Although the Federal Salary Council will meet November 13 to make recommendations on federal pay, its data on federal versus private sector pay likely will once again carry little weight in a final decision on a raise for 2019. However, if Senate language calling for a 1.9 percent raise is enacted, the Salary Council report could be used to set locality pay.
The council’s recommendations go to a higher level body called the President’s Pay Agent – the heads of OPM, OMB and Labor – which in turn makes recommendations to the White House on matters including dividing a raise into across-the-board and locality components.
Under a 1990 law, enough locality pay to close indicated local pay gaps is to be added on top of nationwide increases designed to keep federal salaries largely apace with increases in the private sector. The law has not worked as intended, however, due to the potential high cost of such raises and disagreements over the methods used to compare salaries.
General spending bill includes 1.9 percent raise, to be voted on next session
A decision on a 2019 raise almost certainly will come down to an either-or choice between a freeze and a 1.9 percent average increase. The White House has advocated a freeze since early in the year and the House basically agreed by remaining silent on the issue in a spending bill. However, the Senate then passed a counterpart bill including a total 1.9 percent increase, to be divided as 1.4 percent across the board and the remainder for locality pay.
That bill went into a House-Senate conference just before Congress recessed for the campaign season. There has been no development since an indication just before the recess that House Republican leaders were willing to consent to the Senate-passed raise. However, that came with an additional provision, which Democratic leaders opposed, to lift the long-standing pay caps on political appointees. That bill, the general government appropriation, is one of several that have been bundled for consideration after the midterm elections.
Council report would be used to determine locality rates
If a raise ultimately is approved, the salary council’s report would be used in one way: for deciding the relative size of raises among the localities. Data released in the spring showed that the widest pay gap continues to be in the San Francisco area, followed by Washington-Baltimore, New York and Los Angeles. The narrowest remains in the catchall rest of U.S., which covers areas in the contiguous states outside one of the 44 city areas (Alaska and Hawaii are separate localities in their entirety) as well as U.S. territories and possessions.
If the Senate language is ultimately enacted into law, raises most likely would range from about 1.6 to about 2.3 percent, effective with the first full pay period of 2019.
