2007 Raises Will Generally Look the Same

Pay raises for the first group of those put under NSPS, some 11,000 employees in “spiral 1.1” who came under the system in late April, in most cases will be equivalent to what they would have received under the general federal raise system, DoD has said. However, rather than being paid as across-the-board and locality components as is done for GS employees, the raises for them will be divided as “rate range” and “local market” adjustments. A rate range adjustment means an increase in the maximum payable in a pay band, and a local market adjustment is designed to take into account pay conditions for the occupational group in a local area. One difference, though, is that employees will need to be rated a 2 or higher on the five-level NSPS system to qualify for any raise. In addition, those rated as a 3 or higher are eligible for performance-based payouts. The roughly 66,000 employees being put under spiral 1.2, which started its phase-in last month, will receive the same raises as GS employees generally in January; they and the spiral 1.3 group will have their raises first affected in January 2008.