Three new locality pay areas may debut in 2002

Federal workers in three metropolitan areas may get an extra bump in pay next year if President Bush's advisers on pay decisions give them special locality pay increases. The advisers, who sit on a board known as the President's Pay Agent, are Office of Personnel Management Director Kay Coles James, Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels and Labor Secretary Elaine Chao. The Pay Agent has until the end of the year to decide whether to add the three locations to the list of 31 metropolitan areas that currently receive special pay increases each year because of higher-than-average labor costs. The three areas are Austin, Texas, with 6,400 federal employees, Louisville, Ky., with 5,900 federal employees, and Raleigh, N.C., with 5,500 federal employees, according to OPM statistics. The push for higher pay rates in those three metropolitan areas began in the 2001 Treasury-Postal appropriations bill, which called on the President's Pay Agent to consider five metropolitan areas as new locality pay areas. The other two cities that the Pay Agent reviewed were Las Vegas and Nashville, Tenn. In the Las Vegas area, 4,742 people work for the federal government. In the Nashville area, 6,096 people work for the government, according to OPM. The Federal Salary Council, a panel of government and union representatives that recommends federal pay changes, issued a memorandum to the Pay Agent this summer suggesting that Austin, Louisville and Raleigh become locality pay areas. Special pay rates would be based on Bureau of Labor Statistics salary surveys conducted in those areas, the council said. The bureau does not conduct salary surveys in Las Vegas or Nashville. Judith N. Petty, head of the Louisville Federal Executive Association, said the association was involved in the effort to get the Pay Agent to review Louisville for locality pay. Allan Goldberg of the Triangle Federal Executive Association, which includes Raleigh, appeared before the Federal Salary Council this summer to discuss the locality pay area's borders. The heads of the executive associations in Las Vegas and Nashville, meanwhile, said locality pay has not been a major issue in their areas. The potential addition of locality pay areas comes as the Labor Department and OPM continue a years-long effort to improve the salary surveys used to determine locality pay rates. The Federal Salary Council has raised concerns about the survey methodology, including how salary grades are reviewed, how occupations in the private and public sectors are compared and why workers above the GS-15 pay level are excluded. Labor and OPM expect to resolve most of these concerns next year. The changes also come as OMB gears up to analyze 2000 census data to redraw the boundaries of metropolitan areas. OMB will review the new data over the next few years.