OPM authorizes higher pay for hard-to-fill jobs
Regulations seek to boost agency use of underutilized pay flexibility.
The Office of Personnel Management issued regulations on Tuesday to allow agencies more flexibility in setting pay for hard-to-fill positions.
The final rules, published in the Federal Register, provide a regulatory framework for agencies to obtain permission to offer better pay for positions that require specific expertise in the scientific, technical, professional and administrative fields.
OPM "believes the government must use all available human resources management tools at its disposal to ensure federal agencies are able to recruit and retain qualified employees," the notice stated.
By law, OPM, in consultation with the Office of Management and Budget, must approve agency requests for critical position pay authority. Once agencies obtain the authority, they can set the rate of basic pay for a critical position up to that for Level I of the Executive Schedule -- $191,300 for fiscal 2008. Agency heads can seek additional approval for higher pay rates if they justify the need.
OPM proposed the new rules in a Federal Register notice in April, noting that the authority was underutilized at agencies.
The regulations seek to clarify what information agencies must provide to OPM to obtain the critical pay authority, including the position title, the pay plan and grade level, occupational series and geographic location of the position and the current salary of the position or the incumbent.
Employees who receive critical position pay have no other changes in their conditions of employment, such as eligibility for performance awards and retention and relocation incentives, according to the notice, but by law, such employees are not eligible for locality pay.
The agency also will require agencies to submit annual reports regarding their use of critical pay authority and whether such authority still is essential to the agency's ability to recruit and retain talented workers, OPM said.
The final regulations seek to clarify that agencies must apply for use of critical position pay authority on a case-by-case basis, meaning they cannot be approved for a particular geographic area or across the board for certain types of positions. By law, only 800 positions governmentwide may be approved for the authority at any one time, OPM said.
In addition, the final regulations clarify that an agency may not retain the pay of an employee hired under the critical pay authority if that authority is terminated. By law, critical position pay authority must be terminated if conditions no longer warrant payment of the critical pay rate, OPM said.
"Providing an entitlement to a saved rate or retained rate based on a critical position pay rate would be inconsistent with the requirement to terminate the authority," the notice stated.