Tester, McCain team up on new Border Patrol pay plan

Two U.S. senators are teaming up across the aisle to try to give more work-week and pay predictability to U.S. Border Patrol Agents, including in the Havre Sector.

Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and John McCain, R-Ariz., have introduced a bill to deal with how agents schedule their week and how they will be paid.

“A common-sense pay schedule that provides stability for agents and their families is something I hear about every time I visit the border,” Tester said in a press release. “Establishing this new pay schedule will make our borders more secure and save taxpayer dollars. This much-needed bill is the product of folks working together to find common ground, and I look forward to seeing it become law.”

“Spending cuts due to sequestration, coupled with an archaic and inefficient pay scale, put at risk the safety of Border Patrol agents and threaten to reverse much of the progress these agents have made along the border over the last few years,” McCain added in the press release. “This legislation stabilizes and restructures the Border Patrol pay scale, allowing agents to put in the hours needed to secure the border while saving taxpayers millions of dollars each year.”

The issue is one that was discussed during a Senate field hearing on border issues Tester convened in Havre in July, which also was attended by Rep. Steve Daines, R-Mont.

Tester and Daines heard that agents often don’t know how long they will be on shift, perhaps driving two to three hours to a patrol or incident location, then having to deal with issues on shift and then driving back. The job is not an 8-to-5 position, they said. Administrative, unscheduled overtime allows them to do that work and be paid for it if they work more than 40 hours a week.

Tester and McCain’s bill will let agents select whether they want an 80, 90 or 100 hour pay period, with overtime paid for how much more than 40 hours a week they work. If additional overtime is scheduled, the agents will be paid time-and-a-half, and if it is unscheduled, they will be given comp time, getting additional time off with pay.

Tester communications director Andrea Helling said this morning that Tester and McCain worked with the Border Patrol agent union, the National Border Patrol Council, on crafting the bill.

“Americans ask Border Patrol agents to put our lives in danger to keep this country safe, and we do so willingly,” Brandon Judd of the National Border Patrol Council said in the press release. “Thanks to Sens. Tester and McCain, this legislation will ensure that Americans have a Border Patrol that is properly trained, adequately equipped, and fairly compensated.”

Agents have asked for some way to have more certainty in their work week, Helling said, adding that the “antiquated” 40-year-old pay system now in use “is unpredictable for agents themselves, and it’s expensive.”

The Tester-McCain bill is expected to save $1 billion in the Border Patrol budget over 10 years.

Helling said Tester will hold a hearing of his subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security committee next month that will include a discussion of administratively uncontrolled overtime and he and McCain’s bill.