Clinton finalizes pay rates for SES and General Schedule

President Clinton has issued an executive order outlining base and locality pay raises for members of the Senior Executive Service and finalizing pay rates for General Schedule employees.

Earlier this month, Clinton ordered a 3.7 percent average pay increase for white collar federal employees next year. The raise will be divided between a 2.7 percent across-the-board raise and an average 1 percent locality pay adjustment that will vary according to where employees work. Language authorizing the General Schedule and SES pay increases was included in the massive fiscal 2001 omnibus spending package that was passed in mid-December.

Members of the Senior Executive Service (SES) will get a 2.7 percent across-the-board pay increase next year.

SES base pay plus locality pay is capped at Level III of the Executive Schedule, which was $130,200 in 2000 but will be bumped to $133,715.40 next year due to the 2.7 percent increase.

Members of the SES who are paid at the top three levels of the SES pay scale (Levels 4, 5 and 6), and many SES Level 3's will be capped at the same rate of pay across the country.

"Pretty soon we will have all of the SES limited [by the cap]," said G. Jerry Shaw, general counsel for the Senior Executives Association. The Senior Executives Association lobbied for a bill that would have raised the caps on executive base and locality pay this year, but the legislation was stripped from the final fiscal 2001 omnibus appropriations bill at the last minute.

The Office of Personnel Management will release official pay tables on Thursday. GovExec.com will post the pay tables online at www.govexec.com/pay.