More and more federal executives are finding their salaries capped at the top of the pay scale, leaving high-ranking civil servants with the same paychecks year after year.
While federal employees' unions are complaining to Congress that federal pay raises have been under four percent for each of the past six years, top senior executives have received just one raise-2.3 percent-since 1993. So base pay for those at the top of the Senior Executive Service has increased from $115,700 to $118,400 since 1993. If those executives had received the same raises as regular federal employees, their base pay would be $129,931 in 1999.
"It's a demoralizing factor for those of us in very senior positions," says Robert Miller, a senior executive at the National Labor Relations Board in San Francisco. "This type of compression doesn't encourage lower-ranking managers to stay around and aspire to higher-level positions."
Senior executives are paid on a separate scale from managers and employees, who are paid on the General Schedule scale. The SES pay scale has six levels, ranging from ES-1 ($102,300 base pay in 1999) to ES-6 ($118,400 base pay in 1999). SESers also receive locality pay.
Cabinet officers, other political appointees and members of Congress, meanwhile, are paid on the Executive Schedule, a five-tier scale that runs from Level V ($110,700 in 1999) to Level I ($151,800 in 1999). Members of Congress are paid at Level II, which is $136,700 in 1999.
Senior Executive Service base pay plus locality pay cannot rise above Level III of the Executive Schedule, which is $125,900. SES base pay alone is capped at Level IV ($118,400 this year).
Executive Schedule pay is supposed to rise each year, under the law, at the same rate as pay for employees on the General Schedule rises. But Congress can vote each year to block Executive Schedule raises. Members of Congress don't want to look greedy to their constituents, so they have voted to block the raises every year since 1993, except for 1998.
Because SES pay is capped at Levels III and IV of the Executive Schedule, top senior executives haven't received a raise each year that Congress has denied itself one. Over the years, as lower-ranked senior executives have received raises, more and more of them are seeing their salaries hit the Executive Schedule pay caps.
In 1994, only executives in at the ES-6 level in one locality had hit the pay cap. By this year, executives in 27 metropolitan areas at the ES-6 level, 27 areas at the ES-5 level, 22 areas at the ES-4 level and two areas at the ES-3 level had bumped into the pay cap. That means in two areas (Houston and San Francisco), a top-ranked executive makes no more than an executive ranked three grades below him or her.
"There is a demoralization factor," said Carol Bonosaro, president of the Senior Executives Association. "Executives in government have not spent their careers here for the money. Money is not the primary motivator. But it certainly can be a de-motivator."
Miller says the pay cap has not prevented him from taking on additional responsibilities. For instance, he recently served as chairman of the Combined Federal Campaign in the Bay Area. But he says he could see how the pay cap could discourage other executives from giving more of their time to the government.
Bonosaro's association is lobbying Congress for a two-part solution to the pay cap. First, the association wants Congress to give SESers a catch-up raise this year to make up for previous years. Then the association wants Congress to let the law work the way it's supposed to work, granting both SESers and members of Congress pay increases each year.
Other potential fixes include de-linking SES pay from congressional pay or pushing the caps on SES pay to higher levels of the Executive Schedule. Bonosaro said she would prefer to see Congress allow annual pay increases to go through each year, as current law suggests.
"With reinvention, we're often looking to the private industry for business models," Bonosaro said. "Private industry would never operate a compensation system like this."
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