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The Federal Salary Council on Friday agreed to ask the Office of Personnel Management to review locality pay rates nationwide and develop recommendations for the council's Sept. 30 meeting.

The move came in response to testimony provided to the council by 14 regions petitioning to be recognized as locality pay areas. They currently fall under the catchall "Rest of U.S." category and generally receive lower locality increases than major cities.

Representatives from the Beaumont-Port Arthur metropolitan area in Texas requested to be added to the nearby Houston locality pay area. They maintained that the region met federal requirements for inclusion in an adjacent pay area, including the minimum population of 1,500 General Schedule employees.

The area has funded staffing levels in excess of 1,500 employees, but only 1,396 of those positions are filled because of the lack of competitive locality pay, Beaumont representatives said. "The irony is not lost on federal employers with offices or facilities in the Beaumont area that compete unsuccessfully with their Houston counterparts to fill important law enforcement positions," representatives said.

In years past, the council has voted to shift some cities into or out of the "Rest of U.S" category. In 2007, it voted to stick with the same 32 locality areas as in 2006. The council will decide at its next meeting whether to move the areas under review out of the catchall category.

The Federal Executives Association of Western Massachusetts made a case for adding Berkshire County to the nearby Hartford, Conn., pay area. The group has been proposing the change since 2005.

The area is the only county in Southern New England where General Schedule employees do not receive locality increases, Berkshire County representatives noted, which they say has hindered its ability to recruit and retain people, specifically in technical and managerial positions.

The Federal Executives Association of Northeastern New York recommended that the council establish a new locality area in the Capital Region of New York, where federal agencies have struggled to compete with the private sector and state government on pay and benefits. Another representative made a similar case for New Orleans, also citing recruitment and retention challenges.

Ten other locations -- Albuquerque, N.M.; Austin, Texas; Bakersfield/Kern County, Calif.; Charlottesville, Va.; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Logan County, Ohio; Mechanicsburg, Pa.; Polk County, Texas; Portland, Maine; and Wilmington, N.C. -- submitted written statements to the council for review.

Terri Lacy, chairwoman of the council, recommended that OPM evaluate the locality pay areas during the coming weeks and make recommendations prior to the Sept. 30 meeting.

"We will plan our recommendations to the pay agent on locality pay areas and those that should be approved for 2010," Lacy said.

COMMENTS

• I am a PR resident and I am learning about locality pay for the first time now. I have been a federal employee teaching at a military base for 20years. None of us have an idea about locality pay and its impliations if COLA is gone for good. We are suppose to choose between COLA or Locality Pay by December 31, 2008. No one in our agency (DODEA) has informed us what this is all about nor have they explained in detail, the locality pay option. I feel that if I select Locality pay, I am being set up to let go of COLA and later learn that PR is not eligible. The little I know is because I have taken it upon myslef to do researh and participate in forums like this to learn about what might be a slash in my pay check as soon as January 2009 and/or gradually disappear in after the three year phase. Can anyone talk to me about this locality pay option? Thank you! Myrna Otero Posted October 7, 2008 5:06 PM
• Its pretty bad when you have individuals working at one base less than 8 miles away from another base and no one wants to work at previous mentioned base because they don't get the locality pay and you can't get anyone to transfer over to help out with the workload even though it is for the same Govt agency? Something wrong with that picture? Your left hiring straight off the street that no one has any idea about this matter. Let alone I live less than 10 minutes from the base that has the locality pay and 20 minutes from the base I actually work at? DGS Posted September 25, 2008 4:01 PM
• Skeeter, the budget WAS balanced 7 ½ years ago; well, at least before the tax relief, the economy stimulus, and Daddy’s War. Please quit the pretense, since the editors will publish anyone and refrain from using “we” since this has no impact on you or the rest of the general public. You are fooling no one. “We” CIVIL servants are the ones trying to do more with less. Who do you think came up with: “We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.” Okay, I’ll bow to Mother Teresa on that one but “we” have adopted it for our motto! And if you have any doubts, I recommend the Business Week article “30-year deregulation era dies a sudden death” by Michael Mandel dated 18 Sep 08. Of particular interest would be: “Over the past three decades, the U.S. economy has more than doubled in size, and the private workforce has grown by 70 percent. Yet overall, outside the Defense Department, the executive branch employs about the same number of people today as it did in 1978. ” Please note this death occurred on the Party Pachyderm watch. It seems more and more that the PP apparatchiks fail to see just how far their leaders have led them from their liturgy. Less government, eh? How about less freedom in the market place, on farms, and in the financial district! How about less freedom in the home and less freedom of speech. Yep, they truly are the “lesser” party. Tip off Posted September 19, 2008 3:54 PM