4.1 Percent Raise Going Into Effect

The Bush administration has issued the guidance needed for general schedule employees to receive the retroactive increase in their 2004 pay rates that was authorized by a spending bill passed in late January (PL 108-199). As expected, the total 4.1 percent raise will be paid out as 2.7 percent across-the-board and the funds for the other 1.4 percentage points divided up as locality pay, meaning total raises ranging by locality from 3.89 to 5.35 percent. Those increases supersede the raises averaging 2 percent that took effect in January by default because no raise figure was legislated last year, and will be payable retroactive to the first full pay period of this year-January 11, in most cases. “It is imperative that agency human resources offices process these retroactive payments expeditiously so that federal payroll providers can issue payments to employees as soon as possible,” a memo said. However, due to the processing time involved, it could be many weeks, if not months, before employees see retroactive payments and increases in their biweekly pay.