The Office of Personnel Management has proposed
regulations to provide agencies with the authority to
increase the rates of basic pay of certain members of the
Senior Executive Service whose pay was set before the
agency’s senior executive performance appraisal system
was certified for the calendar year involved as making
meaningful distinctions of performance.
The proposed regulations would allow an agency to review
the rates of basic pay set for these SES members, which
was capped at the rate for level III of the Executive
Schedule, and provide an additional pay increase, if
warranted, up to the rate for level II of the Executive
Schedule upon certification of the agency’s senior
executive performance appraisal system for the current
calendar year.
An agency’s senior executive performance appraisal
system must be certified on a calendar year basis. The
maximum rate of the SES rate range may not exceed the
rate for level III of the Executive Schedule unless
the agency’s senior executive performance appraisal
system is certified. Since many agencies’ senior
executive performance appraisal systems are not
certified at the beginning of a calendar year, there
is a gap from the time an agency may set SES pay
above the rate for level III (in the previous calendar
year) until the time an agency may again set SES pay
above the rate for level III upon certification of
its senior executive performance appraisal system
(in the next calendar year).
According to an OPM memo to agencies, this “certification
gap” limits agencies from setting or adjusting pay
above the rate for level III of the Executive Schedule
in situations where a higher rate may be warranted–to
recruit individuals with superior leadership skills
into the SES, to reassign current SES members into
positions with substantially greater responsibility,
or to retain an SES member who is critical to the
mission of the agency. OPM’s proposed regulations
would allow an agency that obtains certification of
its senior executive performance appraisal system(s)
to review the rates of pay they set earlier in the
calendar year and provide an additional pay increase,
if warranted, up to the rate for level II of the
Executive Schedule. The proposed regs are in the
March 3 Federal Register.
