Key Pay Group to Meet

The Federal Salary Council, a key advisory group on general schedule pay, is set to meet September 5 and 30. The group, made up of agency, union and outside pay experts, oversees issues such as the boundary lines for GS pay localities and the methods the Labor Department uses in calculating local federal/private sector pay gaps, the numbers used in parceling out locality pay from available funds. In recent years, Labor has been revising its methodology, largely in response to criticisms about use of outdated information that have undercut the credibility of the reported pay gaps. The first meeting will be an opportunity for representatives of employees in certain areas to make their case for being included in a neighboring higher-paid locality; most such requests are rejected for various reasons, but some eventually have succeeded. The group’s recommendations are to be made at the second meeting and are passed to a higher-level body called the President’s Pay Agent, which typically accepts them and sends them to the President, who issues an executive order on pay late in the year reflecting the locality recommendations and the action by Congress on the total raise amount.