Foreign Service Pay Bill Moves

The House Foreign Affairs Committee has passed a measure of long-running interest to foreign service officers, HR-3202, that would keep their basic pay at the Washington, D.C. rate when they are assigned abroad. Currently, because the locality adjustment is not payable overseas, officers take a pay cut if assigned to 183 of the 268 overseas posts, even after taking into account differentials, and that will also be true of another 42 posts within three years, according to testimony presented at a recent House hearing. The bill would phase in the pay increase over three years. It also would increase the death gratuity computation payable to surviving dependents of foreign service employees who die from injuries sustained in the performance of duty abroad.