New salary rates for tech workers released

The Office of Personnel Management has released draft salary tables revealing the substantial pay raises federal Information Technology workers will receive next year.

OPM issued special salary rates for computer specialists, computer engineers and computer science specialists from grades GS-5 through GS-12 as part of its 2001 locality pay rate announcement on Friday. The agency created six special IT salary-rate schedules covering geographic regions, including one schedule that applies to all locations outside the contiguous United States.

Federal IT workers in San Francisco, like other workers in the region, will receive the largest increases. Under the new rates, a GS-5 IT worker in San Francisco will receive an entry-level salary of $32,701, a 25 percent increase over this year's salary. An entry-level IT GS-5 in Cleveland will make $30,287, a 24 percent raise.

On Nov. 3, OPM announced it would create a separate salary schedule for certain IT workers as a way of helping agencies fill entry-level positions at lower grades. About 33,000 federal IT workers will be affected by this pay increase.

Under the special rates, IT workers at the GS-13 grade would have received less than other GS-13 employees. So OPM has ruled that GS-13 IT workers will receive the standard locality pay rate in the areas in which they work.

The special IT rates become effective on the first pay day on or after Jan. 1, 2001.