President Bush has issued an order on the extra 1 percent general schedule pay raise for 2003 contained in a budget measure enacted last month that as expected divides up the funds for the raise to be paid out as locality pay. The action means that GS employees will receive increases that will cause the total raise to range by locality from 4.87 percent in the San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose locality to 4.02 percent in the Kansas City locality. The largest locality, the catchall “rest of the U.S.” locality for areas outside one of the designated metropolitan areas, would get 4.03 percent total. Those figures include the 3.1 percent across-the-board GS raise that was paid in January by default when Congress and the White House last year failed to agree on a figure for 2003. Still to be announced is when employees will start seeing the increases in their paychecks and when employees will get back pay due them; the boost is retroactive to the first full pay period of the calendar year, which for most employees started January 11. Also currently unclear is whether the back pay payments will be made as lump sums or spread out. There could be variation among agencies on those policies, depending on payroll systems.