New localities in the Fresno, Calif.; Reno, Nev.; Rochester, N.Y.; and Spokane, Wash., and broader boundaries in existing locality zones would boost pay for some 33,000 federal employees. Image: SevenMaps/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffAnother step has been taken toward adding four new GS localities and expanding the boundaries of most of the existing localities effective in January, changes that would provide a pay boost to some 33,000 federal employees above the raise they otherwise would receive.
A new report from the President’s Pay Agent—the heads of OPM, OMB and Labor—notes that rules have been proposed to carry out those changes and that assuming the rules are finalized in time, “We expect to make those changes effective in January 2024.”
The Pay Agent previously had tentatively approved recommendations from the Federal Salary Council to establish new localities in the Fresno, Calif.; Reno, Nev.; Rochester, N.Y.; and Spokane, Wash., areas, and to broaden the boundaries of numerous existing locality zones. In both cases, those actions would remove affected employees from the lowest-paid locality, the catchall “rest of the U.S.” for areas outside city zones with their own pay rates, into an area with its own designated rate.
President Biden has recommended a 5.2 percent average pay raise for January. Congress is on track to allow that raise by default, while Biden has said he would divide the amount as 4.7 percent across the board with funds for the remaining 0.5 percentage points paid as variable raises by locality. That would yield raises from several tenths of a percentage points below to several tenths above the 5.2 average.
The Salary Council has scheduled its annual meeting for November 14, when it is to release figures based on Labor Department data on the federal-private sector pay gap both nationally and by locality. Those figures become the basis for a late-year executive order finalizing raises.
As have previous reports from the Pay Agent under administrations of both parties, the latest one says that the numbers are produced as the law requires. However, it adds that the process has “lacked credibility since the beginning of locality pay in 1994 to such a degree that the statutory formula for closing pay gaps has been overridden either by Congress or by successive Presidents every year since that first year.”
“We believe there is a need to consider major legislative reforms of the GS pay system, which continues to establish a single percentage locality rate in each locality pay area without regard to the differing labor markets and average salary levels for major occupational groups. The current pay comparison methodology used in the locality pay program ignores the fact that non-federal pay in a local labor market varies substantially between different occupational groups. As currently applied, locality payments in a local labor market may leave some mission-critical occupations significantly underpaid while overpaying others,” it says.
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