Fedweek

Locality pay is based the location of the job, not on the employee’s place of residence, and reflects comparisons of federal versus non-federal pay, not living costs. The rules project that 102,000 employees working in the 13 areas would be affected, under the proposed boundaries that are part of the draft rules. The rules also would address several other recommendations of the salary council regarding policies for drawing boundary lines in general, which could have the effect of attaching to existing localities certain areas that are now part of the catchall RUS locality—raising salary rates in those areas, as well. The effect would be to expand of 21 the existing 31 metro localities, mostly by bringing in outlying counties (in some cases bringing in the rest of a county that now is only partly included). The rules contain no projection of how many employees those changes would affect, but as with those in the new localities, they would be in line for a pay boost. The proposed rules also address certain technical matters including setting policies for places already attached to a metro locality but that would switch to a lower-paying new locality. In that case, the regs say, the area would remain in its current locality.