Fedweek

Regardless of the outcome of the budget situation, there has been no indication of a change in direction regarding the pay raise set to take effect with the first pay period in January. Unless Congress acts to legislate a raise figure, and it has shown no such intent all year, by default a 1 percent increase will be paid across the board and the funds for an additional 0.3 percentage points will be parceled out by locality. Further, there will be larger raises for 102,000 employees now in the lowest-paid catchall “rest of the U.S. locality” who will be moved into one of 13 new metro area localities, and for another 7,600 who will be added to one of the 21 current city areas (out of what has been 31) whose boundaries are being expanded. President Obama earlier this week reaffirmed his intention of carrying out that arrangement, yet another in the series of steps required by the federal pay-setting law when Congress remains silent regarding a raise. The “alternative pay plan” order was needed in this situation to prevent the full raises called for by that law from kicking in by default—what the order said would be nearly a 29 percent boost, costing some $26 billion per year. Increases of that size would be “inappropriate” and paying the smaller amount “will not materially affect our ability to attract and retain a well-qualified federal workforce,” he said in the order.