Pay Raises Not Affected—For Now

Officials said that no DoD employees will have their January 2006 raises affected by the NSPS system. Employees in Spirals 1.1 and 1.2 would first see the difference in January 2007, and those in Spiral 1.3 would see a difference in January 2008. Raises under the new procedures would be a mix of market-based pay—reflecting both local and occupational factors—and performance-based pay. For at least the first raise, in 2007, DoD expects to use the government-wide locality pay component as the market-based portion, while it gathers the more detailed data needed to make finer distinctions. Officials stressed that employees will not lose salary when switching into the new system and that most will experience a small raise as the department “buys out” amounts they have accumulated toward their next within-grade raises.