The Border Patrol Pay Reform Act was passed by the Senate and is now heading to the House.
The bipartisan legislation (BPAPRA) was combined with the Cybersecurity Authorization. Arizona Senator John McCain and Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) were of the primary sponsors of the legislation.
The legislation is intended to reform the “antiquated Border Patrol Agent pay system and save up to $1 billion over 10 years,” according to McCain.
“I am gratified by the Senate’s passage of this common-sense solution to provide much-needed stability to our nation’s border patrol pay scale,” said Senator John McCain. “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. I now hope my colleagues in the House will expedite final passage of much-needed reform and join in this effort to improve the security of our borders.”
The legislation reforms a complicated and inefficient overtime pay system and holds the Border Patrol more accountable for how it spends taxpayer money. Under the law, Border Patrol Agents will be able to choose between three pay schedule options and work either 100 hours (20 hours of overtime), 90 hours (10 hours of overtime), or 80 hours (no overtime) per pay period.
“The men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol would like to thank Senator McCain for passing out of the Senate the Pay Reform Act,” said Brandon Judd, President National Border Patrol Council. “Senator McCain is a long-time friend and advocate of the Border Patrol Agents. This legislation will effectively put another 1,500 highly trained agents on the border while saving taxpayers $100 million a year. Given the crisis in the Middle East, it has never been more important to secure our borders and we simply could not have done it without him.”
The Border Patrol union also thanked senators Cornyn, Heitkamp, and Ayotte for co-sponsorsing the legislation.