By Jolie Lee
Federal News Radio

The Federal Managers Association is trying to convince the super committee charged with making budget cut recommendations to not put those cuts on the backs of federal employees.

The 12-member super committee has until November to make recommendations for finding $1.5 trillion in savings over the next decade.

In a letter to super committee co-chairperson Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), FMA President Patricia Niehaus wrote, “Our unprecedented deficit was not borne out of rising and exorbitant federal employee pay and benefits, and taking steps to reverse our government’s spending should not be unduly shouldered by our nation’s civil servants.”

Niehaus told In Depth that federal employees already face a two-year pay freeze and an average of a 7 percent increase in health premiums.

The letter comes just days after the American Federation of Government Employees, a federal union representing 625,000 feds, sent a letter of similar tone to Murray.

The Government Accountability Office has identified programs that are duplicative. These programs should be one target of cost-cutting, Niehaus said.

If the super committee does recommend cuts to federal pay, benefits or agency budgets, then the committee members must also consider how feds will carry out their missions.

“If you cut the budgets, you’re going be cutting people and you’re going to be cutting man hours,” Niehaus said. “So you’re going to have to cu the mission of the organization in order to have the people who are still there perform the work.”

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