Guidance on 2003 Increase Still Pending

Guidance is expected to be issued soon regarding procedures for granting retroactive raises for federal employees under a catchall budget measure recently enacted by Congress and expected to be signed by President Bush. The measure calls for 2003 general schedule raises averaging 4.1 percent, a 1 percentage point boost over the amount that took effect in January when Congress failed to enact a raise figure last year. The increased raise will be effective as of the first full pay period of the new year, meaning that employees might get one-time payments, in addition to the increase in their basic rate of pay. In addition to granting a higher raise to GS employees, the measure will raise the pay caps applying to wage grade employees, whose raises are set according to the lower of the GS average raise figure or the amounts indicated for them by local wage surveys.