Tech workers to get big pay raise in January

Federal information technology workers are in for a treat in January-pay raises ranging from 7 percent to 33 percent.

The pay hike was announced Friday by the Office of Personnel Management. OPM is boosting federal IT pay to remain competitive with the private sector in its quest to recruit and retain talented technology workers.

The Chief Information Officers Council released a report in 1999 saying that bridging the pay gap between federal IT salaries and the rest of the marketplace was crucial to attracting and keeping talented government IT employees.

"The pay increase is a shot of adrenaline that will ensure that departments and agencies of the federal government can attract high-quality, high-tech individuals who will have an immediate and a lasting impact on the business of government," said OPM Director Janice R. Lachance.

About 33,000 federal IT workers are affected by the pay hike, which creates a separate salary schedule for workers at grades GS-5 through GS-12. According to OPM, entry-level positions at these lower grades have been the hardest to fill in federal agencies. The raises will go into effect in January 2001.

The CIO Council, OPM and agency personnel directors have been looking at establishing special salary rate schedules for IT professionals to recruit and retain more workers for some time.

In an October 1999 proposal, OPM suggested agencies replace minimum entry-level IT job requirements, such as years of experience or schooling, with general and technical competencies, and added 11 new specialty titles to help better describe positions in the computer specialist (GS-0334) and telecommunications (GS-0391) job series.

In July, OPM issued a memorandum for agency classification chiefs directing them to review and comment on the classification and qualification draft standards for federal IT jobs by Oct. 20.

The new pay rates will apply to computer specialists (GS-334), computer engineers (GS-854) and computer scientists (GS-1550).

Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, welcomed the pay hike, but took the announcement as an opportunity to push for greater implementation of the Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act, which was intended to bridge the gap between federal and private sector salaries. Under the act, a formula was created to close the gap over 10 years beginning in 1994.