Meanwhile, President Bush has signed into law (P.L. 108-199) a wrapup spending bill for the fiscal year that is now four months old, providing a 4.1 percent average general schedule raise, payable retroactive to the first pay period of calendar year 2004, which for most employees was January 11. The action will roughly double the raise that took effect by default because no figure was legislated last year. The next step will be guidance on carrying out the increase. One issue is how to divide the GS raise into across the board and locality components; an advisory group earlier recommended that 2.7 percentage points be paid out across the board and the money for the rest parceled out as locality pay. Also needed is guidance on the effect on raises for wage grade employees. The measure would change the way raises for the two systems are linked by substituting local raises for the GS national average figure. Agencies then will need to reprogram their payroll computers to provide the retroactive increase and work through issues such as the effect on Thrift Savings Plan, life insurance and retirement benefits. That process could take several months.