 5313 of
title 5, United States Code.
(b) Treatment of Additional Pay.--To the extent that
subsection (a) results in payment of additional premium pay
of a type that is normally creditable as basic pay for
retirement or any other purpose, such additional pay shall
not be considered to be basic pay for any purpose and shall
not be used in computing a lump-sum payment for accumulated
and accrued annual leave under section 5551 of title 5,
United States Code.
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(c) Definition.--In this section, the term ``employee''
means any special agent of the United States Secret Service
that is a law enforcement officer, but does not include--
(1) a member of the United States Secret Service Uniformed
Division; or
(2) an officer, employee, agent, or law enforcement officer
of any other Federal agency.
(d) Conforming Amendment.--Section 118 of the Treasury and
General Government Appropriations Act, 2001 (Public Law 106-
554) is amended by inserting ``and except as provided in
section 2 of the Overtime Pay for Secret Service Agents Act
of 2016,'' after ``Hereafter,''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Utah (Mr. Chaffetz) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Lynch)
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Utah.
General Leave
Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members
may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks
and include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Utah?
There was no objection.
Mr. CHAFFETZ. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of my bill, H.R. 6302, the
Overtime Pay for Secret Service Agents Act of 2016.
The United States Secret Service has a zero-fail mission to protect
the President and other protectees at all costs. The 2016 Presidential
campaign year was an especially busy year for the Secret Service. They
have done an exceptional job.
I will give you some metrics of what this agency was dealing with.
They staffed more than 2,500 candidate trips, 8,580 total protective
travel stops, and 62 foreign travel trips with the President and the
Vice President. The most recent Presidential election saw Secret
Service agents working record hours to fulfill their mission.
Incredibly, this was accomplished despite the Secret Service suffering
from historic levels of attrition and low staffing levels.
In our December 2015 bipartisan report, the Committee on Oversight
and Government Reform found that the Secret Service was ``experiencing
a staffing crisis that threatens to jeopardize its critical mission.''
The Secret Service was at a peak staffing level of 7,024 employees in
the year 2011. That number has declined every year until the beginning
of this year when the agency had 6,289 employees.
The staffing numbers are beginning to improve, now at 6,500. But the
problem is the agency hopes to have between 8,000 and 9,000 employees
by the next Presidential election in 2020. It is hard and difficult to
hire a Secret Service agent, and once they are hired, you can't simply
put them out in front of the White House or next to a candidate or one
of the protectees and expect them to simply flip on the switch and do
their job.
As a result of the current manpower shortage and the lack of
employees, Secret Service agents had to work significant overtime to
ensure around-the-clock protection of Presidential candidates. No
matter the number of hours worked, Secret Service agents are subject to
a title 5 statutory cap on their biweekly pay. As a result, agents were
not compensated for overtime hours worked that would have resulted in
compensation beyond the cap during any pay period. Within the Secret
Service, this became known as a max-out problem.
These so-called max-outs contribute to the agency's low morale and
exacerbate attrition. The excessive overtime also negatively impacts
protective efforts. The agency needs fresh and energetic agents to
fulfill a critical mission, one that they have to be in tune with at
every moment while they are on the job. The bill, the Overtime Pay for
Secret Service Agents Act of 2016, offers relief for agents who have
not received pay due to the so-called max-out problem.
Secret Service agents who worked on the 2016 Presidential campaign
would be eligible to receive compensation above normal levels up to the
basic pay currently given to members of the Executive Schedule Level II
for the calendar year 2016.
Every Secret Service agent with outstanding overtime would receive an
additional compensation for 2016 under this bill. This is not a bonus.
This is not extra pay. This is simply trying to compensate them for
hours that they worked. We heard story after story about Secret Service
agents who would literally go weeks on end with no pay and yet continue
to do their job.
At the same time, the limitation to the 2016 Presidential election in
the bill presents a good balance and encourages Secret Service to fix
its current staffing problems instead of relying on excessive and
expensive overtime pay in the future.
It is my expectation that the Secret Service meets its staffing goals
by the next election cycle and does not have to rely on scheduling
excessive overtime. It is also my expectation that the Secret Service
will focus its staffing capital away from its increasing nonessential
investigative and cyber-related missions which distract from the core
mission of protecting the President and other protectees.
There are currently three ongoing studies analyzing the Secret
Service's nonessential mission of cyber investigations. By the way,
this nonprotective mission usually takes more than half of their time,
but certainly during a Presidential election cycle, you can see the
demand that was there.
I am very pleased with the bipartisan nature in which the committee
came together to make sure that we are supporting the men and women who
serve in the Secret Service. They have done so in a very admirable
fashion. They have provided a great service to the Nation. But when you
hear stories where people would go 43 days without a single day off,
when they would work, literally, 100-plus hours in a week and they
would go to work knowing that they weren't going to be compensated for
that work, that is inexcusable. This bill would provide relief to them.
Again, it is not a bonus; it is not extra pay; but it is some
compensation for the work that they did protecting our Nation and
protecting those protectees. By all accounts, they did an exceptional
job without any major incident in this 2016 election cycle.
I urge the passage of this bill. Again, I appreciate the bipartisan
nature in which we are doing this.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6302, the Overtime Pay for
Secret Service Agents Act of 2016, which was approved by our committee
unanimously by a voice vote. This legislation would authorize an
increase in the current pay cap up to Level II of the Executive
Schedule so that Secret Service agents are permitted to receive
compensation for the hours of overtime they worked in 2016.
As the chairman has indicated, the Presidential campaign of 2016 has
been a year of extraordinary challenges and strain on the Secret
Service. The Secret Service has provided information to the committee
indicating that more than 1,000 Secret Service agents--one-third of the
agents on board--have worked so many hours that they maxed out their
annual overtime and salary. Some agents started working overtime for
free as of early June and are exceeding the pay cap by as many as
$50,000 to $60,000 per agent. Current law prohibits them from receiving
any additional overtime pay, and that is what this bill is intended to
fix for calendar year 2016.
These spikes in overtime are a necessary factor in these election
campaigns. As we know, there were 16 Republican candidates in the
primary, and all received Secret Service protection, as well as several
candidates on the Democratic side. There were countless stops across
the country over the months of our campaigns, and I don't think there
is any way to avoid the need for overtime.
I am glad that this is a bipartisan bill, but every 4 years we have
to have agents working without pay. There has got to be a way that we
can estimate roughly what the overtime needs will be every 4 years and
incorporate something that at least eliminates the need to have Secret
Service agents working for free in a very dangerous job. I think we can
figure that out.
I had a proposal in committee to make this an every-4-year thing and
incorporate that. It did not succeed. But
[[Page H7008]]
I am hoping that, in a bipartisan manner with the chairman and my
Republican colleagues on the committee, we can solve this.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from
Arizona will control the remainder of the time.
There was no objection.
Mr. GOSAR. Mr. Speaker, I urge adoption of the bill.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I support H.R. 6302, the Overtime Pay for
Secret Service Agents Act of 2016. The bill would authorize an increase
in the annual salary and overtime limit up to level II of the Executive
Schedule so that Secret Service agents would be eligible to receive
additional back pay for the considerable hours of overtime they worked
in 2016.
Last year, the Committee adopted a bipartisan report concluding that
the Secret Service, and I quote, ``is experiencing a staffing crisis
that threatens to jeopardize its critical mission'' due in large part
to ``significant cuts imposed by the Budget Control Act of 2011.'' The
unanimous report recommended that Congress, quote, ``ensure that Secret
Service has sufficient funds to restore staffing to required levels.''
Providing this much-needed relief in the highly demanding 2016
presidential campaign year is a first and essential step towards
fulfilling the Committee's recommendation.
I appreciate the efforts that Chairman Chaffetz and his staff have
made to address this issue, and I believe we are in agreement that we
must pay the dedicated men and the women of the Secret Service for the
overtime they worked in 2016. However, addressing just this one year
retroactively does not go far enough.
The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, which represents
rank-and-file Secret Service agents, testified before our Committee
that there should be a legislative fix to raise the overtime pay cap,
and I quote, ``at a minimum, during a presidential campaign year.'' The
witness added that although, quote, ``this last election season was
unprecedented in many respects, we do not believe it will prove to be
unique in the years ahead,'' and he stressed, quote, ``the importance
of working together to find a permanent solution to the effect that the
pay cap has on the USSS.''
The demands on Secret Service agents are likely to remain extremely
high with the substantial resources needed to provide around-the-clock
protective details for all 18 Trump family members--including the First
Lady, five children and three of their spouses, and eight
grandchildren. The announced plan to split time between the White House
and the Trump tower in Manhattan would also add significant challenges
and strain the resources of the Secret Service.
That is why all Committee Democrats joined together to introduce H.R.
6318, the Fair Pay for Presidential Protection Act of 2016, to ensure
that Secret Service agents are paid not just for the overtime they
worked in 2016, but also for the overtime they will work in all future
presidential years. Our legislation would also authorize a greater
level of overtime compensation than H.R. 6302.
I would also note that the Republican Leadership recently decided to
change course and use a continuing resolution to fund the government at
last year's spending levels through next March. Passing only this
stopgap measure would mean Secret Service agents would not see an
additional penny unless Congress includes additional funds in this
spending bill. Otherwise, Secret Service agents may have to wait at
least another four months without any additional compensation for their
work in 2016.
I urge my colleagues to support this bill, but I also hope the
Committee will revisit this overtime pay issue next year so that the
Secret Service will have a legislative solution in time for the 2020
election season.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Utah (Mr. Chaffetz) that the House suspend the rules and
pass the bill, H.R. 6302.
The question was taken; and (two-thirds being in the affirmative) the
rules were suspended and the bill was passed.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
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