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By: FEDweek StaffMore metropolitan areas could qualify for their own locality pay rates and more adjacent areas could be added to those areas, under the Federal Salary Council’s latest annual report.
When an area is designated as a separate locality or when an adjacent area is added to one, employees working in those areas receive slightly larger annual raises than the “rest of the U.S.” rates they would have otherwise continued to receive. That most recently happened effective with the start of this year with the creation of six new localities and the expansion of several others, benefitting about 70,000 employees.
The salary council makes recommendations on creating localities based on factors including numbers of federal employees in an area and pay comparisons by the Labor Department. Those localities generally follow standard government measures of metropolitan areas but outlying areas can be attached if they meet certain standards, which the salary council has proposed to loosen: exceptions could be made after taking into account issues such as turnover, recruiting problems, and whether use of incentive payments and special hiring authorities has been effective.
Final decisions are made by the President’s Pay Agent, consisting of the heads of OPM, OMB and Labor.
The salary council report—with a May date but only recently released—meanwhile recommends creating the Des Moines, Iowa area as a new locality effective in January 2020 and adding Imperial County, Calif., to the Los Angeles area.
