The Federal Salary Council, a group of agency officials, union leaders and pay experts, has once again rejected calls to redraw certain GS locality pay boundary lines, requests that commonly are made by agency management officials concerned about their ability to recruit and retain employees near higher-paid localities.
The council said that over the last year, it heard requests from more than 40 areas, for the most part involving areas that are in the lowest-paid, catchall "rest of the U.S." locality covering employees outside the specified metropolitan zones, seeking to move into a nearby higher-paid zone. In several cases, federal executive associations sent representatives to give in-person presentation to the council, which had two meetings last month, one of them primarily to hear such testimony.
For example, representatives of agencies in Berkshire County, Mass., gave a presentation, as they had several times before, seeking to have that county attached to the Hartford locality. They noted that the county, the western-most in that state, is the only one in the southern three New England states that is not part of a metropolitan locality. They also had the support of the two Massachusetts senators, who sent a staff member to plead the case.
However, as in the past, the council ultimately did not approve the request because of its rules on adding areas to metropolitan zones, which involve certain standards for numbers of employees, commuting rates to the city, and other factors. The council did, however, note that it has changed its policies in that area in the past and some members indicated that they were willing to do so again. The boundary policy issue was sent to an internal working group of the council, although how soon any changes could take effect, even if they are approved, is uncertain.
