Fedweek

The Office of Personnel Management proposed regulations in the March 24 Federal Register involving pay capping for highly paid federal employees that won’t have any immediate effect but might in the future. The proposed rules would lower the cap on basic pay plus locality pay to executive schedule level IV (currently $122,400) from executive schedule level III ($130,200) if the maximum rate of basic pay for a GS-15, step 10 exceeds the maximum scheduled annual rate of pay for a non-GS group. Such a catch-up could happen because non-GS employees in high-level pay systems–most notably the senior executive and administrative law judge schedules—often don’t receive basic pay increases when the general schedule does because their raises are tied to pay for Congress, which frequently denies raises for itself for political reasons. Under the rules, the level III cap used in salary systems above the general schedule would remain in effect.