Council proposes expanding list of locality pay areas
Federal workers could see changes in 2012 if recommendations are adopted.
Six metropolitan areas will be considered for separate locality pay in 2012, according to new recommendations from the Federal Salary Council.
Federal employees in Albany, N.Y.; Albuquerque, N.M.; Bakersfield, Calif.; Harrisburg, Pa.; Portland, Maine; and Charlotte, N.C., could receive locality pay unique to their region, council members said at Friday's meeting. Lansing, Mich., will be added to the Detroit pay area. The council also recommended adopting an interim rule granting separate locality pay to workers in Alaska and Hawaii, and determined that no area should receive less than the "rest of U.S." rate.
The council, made up of federal pay policy experts and union leaders, uses information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to make recommendations to the President's Pay Agent on comparison methods and locality areas and rates. This year's proposals will affect 2012 salaries.
In its fiscal 2011 budget, BLS proposed a new methodology for evaluating pay, Philip Doyle, the bureau's assistant commissioner for compensation levels and trends, reminded the council at last month's meeting. BLS currently uses estimates from the National Compensation Survey, which collects data by occupation and work level from 36,000 businesses and government agencies nationwide. The new model would incorporate information from the bureau's Occupational Employment Statistics program, a mail survey that samples 1.2 million businesses and covers all U.S. metropolitan areas.
Council members acknowledged OES methodology provides a more comprehensive sample, but they still recommended a closer look at the BLS migration plan and the next round of available data before applying the model to the current 32 locality pay areas. The council also recommended using OES data to establish and evaluate new pay regions.
For the process of adding adjacent locations to existing locality pay areas, the group decided to consider only the level of commuting, rather than the number of employees covered by the General Schedule system.
"We wanted to make sure we could take action this year," said Rex Facer, council member and associate professor of public finance and management at Brigham Young University. The council pushed these recommendations and will examine other ideas more closely in the future, he added.