Federal employees receive 1 percent locality pay for 2003
Federal civilian employees will receive an average 4.1 percent pay raise in 2003, which includes 1 percent for locality-based pay, according to an executive order issued Friday.
Federal civilian employees will receive an average 4.1 percent pay raise in 2003, which includes 1 percent for locality-based pay, according to an executive order issued Friday.
President Bush issued the order more than a month after signing the fiscal 2003 omnibus appropriations bill into law, which included the 4.1 percent pay raise. Though the measure became law in February, administration officials waited to announce how the money would be divided between across-the-board pay and locality-based pay.
The pay raise is retroactive to the first pay period of 2003. The federal pay system allocates more of the annual pay raise to cities with high salaries, so actual pay raises will vary from 4.02 percent to 4.87 percent.
"It is unfortunate that it took so long for the administration to issue this executive order," said House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md. "The order should have been issued immediately following the president signing the omnibus appropriations bill into law last month."
Initially the 2003 civil service pay raise was capped at 3.1 percent across-the-board and included no locality-based pay increase. A coalition of lawmakers, including Hoyer and Reps. Tom Davis, R-Va., Albert Wynn, D-Md., Frank Wolf, R-Va., and Jim Moran, D-Va., lobbied to get the higher pay raise included in fiscal 2003 appropriations legislation. Davis is chairman of the House Government Reform Committee.
The President's Pay Agent-a group consisting of representatives of the Office of Personnel Management, Office of Management and Budget and Labor Department-decided how the funds should be allocated and made a recommendation to the president. The president was then required by law to issue an executive order announcing how the pay raise would be disbursed. Hoyer had pressed administration officials to issue the executive order, declaring last week that the delay had caused low morale among affected employees.
The Bush administration's fiscal 2004 budget proposal included a 2 percent across-the-board pay raise for civil service employees. The 2 percent across-the-board pay raise is lower than the 2.7 percent base pay raise set by the formula used to determine annual civil service pay raises. The budget proposal also included plans to create a new $500 million fund agencies can use to raise the salaries of high performers.
Davis and Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, have both expressed interest in tying compensation more closely to job performance. Voinovich is chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, Restructuring and the District of Columbia.