GovernmentExecutive.com

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.

COMMENTS

• I agree with "Totally Aware Employee" posted August 27, 2008. Long term, competent employees get squat. Management here uses every available tool to ensure such employees do not get promoted and even gives them a hard time being transferred. Only us lowly pions must compete for positions. We are constantly being bombarded with less staff, more work, more hours and more responsibilities, but without any added incentives. Bonuses? What bonuses? Only management gets bonuses. But has anyone ever heard of a "management shortage"? Management positions here are not filled through a competitive process. They are filled based on "who-knows-who" regardless of experience or knowledge. It's time to start rewarding the long term working staff that actually get the job done. We are way too top-heavy. It's time to cut out the excess fat and dead weight. Vested Employee Posted September 6, 2008 4:01 AM
• Hey, OPM, Flush out your headgear and take a look around or better yet, take a look at the referral lists I have been getting to fill vacancies. Just about every job vacancy has become hard to fill. Nobody wants to apply for positions with 10 times more work and responsibility for the 5% NSPS directed reassignment raise. The initiative in this article simply creates a loophole that can be used to avoid the pay restrictions imposed by NSPS and other PFP systems for the big guys. I think they should have to suck on the 5% reassignment pay raises just like my fellow peons and I have to do. God Bless NSPS......... ORF Posted August 28, 2008 5:40 PM
• OPM is talking about paying more money to fill hard to place jobs. How about OPM compensating employees who have trouble getting a promotional job because of ignorance or the attitude, "I'll promote whoever I want to promote." I have been trying to get in a promotional job for sometime. I feel overlooked and my quality of life is not where I wanted it to be. I had told several supervisors that I want more out of job then what I was doing. They paid me no mind. Some supervisors want employees want more out of a job. Not this agency, I working at. If OPM is authorizing higher pay for hard to fill jobs and I am looking for a promotional job and can't get one then I need to know where these jobs are. Maybe I can come up with a match. Maybe the govenment agencies that are having a hard time filling some positions should post jobs in other government agencies and not just on the website or some employees should be allowed to swap or be permenantly detailed if they find that the agency is not giving them fair opportunity. Hard to Get Placed Individual Posted August 28, 2008 8:25 AM