If the price-at-the-pump situation keeps getting worse, it would be the second year in a row that the COLA exceeded the amount of the national pay raise for active duty feds and military personnel.

In January of this year, federal workers got a 3.1 percent national pay raise. That translated to a total (national and locality) pay hike of 3.44 percent for the biggest batch of feds in the nation, in the Washington-Baltimore area. Retirees nationwide got a 4.1 percent COLA. (See below for your hometown pay raise).

President Bush has budgeted for a 2.2 percent civilian-military pay raise for 2007. The final amount will be determined by Congress which, for the past dozen years, has raised the raises proposed by Presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush.

Meantime, halfway through the cost of living adjustment countdown, retired civil servants, military retirees and people who get Social Security benefits are already due a 1.4 percent raise next January. That amount will go up as the inflation rates for May, June, July, August, and September are tallied.

Whereas the federal-military pay raise is subject to the White House-Congress and budget pressures, the COLA for retirees is linked, by law, to inflation. The exact amount of the January, 2007 COLA boost will be the difference in the rise in the CPI (consumer price index) from the current (2006) third quarter over the CPI level for the third quarter of 2005. Confused? Welcome to the club!

How COLAs Work

Want the full explanation, courtesy of the National Association of Active and Retired Federal Employees? If so, click here.

2006 Pay Raise Box Score

Thanks to locality pay, raises for active duty civilian workers varied from city to city. To see what you got, and where your hometown ranked in the 2006 federal pay raise derby, click here.

Don't Mess With Connecticut!

The so-called Power of the Press is frequently overestimated. But we have our small victories from time to time. For example, yesterday we (as in me) mentioned Sen. Tom Dodd (D-Conn.) as one member of Congress whose support for key legislation has lapsed. Well, we (me) were right, up to a point. His support has indeed lapsed but for very good reason: he's dead, and has been so for a couple of decades!

A batch of Connecticut readers, plus folks from other parts of the country, reminded us that his son, Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) is one of the state's two still-living, still-serving senators. To get the real list of the real "lapsed" Senators, click here.

To reach me: mcausey@federalnewsradio.com