Capped

Earlier this week a high-ranking federal law enforcement officer demanded to know: "What about us?" He'd read a bit too much about legislation passed last year to raise the pay cap for members of the Senior Executive Service and relieve the pay compression that has left 70 percent of SESers earning the same salary.

Despite years of squabbling by Congress, little has been done to relieve the pay compression among top-ranking federal law enforcement officers. That may change this year if Congress passes pending legislation to reform the 1990 Federal Law Enforcement Pay Reform Act. A Senate bill sponsored by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., has 51 co-sponsors, while a House measure introduced by Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., has 235.

Both bills would exempt Federal Law Enforcement Availability Pay-overtime pay equivalent to 25 percent of salary-from the total cap on pay set by Congress. All federal officers receive the 25 percent boost, but they also are expected to work at least 50 hours a week. Officers may also earn additional scheduled overtime at a rate of time and a half their regular hourly wage in special circumstances, such as during the Olympics or the Super Bowl.

But officers may not earn more than a member of Congress, which means that top-ranking officers cap out and aren't paid for some of their overtime work. At the same time, journeymen officers quickly close the gap in pay with their supervisors, creating compression at the top and a distortion in incentives. Essentially, ambitious officers have a disincentive from seeking management jobs. Often, "We get zero applicants for supervisory positions," says Richard J. Gallo, a senior special agent with the Agriculture Department and past president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association.

The bill would alleviate the problem by exempting the 25 percent availability pay from the cap. That makes perfect sense, Gallo says, because the cap is based on the assumption of a 40-hour work week. "I don't think there is an agent in America working less than 50 hours a week," he says.

Congress passed the Federal Law Enforcement Pay Reform Act to better align federal law enforcement pay with salaries offered by local and state police departments. Federal agents in high-cost-of-living areas were given emergency, one-time pay increases ranging from 4 percent to 16 percent. For the past 13 years, officers received locality pay increases equivalent to those given to other civil servants.

But now, Gallo says, the pay gap between local, state and federal law enforcement officers is widening again. An effort a few years ago to boost pay in areas with the highest costs of living foundered when senators from parts of the country with lower costs of living protested that the move would cause officers in their states to flee to ones where pay is better.

The new legislation would provide a boost for all federal officers, with a maximum increase of about 10 percent for federal officers living in the San Francisco area. The Senate bill also includes a provision, long sought by the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, that would require the Office of Personnel Management to study whether a new pay system should be created for federal agents.

Gallo and the association will have to win over one reluctant legislator, however, if they are to see the bills passed: Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia.

Marcie Ridgway, a spokeswoman for Voinovich, said that he wants to first see the results of an OPM study of law enforcement pay disparities governmentwide before moving forward with any specific remedy. A Voinvovich-sponsored bill that passed last year prompted the OPM study. Also, many federal law enforcement officers will already come under new personnel rules this year when the Homeland Security Department unveils its new system, Ridgeway notes. The senator wants to avoid a situation in which certain federal law enforcement officers are paid more than others simply because of where they work.

Still, Gallo warns, unless pay increases are more regular and greater than those given to other civil servants through the General Schedule, federal law enforcement agencies will continue to have trouble recruiting and retaining talented personnel.

So why should federal law enforcement officers get a better system than other civil servants? It's the nature of the work, Gallo says. On Sept. 11, "when that plane hit the building, I ran toward it."