 |
|
|
|
UPDATE ON JANUARY 2004 PAY ADJUSTMENTS
General Schedule
The General Schedule across-the-board base pay increase for January 2004 will be 1.5 percent under an alternative plan submitted to Congress by President George W. Bush on August 27, 2003. Locality pay increases in January 2004 will cost 0.5 percent of the GS payroll under the President's alternative plan. The President is expected to issue an Executive order to implement the new January 2004 pay rates later this year. The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has posted the January 2004 base General Schedule and the locality pay percentages for the 32 locality pay areas as set forth in the President's alternative plan. OPM will post the final locality pay tables and accompanying guidance to Federal agencies as soon as possible after the Executive order is issued.
Special Salary Rates
Federal Wage System
Senior Executive Service (SES)
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004 (Public Law 108-136, November 24, 2003) establishes a new performance-based pay system for the SES effective on the first day of the first pay period beginning in January 2004. The current six levels of SES pay established under 5 U.S.C. 5382 will be abolished and replaced by an open pay range. In addition, locality pay will no longer be extended each year to SES members. The new SES pay range will have a minimum rate of basic pay equal to 120 percent of the rate for GS-15, step 1, and the maximum rate of basic pay will be equal to the rate for level III of the Executive Schedule. However, for any agency certified under 5 U.S.C. 5307(d) as having a performance appraisal system which, as designed and applied, makes meaningful distinctions based on relative performance, the maximum rate of basic pay will be the rate for level II of the Executive Schedule. OPM will issue regulations and guidance that will address conversion to the new SES pay system, setting individual SES rates of basic pay, and other related matters as soon as possible.
Administrative Law Judges (ALJs)
Senior-Level and Scientific or Professional Positions
The maximum rates of basic pay for employees in senior-level and scientific or professional (SL/ST) positions will be increased by 1.5 percent, the same as the increase in the Executive Schedule. The minimum rate will increase by 1.5 percent, the same amount as the across-the-board GS increase.
Extension of Locality Payments to Other Employees
The President's Pay Agent (the Secretary of Labor and the Directors of the Office of Management and Budget and OPM) is authorized to determine whether the GS locality payments will be extended to ALJs, employees in SL/ST positions, and certain other non-GS categories of employees again in 2004. The Pay Agent's decision will be announced later this year.
Executive Schedule
As a result of the President's alternative plan, the rates of pay for Executive Schedule officials, the Vice President, Members of Congress, and Judges and Justices will be increased by 1.5 percent in January 2004. The effective date for the January 2004 pay adjustment for heads of agencies paid under the Executive Schedule will be the first day of the first applicable biweekly pay period beginning on or after January 1, 2004 (i.e., January 11, 2004, for most agencies).
Further Information
Last Modified: 2:26:45 PM on Friday, December 19, 2003
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
