President Barack Obama is expected to sign a $446 billion omnibus spending bill this week giving federal workers a 2 percent pay raise in 2010.

All federal employees under the General Schedule will receive a 1.5 percent raise in January, plus a small locality raise that will average 0.5 percent. Obama had previously called for an overall 2 percent pay raise without any locality pay in 2010.

The Senate approved the omnibus 57-35 on Nov. 13, defying Obama's call to forego locality pay. The House approved the bill Nov. 10.

The military will receive a 3.4 percent increase in 2010, breaking with the longstanding tradition of pay parity between service members and federal employees. Next year will be only the fifth time in three decades that federal pay raises were lower than military raises. The other years were 1984, 1994, 1995 and 2002.

Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry said in September that the administration expects to return to pay parity in 2011. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said Obama has promised him will happen.

The omnibus contains the following spending bills: Commerce, Justice and Science; Financial Services and General Government; Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education; Military Construction and Veterans Affairs; State and Foreign Operations; and Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. Agencies covered by those bills are currently operating under a continuing resolution that will expire Dec. 18.

The House and Senate will likely vote this week on the Defense appropriations bill, which will be a rider for many Democratic end-of-the-year priorities, such as raising the federal debt limit.

Obama has already signed the Agriculture, Energy and Water, Homeland Security, Interior, and Legislative Branch appropriations bills.

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