We’ve written in the past about how TSA officers (TSAOs) don’t have a good reputation. People say they’re not nice, they’re grumpy and bossy, they have no patience, they’re on a power trip, etc.
Of course, there are some agents who aren’t like that at all. They’re kind and professional. They try to make the process less stressful (like this guy), or who will actually be helpful (like this amazing lady). But unfortunately, those kinds of TSAOs are few and far between.
Based on an audit the Department of Homeland Security had done in 2019, there are a bunch of reasons why TSAOs tend to be so…crabby. Money seemed to be the biggest issue, and that shouldn’t have been a surprise. TSAOs are historically one of the lowest groups of paid federal employees.
However, on December 29, 2022, President Biden signed into law the 2023 Omnibus government funding bill that funded 30% pay hikes for TSOs. The $398 million allotted to the agency to improve the pay and bargaining rights for TSOs would begin on July 1, 2023. Meanwhile, Congress provided the money to cover the raises for the first quarter of 2023 and everybody was happy. Or at least happiER.
So now what happened? With the almighty debt ceiling at stake, it’s questionable if Congress will extend the raises as planned. In fact, they may try to decrease TSAOs’ pay as a budget-cutting move.
Bloomberg reports that the proposal to extend the raises Congress approved last year may face pushback after all. Now some Republicans object to how much the raises would be, while others are looking at domestic spending cuts across federal agencies.
TSA is currently seeking $1.4 billion to maintain the raises that were promised, along with related spending on employee rights throughout the next fiscal year. It would be highly unusual and “devastating” for Congress to refuse to annualize the funding, said TSA Administrator David Pekoske.
See, the problem is, without those raises, the TSA strongly suspects two things will happen:
- The agency is already seeing more candidates for open jobs since the pay raises were announced. That larger pool of potential workers would undoubtedly dry up if announced pay was decreased
- Established TSAOs who had hung on, waiting for their raises to be permanent, would give up and look for better-paying employment elsewhere.
Either way, it would mean severe short-staffing at security checkpoints at airports, which would lead to “significantly longer wait times” for travelers, according to Pekoske.
Some people in Congress say the pay raises should only go to TSAOs at checkpoints, not those who have desk jobs.
“I support paying TSA employees fairly and taking care of our front-line officers, but the total cost of across-the-board pay increase presents a significant funding challenge,” said Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio). He leads homeland security appropriations in the House.
To that, Pekoske reminded Congress that it’s important to provide pay parity across the workforce so whole groups of employees don’t leave the agency. Even if some TSA workers aren’t seen by the public, leaving it shorthanded behind the scenes would still make difficulties for the agency on the whole.
“If we…try to pull pay back, you’re going to see people leaving the organization quite significantly,” said Pekoske, adding that reversing pay raises is “just not done.”
Of course, he’s right. You don’t promise raises and then say, “Oops, just kidding, not happening.” The fallout from that would be tremendous. Besides the importance of paying TSAOs fairly and on par with other federal workers, again, for us travelers, their leaving en masse would mean much longer queues at the TSA checkpoint.
Feature Image (cropped): oddharmonic / flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0
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