KENNEBUNKPORT — President Bush on Friday sent Congress his recommendation that federal employees receive a 3.5-percent pay raise Jan. 1.

Congress has until the end of September to approve his plan or substitute its own. The House already has passed a 4.1-percent pay raise.

Bush originally proposed the 3.5-percent raise in his fiscal 1991 budget unveiled in February. Bush advisers had recommended increases of 22 percent to 40 percent to keep civil service pay abreast of salaries in the private sector.

But Bush told congressional leaders in a letter sent from his vacation home here that “pay raises of this magnitude are clearly unacceptable.”