The Federal Salary Council, an advisory body whose recommendations regarding locality pay for general schedule employees typically are carried out, will hold its annual meeting Thursday. The body sets policies for including or excluding certain areas from metropolitan areas are higher, and also generates data on how large the locality component of the GS raise would be, given assumptions about how the total raise amount will be split among locality and across the board components. That process is complicated this year by the continuing uncertainty regarding the amount of the January 2007 raise and questions regarding how much of the total would be paid out as locality pay. The group’s recommendations go to a higher-level body, the President’s Pay Agent, which in turn makes recommendations to the President that typically are carried out in an executive order in late December.