Obama issues order implementing 2010 pay raise

President Obama on Wednesday evening issued an executive order implementing a 2.0 pay raise for federal employees and a 3.4 percent pay raise for service members in 2010.

The executive order reflects the pay rates included in the fiscal 2010 omnibus spending package and Defense Appropriations Act approved this month by Congress and signed into law by the president. Congressional appropriators honored Obama's request for a 2.0 percent increase in pay for civilian employees in the omnibus. Obama proposed in November that the entire raise go to base pay. But lawmakers instead devoted 1.5 percent of the raise to base pay and 0.5 percent of it to locality pay, a move federal employee advocates had recommended.

The military pay raise, included in the fiscal 2010 Defense Appropriations Act (H.R. 3326), was 0.5 percent higher than the 2.9 percent raise Obama requested in his initial budget proposal.

For General Schedule employees, base pay will range from $17,803 for employees in Grade 1, Step 1, to $129,517 for employees in Grade 15, Step 10. For employees in the Senior Executive Service, pay will range from $119,554 to $179,700 for executives in agencies with certified SES performance appraisal systems, and from $119,554 to $165,300 in agencies without such systems.

The locality pay rates for 2010 are listed by region in Schedule 9 of an attachment to the executive order. Employees located in the Washington-Baltimore-Northern Virginia-West Virginia-Pennsylvania region will receive a 1.12 percent bump from 2009, from 23.10 percent to 24.22 percent in 2010.

The pay raise takes effect on Jan. 1, 2010, or on the first day of the first applicable pay period beginning on or after Jan. 1.