The Office of Personnel Management has asked agencies to
report by February 16 on their use of extended assignment
incentives, one of the financial bonus programs available
to the government for retention purposes—in this case, in
U.S. territories or possessions, Puerto Rico and the
Marianas Islands.
OPM is seeking information on the extent to which agencies
use the authority, whether the payments have influenced
employees to stay longer than their initial assignments
and also asked for recommendations on how to improve the
program.
An extended assignment incentive may not exceed the greater
of: 25 percent of the annual rate of basic pay (excluding
additional pay of any kind) of the employee at the
beginning of the service period times the number of years
in the service period; or $15,000 per year in the service
period.
Before an employee may be paid an incentive, the employee
must sign a written service agreement to complete a
specified period of additional employment with the agency
in one of the covered locations. In addition, the service
agreement must specify the amount of the incentive
payment, the method of paying the incentive, the
conditions under which an agreement may be terminated,
the requirements and procedures for the repayment of
incentive payments if the employee separates prior to the
completion of the service period, and any other terms and
conditions for receiving and retaining the EAI payments.
The OPM memo is here:
