The Office of Personnel Management wants to lower the cap on the salaries of some federal employees who are under special pay plans.
Under proposed rules announced in the March 24 Federal Register, non-GS employees whose pay is within the same range as the General Schedule would see the cap on their basic pay plus locality pay lowered from Executive Schedule Level III to Executive Schedule Level IV. The Executive Schedule is the pay scale for members of Congress, Cabinet officials and other political appointees.
The change won't affect any employees now, according to the OPM announcement. The pay of employees affected by the change has not reached the cap yet. In addition, the pay cap at Level III is not changing for non-GS employees whose pay is above the General Schedule, such as members of the Senior Executive Service and administrative law judges.
In the future, however, the new cap could have an effect on some employees whose pay is now above the General Schedule. While employees on the General Schedule generally get annual increases to keep the government competitive in the labor market, those on the Executive Schedule frequently get no increases because members of Congress fear the political repercussions of raising their own pay. In addition, Executive Schedule increases, when they do occur, tend to be lower than General Schedule increases.
Because of that, the General Schedule has crept toward the Executive Schedule over the years and will likely continue to get closer. So non-GS employees whose pay is currently above the General Schedule could find their basic pay within the range of the General Schedule, and would thus be subject to the lower cap.
If that happens, OPM is proposing to freeze the non-GS employees' locality pay at the rate in the year previous to the cap taking effect so that their pay won't suddenly decrease because of the compressions between the General Schedule and the Executive Schedule.
To see a list of employees who are affected by the proposed rules, go to: www.opm.gov/oca/PAY/HTML/EXTMEM00.HTM.
OPM is accepting comments on the proposals until May 23.