OPM Chief: No New Orleans Pay Hike

OPM's Linda Springer has been hearing from the folks in New Orleans about federal employees in the area who continue to struggle to rebuild their homes and lives. "A number of sources, including the New Orleans Federal Executive Board, local agencies, and individual employees have expressed concerns about the personal hardships caused by sharp increases in the cost of living and difficult living and working conditions," Springer wrote in a memo to federal chief human capital officers yesterday. The memo addresses flexibilities agencies can use to increase employees' pay. But it mostly focuses on what government can't -- or won't -- do.

For example, Springer says, "an across-the-board pay increase for all employees in the area to offset the higher cost of living in the Gulf Coast area" is out of the question. Locality pay regulations are based on the cost of labor in various areas, not the cost of living, and "cannot be fine tuned to respond to temporary, emergency situations," Springer says. Likewise, special pay rates can only be used for raising the pay for certain categories of workers, and "are not the appropriate vehicle for increasing pay for all employees, regardless of staffing needs."

So what's left? "A more strategic approach," Springer writes, focusing on retention incentives. These, she notes, "provide a short-term fix and do not confer the same ongoing impact on agency salary outlays associated with other flexibilities."