2020 Federal Employee's Handbook

By FEDweek FEDweek

Written by our veteran team of experts, the 2020 Federal Employees Handbook contains the very latest critical information on your federal pay and benefits and workplace policies and will help you take full advantage of your opportunities and avoid costly mistakes.

All New in The 2020 Federal Employees Handbook:

•A close look at the new personnel authorities for the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security-their pay, performance evaluation, hiring, disciplinary and other procedures that mean huge changes in work life for employees working there and possible precedents for other agencies

•The latest on contracting-out policies and how they might threaten your job

•New hiring authorities that could affect your promotional potential, including how veterans preference comes into play

•New leave benefits for employees called to active military duty

•The latest on what happens to your benefits if you separate before retirement eligibility

•New withdrawal and other policies at the Thrift Savings Plan

•How you might qualify for a payment from the "human capital performance fund"

•Guidance on what will be expected of you in emergency situations

•Latest policies and figures on health, life and long-term care insurance, flexible spending accounts, federal retirement, Social Security and other benefits

Also Included in our "Flagship" 2020 Federal Employees Handbook:

•The new "premium conversion" tax break under FEHB

•How federal employees can use the Career Intern Program

•Government payments for liability insurance

•Public transit subsidies for federal workers

•Ways agencies can pay you more money

•How the government can help you pay off your student loans

•Allowable use of computers and other office equipment for personal purposes

•Hours of work for official travel

•Allowable reimbursement for travel from non-federal sources

•Latest information on leave policies, including eligibility for lump-sum payments for annual leave, alternative uses of sick leave and new rules on military leave for federally employed Reservists

•How the new "retirement errors" correction law can affect your benefits

•Eligibility, benefit choices, and premium considerations under the imminent federal long-term care program

•How to file employment-related financial claims against the government

•New requirements to allow employees to work off-site, including from their homes!

•Brand new TSP investment options and rules

And complete updated and revised for 2020:

Federal Pay Systems, Pay and Compensation Policies, Health Insurance, Life Insurance, Retirement, The Thrift Savings Plan, Social Security, Medicare, Taxation of Federal Benefits, General Employment and Workplace Rules, Employment Restrictions, Veterans\' Rights and Preference, On-the-Job Injuries and Illnesses, Downsizing Policies, Directory of Unions and Other Groups, Appealing Agency Actions Against You, Alternative Dispute Resolution, Leave and Other Forms of Time Off, Survivor Benefits Travel, Transportation, Per Diem and Relocation Allowances, and more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 10, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098301095

Book preview

publication.

CHAPTER 1

Pay Systems

The general schedule salary system for white collar federal employees is what is generally referred to the civil service pay system even though it now covers only just more than half of the workforce. The wage system for blue collar employees is the next largest while numerous other special salary systems make up the rest.

Separate salary systems are maintained for Senior Executive Service members, the U.S. Postal Service, the Foreign Service, law enforcement officers, most medical personnel of the Veterans Health Administration and high-level officials including administrative law judges, Board of Contract Appeal members, and certain senior professional employees.

Presidential appointees are paid under the Executive Schedule system while federal judges and members of Congress also have separate pay schedules.

GENERAL SCHEDULE

The general schedule (GS) system is divided into 15 grades, each of which has 10 steps. Entry-level hiring into a grade normally is done at step 1, although various personnel flexibilities allow hiring at different steps. The grade level of an initial hire depends largely on the occupation, as does the career progression up through the grades.

Raises for GS employees are set annually in the congressional budget process. Early in the year the President recommends a figure for the following January. Congress considers the amount through the spring and summer, and the President makes a formal recommendation in late August, reflecting either the original recommendation or some other figure, often the one under the most active consideration in Congress at the time. Congress can change the figure through action in spending bills or let the White House recommendation take effect.

Under the 1990 Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act, annual GS raises are supposed to be largely automatic, consisting of two parts—an across-the-board component and locality pay. The former part is supposed to be set according to the Employment Cost Index measure of private sector wage growth, minus a half percentage point. Locality pay was supposed to be granted in amounts sufficient to close the pay gap with the private sector over a schedule ending in 2002. Locality pay amounts are calculated from figures compiled by the Labor Department and reviewed by a labor-management council and then by top officials of that agency and the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management.

However, due to budget concerns that system never has worked as designed, with the result that the indicated pay gap with private industry has remained about the same as at the time the law was passed. In most years a combination of across-the-board and locality pay has been paid, but well below the figures indicated by the pay comparability law, with part paid across the board and the rest divided up as locality pay.

Even the limited amounts of locality pay have caused substantial variation in pay for equally graded jobs among the areas, however. Pay in the highest-paid locality, San Francisco, now exceeds the pay in the lowest-paid locality, the rest of the U.S., by about 25 percent.

Both the number and the boundaries of the metropolitan locality areas change from time to time. In general, localities are chosen according to the concentration of federal employees there. Thus, some smaller cities are included because of a major federal presence locally such as a large Defense Department base, while some larger cities with smaller federal populations are part of the rest of the U.S. locality. Boundaries generally follow standard statistical measures of metropolitan areas but outlying areas may be included based on commuting patterns and certain other factors.

The metropolitan area localities are: Albany, NY.; Albuquerque, N.M.; Austin, Texas; Atlanta; Birmingham, Ala.; Boston; Buffalo; Burlington, Vt.; Charlotte; Chicago; Cincinnati; Cleveland; Colorado Springs, Colo.; Columbus, Ohio, Corpus Christi; Dallas-Fort Worth; Davenport, Iowa; Dayton, Ohio; Denver; Detroit; Hartford, Conn.; Houston; Harrisburg, Pa.; Huntsville, Ala.; Indianapolis; Kansas City; Laredo; Texas; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Miami-Ft. Lauderdale; Milwaukee; Minneapolis-St. Paul; New York; Omaha; Palm Bay, Fla.; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Pittsburgh; Portland, Ore.; Raleigh, N.C.; Richmond; Sacramento; San Antonio; San Diego; San Francisco; Seattle; St. Louis; Tucson, Ariz.; Virginia Beach; and Washington-Baltimore. (Note: A recommendation to create Des Moines, Iowa, as a new locality was pending as of this book’s publication; subscribe to the FEDweek newsletter at www.fedweek.com for the latest information.)

Alaska and Hawaii are separate localities in their entirety. The rest of the U.S. locality applies to areas in the contiguous 48 states not included in one of the metropolitan localities plus Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The boundaries and current rates are at www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages.

Locality pay has been extended by administrative action to certain categories of employees outside the general schedule, including administrative law judges, administrative appeals judges, and certain agency-specific occupational series. A listing of those is at the above site. Certain other categories are ineligible for locality pay, including Senior Executive Service, Senior Level and Senior Scientific and Technical employees, who are paid under pay banding systems (see below).

Locality pay is paid according to an employee’s official duty station, not home residence or another station to which he or she is temporarily assigned. It does not apply to federal employees stationed in foreign countries; they may be eligible for various special allowances. A locality rate is basic pay for the purpose of computing the following benefits or their equivalents under other laws:

•retirement deductions and benefits;

•life insurance premiums and benefits;

•premium pay and premium pay limitations;

•severance pay;

•advances in pay;

•lump-sum payments for accrued and accumulated annual leave;

•post differentials and danger pay allowances;

•recruitment, relocation, and retention incentives;

•supervisory differentials;

•extended assignment incentives;

•performance-based cash awards when such awards are computed as a percentage of an employee’s rate of basic pay;

•GS pay administration provisions such as promotions, with certain exceptions;

•pay administration provisions for prevailing rate employees which consider rates of basic pay under the GS pay system in setting pay, with certain exceptions; and

•grade and pay retention, with certain exceptions.

Pay banding—In some agencies, and in some demonstration projects within certain agencies, the general schedule pay grades are combined into broad bands, typically of between three to five bands, depending on the nature of the occupation. In pay banding arrangements, managers have greater leeway in setting starting salaries and in advancing employees in pay due to good performance, the acquisition of new skills or other reasons, often without competition. Movement from one band to another generally requires competition, however. See Chapter 4.

Within-grade increases—General schedule employees are eligible for within-grade increases, unless they are denied for poor performance, after the following waiting periods: 52 weeks for advancement to steps 2-4; 104 weeks for advancement to steps 5-7; and 156 weeks for advancement to steps 8-10. Various special pay authorities allow agencies flexibility in assigning step levels to employees. Also, a quality step increase of one step can be awarded under many agency performance incentive programs. Where pay banding is used, within-grade raises are not paid; money that ordinarily would go toward those raises is used for performance-based pay.

WAGE SYSTEM

The federal wage system—sometimes called the wage grade or prevailing rate system—is a pay-setting system covering federal employees paid by the hour. The aim is to make sure that federal trade, craft, and laboring employees in a local wage area who do the same kind of work get the same rate of pay. The common wage schedules consist of 15 grades, covering most nonsupervisory employees. Schedules for supervisors and leaders are based on the nonsupervisory schedules, but are separate from them.

In each pay grade, there are five step rates—each 4 percent apart—with the second step based on the going rate in private industry. Raises are paid at differing times of the government’s fiscal year, depending on the local pay study cycle. The wage system is based on comparability with local prevailing rates, which means that pay is based on what private industry is paying for similar work levels in a local wage area. Wage system employees are paid the full prevailing rate (100 percent) at step 2 of their grade. At step 5, the highest step, wage system employees may be paid 12 percent above the prevailing rate. Out-of-area wage data is used for local wage surveys when large numbers of wage system employees are employed in specialized occupations but there are few comparable jobs in local private sector companies.

However, due to annual caps on blue-collar raises, those increases are limited to the pay adjustments received by GS employees in the same location. The raises are paid at differing times of the year, varying by locality.

Wage schedules are at https://www.dcpas.osd.mil/BWN/WageIndexhttps

Within-grade increases—Wage grade employees performing acceptably advance to the second step after six months, to the third after another 18 months and to the fourth and fifth after another two years each at their prior steps.

SENIOR EXECUTIVE SERVICE

The Senior Executive Service (SES) administers programs at the top levels of the government. Positions are primarily managerial and supervisory. The SES is a distinct personnel system with separate rules governing hiring, bonuses, training, performance evaluation, compensation, mobility, job protections, leave and numerous other parts of the overall employment package.

Each federal agency determines the qualifications required for its SES positions, and whether to consider only current federal employees or all qualified candidates. The most common methods of entry into the SES are direct application to a federal agency for a specified position, application to an agency for inclusion in its SES candidate development program, or participation in an OPM-run development program (see below).

An applicant must meet two types of qualifications for any SES position: executive qualifications common to all SES positions, and the specific, professional/technical qualifications for the position being advertised. The core qualifications common to all SES positions are: leading change, leading people, results-driven, business acumen and ability to build coalitions. Competencies considered fundamental to these qualifications include interpersonal skills, oral communication, integrity/honesty, written communication, continual learning and public service motivation. The competencies serve as a career development guide to those aspiring to the SES ranks. A guide to SES qualifications is at www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/senior-executive-service/executive-core-qualifications.

Agencies identify the specific, professional/technical qualifications for the position being filled and list the qualifications requirements for the position in their vacancy announcements. Applicants need to obtain a copy of the agency’s vacancy announcement to respond to these requirements.

Note: Executive Order 13714 of 2015 ordered a number of revisions to SES policies including setting new requirements for rotational assignments, orientation and other career development programs, and allowing alternative methods of assessing candidates.

Pay rates—SES salaries are set within a pay band that has a minimum salary equivalent to 120 percent of the rate for grade 15, step 1, of the general schedule base rate, not including GS locality pay adjustments. The maximum rate is either the rate for Level III or the rate for Level II of the Executive Schedule; the higher Level II applies when the agency’s executive performance appraisal system has been certified by the Office of Personnel Management, with Office of Management and Budget concurrence, as making meaningful distinctions among employees based on relative performance. See Other Major Salary Systems, below, for rates.

Those moving from an agency eligible for the higher cap to an SES position at another agency subject to the lower cap continue to receive a higher salary rate, if applicable. In general, agencies are to pay SES members at least as much as any employee they supervise.

Executives get raises based on individual performance and/or contribution to the agency’s performance, as determined by the performance management system. An exec who receives a rating of less than fully successful is ineligible for a raise, while one with an outstanding rating must be considered for a pay raise, although is not guaranteed one.

SES members in an agency with a certified executive performance appraisal system are subject to a higher aggregate compensation limit (that is, base salary, plus performance bonus for career SES members, and other allowances and incentives) equivalent to the pay of the Vice President. Absent certification, annual aggregate compensation is limited to the rate for Level I of the Executive Schedule.

Agencies are to ensure that only SES employees who have demonstrated the highest levels of individual performance and/or contribution to the agency’s performance receive the highest annual summary ratings and the largest corresponding pay adjustments and rates of pay (and performance awards, as described below).

Post-employment restrictions—Public Law 108-136 established a salary-based trigger for certain post-employment restrictions. Any SES member whose basic pay is at least 86.5 percent of the rate for Level II of the Executive Schedule is subject to those restrictions. See Ethics Policies in Chapter 5.

Performance awards—Performance awards may be given only to career executives, and are for performance during the previous appraisal period. The agency head or designee makes awards following recommendation by a performance review board.

Agencies are encouraged to use these awards to recognize those who take on the most challenging assignments, use exemplary innovative and collaborative methods, take on challenging rotational assignments, and/or have the greatest impact on agency priorities and mission imperatives in a given performance period.

An executive may be awarded a lump-sum payment between 5 percent and 20 percent of basic pay. The available pool of money is an amount equal to 7.5 percent of total SES salaries in the agency.

Superior accomplishment incentive awards for suggestion, invention, or a special act or service may be paid, but not in lieu of a performance award. These generally are limited to an amount equal to 1 percent of total SES salaries in the agency and need not be paid to the most highly rated executives.

Presidential Rank Awards— Each year, the government recognizes a small group of career senior executives with the Presidential Rank Award. There are two categories of awards, Distinguished Executives and Meritorious Executives. Award winners are nominated by their agency heads, evaluated by boards of private citizens, and approved by the President. The evaluation criteria focus on sustained leadership and production of results. When considering potential nominees, agencies must exercise diligence in reviewing both the background of nominees (including any issues relating to conduct) as well as the programs and organizational components for which the nominees have any responsibility.

Distinguished Executives receive a lump-sum payment of 35 percent of their base pay, a gold pin, and a framed certificate signed by the President. Only 1 percent of career SES members may receive the award.

The Meritorious Executive award is given for long-term accomplishments. Only 5 percent of career SES members may receive the award, which includes a lump-sum payment of 20 percent of the executive’s base pay, a silver pin, and a framed certificate signed by the President.

OTHER MAJOR SALARY SYSTEMS

Administrative Law/Appeals Judges

Administrative law judges (ALJs) function as independent, impartial triers of fact in formal hearings in a manner similar to that of a trial judge conducting civil trials without a jury. ALJs have statutory protection of the judge’s decisional independence from undue agency influence.

Note: Prior to Executive Order 13843 of 2018, ALJs were hired under a central system administered by the Office of Personnel Management in which OPM conducted competitive examinations and agencies selected candidates from a list of those OPM deemed qualified. However, that order created a new Schedule E excepted service hiring authority under which individual agencies are responsible for the entire hiring process, subject only to general requirements that candidates be licensed to practice law in their jurisdiction and be authorized to practice there or have judicial status.

The minimum rate for ALJ positions is 65 percent of Level IV of the Executive Schedule and the maximum rate is capped at Level III of the Executive Schedule (including locality pay; by tradition, ALJs get the same locality increases as general schedule employees in their area). The ALJ pay scale consists of AL-1, -2 and -3, with AL-1 being the highest and the AL-3 grade divided into six steps, A-F. ALJ pay, including locality pay, is subject to a pay cap of Level III of the Executive Schedule.

Administrative appeals judges (AAJs) review decisions of ALJs and render final administrative decisions. The AAJ pay system has six rates of basic pay — AA-1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 — whose rates correspond to the steps of the AL-3 level of the ALJ system. AAJ rates are increased in the same manner as ALJ rates and are subject to the same cap. An AAJ is automatically advanced to the next higher rate upon completion of the required waiting periods, which are 52 weeks for advancement from any of the first three rates to the next, and 104 weeks for advancement to rate 5 or rate 6.

Senior Level/Senior Scientific and Technical Positions

Senior level (SL) and senior scientific and technical (ST) positions are high-level positions, sometimes called senior professionals, that do not have executive responsibilities. They are paid within a salary range from 120 percent of the base rate (not including locality pay) for grade 15, step 1, of the general schedule up to the Executive Schedule Level II rate, if the agency’s performance evaluation system is certified as making meaningful distinctions based on relative performance, or up to the Executive Schedule Level III rate if it is not. Standards for certification are in a July 10, 2017 OPM memo to agencies at www.chcoc.gov/transmittals.

Those in an agency with a certified performance appraisal system are subject to an aggregate compensation limit (base salary, plus performance bonuses and any other allowances and incentives) equivalent to the pay of the Vice President. Absent certification, annual aggregate compensation is limited to the rate for Level I of the Executive Schedule. Those moving from an agency eligible for the higher cap to an agency subject to the lower cap continue to receive a salary rate above that lower cap, if applicable.

Senior professional employees are eligible for awards under largely the same terms as for SES members as described above, except that the standard for an award is a sustained record of professional, technical, and/or scientific achievement that is recognized throughout the agency and is acknowledged on a national or international level.

‘Title 38’ Positions

The Title 38 category, referring to the section of the U.S. Code under which the personnel authority is found, generally covers medical professional positions of the Department of Veterans Affairs. VA facilities may directly appoint physicians, advanced practice nurses, physician assistants, physical therapists, occupational therapists, pharmacists, registered nurses, registered or certified respiratory therapists, and expanded-function dental auxiliaries to positions for which no civil service exam is required.

Title 38 employees have the same insurance, retirement and Thrift Savings Plan benefits as other federal employees—who sometimes are referred to as Title 5 employees for comparison purposes—but certain appeal rights may differ. In addition, VA sets salaries for primary care providers and associated health professionals based on education, experience and location.

In addition to basic pay, some medical professionals are eligible for special pay or allowances based on a variety of factors including full-time status, length of VA service, board certifications, and administrative responsibility level of the assignment. In addition, some VA medical centers offer additional amounts of special pay for certain specialties based on recruitment and retention conditions in a particular geographic location and/or demand for the specialty. The pay system for VA physicians and dentists features base pay linked to length of employment with VA, market pay based on the individual’s work experience, the need for that specialty, the market demand and other factors, and incentive pay to reward performance.

Note: The Defense Department has a similar system called the Physicians and Dentists Pay Plan.

Transportation Security Administration

The Transportation Security Administration is an entity within the Department of Homeland Security but uses unique personnel and pay systems set up when TSA was first established as a part of the Transportation Department. Most TSA employees are passenger or baggage screeners or employees in related functions working at airports.

The TSA uses an SV grading system, which is a pay banding system of grades that roughly correlate to GS grades 4-15. The SV grades, which are identified by letters A-M, have minimum and maximum rates; employees may be hired at above the minimum if they are deemed to have specialized pertinent experience. TSA also varies pay by locality and increases pay for promotions and reassignments to higher-level work, as well as in special circumstances such as taking on new duties. Basic rates are limited to Executive Schedule Level V. Rates including locality pay are limited to Executive Schedule Level III.

Effective with fiscal year 2020, the TSA rates its uniformed officers under a two-level system, effectively pass/fail. Employees with a satisfactory performance rating indicating they have met standards are eligible for a pay adjustment and/or performance award based on available funding, at the end of the performance period. A program called the Model Officer Program provides top performers with additional salary increases, monetary awards, and/or other forms of special recognition over and above the performance rating process.

The U.S. Postal Service

The U.S. Postal Service became an independent government corporation in 1971 and thus is exempt from many of the rules governing executive branch employment. Individuals may be employed as craft/bargaining unit employees or non-bargaining unit employees. Clerks, carriers and mail handlers make up the large majority of the workforce.

The salary system consists of several pay schedules. The most widely used are the Postal Service (PS) for most bargaining-unit employees and the Executive and Administrative Schedule (EAS) for non-bargaining-unit employees. Certain bargaining units have other salary systems as well.

The postal service is highly unionized. Unlike executive branch unions, postal unions may negotiate over compensation; they typically operate under multi-year contracts. Consultative talks are held with organizations representing postmasters and supervisors although ultimately their compensation packages are determined by postal management.

The postal service in general offers the same insurance, retirement and Thrift Savings Plan benefits as do executive branch agencies, except that the Postal Service pays the entire cost of Basic Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance coverage and pays more toward Federal Employees Health Benefits program insurance for its active employees (although not for its retirees). Effective in 2017, postal employees also may participate in the same flexible spending account program as other federal workers; previously USPS operated a similar program of its own. Policies on leave generally track those of the executive branch, although there are variations as determined by union contract. Postal employees generally are required to challenge personnel actions against them through negotiated grievance routes, although certain categories do have the right to use the Merit Systems Protection Board process. These include managers and supervisors, all those with veterans’ preference rights and employees who perform personnel work.

Executive Schedule

The Executive Schedule is a pay system for senior executive branch political appointees and certain other high-level officials whose rates serve as pay caps affecting federal employees for certain purposes (see Pay Limits in Chapter 2), while the Vice President’s salary rate (in 2019, $246,900) serves as the cap on total compensation—salary and awards combined—for senior positions as described above.

Over 2013-2018, although Executive Level rates increased for cap purposes, amounts actually paid remained frozen at 2013 levels, resulting in the actual salaries paid to employees in Executive Level positions being several thousand dollars below the figures shown below; the same applies to the Vice President’s salary. That freeze ended in 2019 when the rates payable to them increased by the 1.9 percent average federal employee pay raise for that year. However, their actual pay is still behind the rates below.

The President’s salary ($400,000) may not be changed during the term of an incumbent.

CHAPTER 2

Pay and Compensation Policies

ADMINISTRATIVELY UNCONTROLLABLE OVERTIME

The head of an agency may approve administratively uncontrollable overtime (AUO) pay for an employee who occupies a position that requires substantial amounts of irregular, unscheduled overtime work which cannot be controlled administratively, with the employee generally being responsible for recognizing, without supervision, circumstances that require the employee to remain on duty.

AUO pay is a form of premium pay that substitutes for payment for irregular, unscheduled overtime work and is paid on an annual basis instead of on an hourly basis. However, agencies may not pay AUO pay to a prevailing rate (wage) employee, a member of the United States Park Police or the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division, a member of the Senior Executive Service, or a member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation or Drug Enforcement Administration Senior Executive Service.

Note: P.L. 113-277 repealed AUO eligibility for Border Patrol agents in favor of a system under which they must annually choose a biweekly schedule of 80 hours, 90 hours with a 12.5 percent increase in base pay, or 100 hours with a 25 percent increase. The law presumes that at least 90 percent of agents at a facility must work at least 90 hours; the agency can make assignments of longer schedules if needed to meet that threshold. Agents who work beyond their standard schedule are eligible for compensatory time off, which cannot be converted to cash, rather than overtime pay. The changes took effect as of calendar year 2016.

AUO pay is determined as a percentage, not less than 10 percent nor more than 25 percent, of an employee’s rate of basic pay fixed by law or administrative action for the position held by the employee, including any applicable special pay adjustment for law enforcement officers, locality-based comparability payments, or continued rate adjustments, before any deductions and exclusive of additional pay of any other kind.

The rate of AUO pay authorized for a position is based on the average number of hours of irregular or occasional overtime work performed per week.

An employee who receives administratively uncontrollable overtime pay for irregular or occasional overtime work may also receive overtime pay on an hourly basis for regularly scheduled overtime work. An employee receiving AUO pay is also entitled to night, Sunday, and holiday pay when the requirements for these types of premium pay have been met. However, hazardous duty pay may not be paid for hours of work that are compensated by AUO pay because AUO pay is provided in lieu of other types of premium pay except overtime pay for regularly scheduled overtime work, and premium pay for night, Sunday, and holiday work.

A law enforcement officer may receive AUO pay only to the extent that the payment will not cause the total of the employee’s basic pay and premium pay (including AUO pay; regularly scheduled overtime pay; night, Sunday, or holiday pay; and hazardous duty pay) for any biweekly pay period to exceed the lesser of:

•150 percent of the minimum rate for GS-15, including a locality-based comparability payment or special pay adjustment and any special salary rate; or

•the rate payable for Level V of the Executive Schedule.

AVAILABILITY PREMIUM PAY

Availability pay is paid to federal law enforcement officers (LEOs) who are criminal investigators. Due to the nature of their work, criminal investigators are required to work, or be available to work, substantial amounts of unscheduled duty. Availability pay is generally an entitlement that an agency must provide if the required conditions are met, but is optional in offices of inspectors general that employ fewer than five criminal investigators.

Eligibility for availability pay is limited to criminal investigators who are classified in the GS-1811 (criminal investigations) and GS-1812 (game law enforcement) series under Office of Personnel Management standards and to pilots employed by the U.S. Customs Service and special agents in the Diplomatic Security Service. Employees in these groups must also meet the definition of law enforcement officer, which generally requires that the employee be covered under the early retirement provisions for LEOs. However, a criminal investigator is also entitled to availability pay if he or she holds a supervisory or administrative position that has been officially approved as a secondary position under the LEO retirement provisions, even if the criminal investigator is not personally covered by those provisions.

Availability pay is 25 percent of a criminal investigator’s rate of basic pay.

Unscheduled duty consists of those hours when a criminal investigator performs work, or is determined by the agency to be available to perform work, that are not part of the criminal investigator’s basic 40-hour work week and are not regularly scheduled overtime hours, excluding the first two hours of overtime work on a basic work day. However, special agents in the Diplomatic Security Service may not be credited with hours of availability.

AWARDS

Agencies have authority to design extensive awards programs that include cash awards, honorary awards, informal recognition awards, and time-off awards. Agencies can give these awards to employees to recognize employee and group performance, and can design incentive programs with awards granted because an individual or a group achieved pre-established goals.

Cash awards and bonuses do not increase an employee’s basic pay for purposes of retirement, life insurance, pay retention and Thrift Savings Plan benefits, although quality step increases do. Award payments are subject to the limitations on total pay as described in Pay Limits in this chapter.

For employees below senior levels, OMB memo M-19-24 of 2019 eliminated a prior limit on an agency’s ratings-based awards and special act awards of 1.5 percent of its payroll for those employees. It further instructed agencies to allocate performance-based awards in a manner that provides meaningfully greater rewards to top performers while setting standards for assigning ratings that are used for determining performance awards and for other purposes (see Performance Appraisals in Chapter 3). For career SES members and certain employees at a similar level, memo M-16-22 of 2016 limits awards to 7.5 percent of aggregate salaries for such positions and similarly tells agencies to concentrate performance-based awards on top performers. The memos are at www.chcoc.gov/transmittals.

Actual spending for awards depends on the funds available for that purpose in agency budgets, which may be limited by the agency itself or by Congress.

Note: P.L. 115-41 allows the Department of Veterans Affairs to require employees to return performance awards and other forms of cash payments already paid, on a later finding of misconduct that would have prevented the payment if it had been known at that time.

OPM award regulations allow the following:

Performance-based cash awards—Agencies have discretionary authority to grant an employee a lump-sum cash award based on a fully successful or better rating of record. Agencies must ensure that rating-based awards granted make meaningful distinctions based on levels of performance.

Awards based on the rating of record can be up to 10 percent of salary, or up to 20 percent for exceptional performance. (5 U.S.C. 4302, 4503, 4505a; 5 CFR 451.104)

Senior Executive Service members are eligible for performance bonuses of up to 20 percent of base pay.

Other cash awards—Agencies may grant a cash award to an employee, individually or as a member of a group, in recognition of accomplishments that contribute to the efficiency, economy, or other improvement of government operations. Agencies may grant up to $10,000 without external approval, up to $25,000 with OPM approval, and in excess of $25,000 with Presidential approval. (The Department of Defense and the Internal Revenue Service do not require OPM approval for awards up to $25,000, but the President must approve awards over $25,000 after review and approval by OPM.) (5 U.S.C. 45; 5 CFR 451 and 5 U.S.C. 5307(d); 5 CFR 530, subpart B)

Referral bonuses—Federal agencies can use the incentive awards authority under chapter 45, Title 5, U.S. Code, to provide incentives or recognition to employees who bring new talent into the agency, usually by establishing a specific award such as a referral bonus. Each agency must determine whether the use of referral bonuses is appropriate and establish criteria for giving them to employees. These incentive programs must not violate legal requirements for broad public awareness of job openings; recruitment from appropriate sources to seek a workforce drawn from all segments of society; and hiring selections based solely on relative ability, knowledge, and skills after a fair and open competition that assures all candidates receive equal opportunity. (5 U.S.C. 2301 (b) (1), (b) (2); 5 CFR 2.1 (a), 4.2, 451.106) Also see Referral Bonuses in this chapter.

Quality step increases—Agencies have discretionary authority to accelerate an employee’s advancement through the steps of his or her general schedule grade by granting a quality step increase. A quality step increase is an additional step increase agencies may grant to an employee who has received the highest rating of record available under the applicable performance appraisal program, which would be outstanding or Level 5 if such a level is available, and has met the agency-developed additional criteria required for programs that do not use a Level 5 summary. Agencies can grant no more than one quality step increase to an employee within a 52-week period, and such an increase may not cause the employee’s pay to exceed the maximum rate of the grade. There is no authority to grant quality step increases to wage system employees. (5 U.S.C. 5336; 5 CFR 531, subpart E) Also see Within-Grade Increases in this chapter.

Honorary and informal recognition awards—Agencies can develop honorary and informal recognition programs that use recognition items as awards to recognize individual and group performance. Recognition items must meet certain criteria. Honorary awards: a) must be something the recipient could reasonably be expected to value, but not something which conveys a sense of monetary value; b) must have a lasting trophy value; c) must clearly symbolize the employer-employee relationship in some fashion; and d) must take an appropriate form to be used in the public sector and to be purchased with public funds. (5 U.S.C. 4503; 5 CFR 451.104(a)) Informal recognition awards: a) must be of nominal value; and b) must take an appropriate form to be used in the public sector and to be purchased with public funds. (5 U.S.C. 4503; 5 CFR 451.104(a))

Gears of Government Awards—The Gears of Government Award program provides recognition for customer service, mission accomplishment and stewardship. There are two types of awards, individual awards for specific accomplishments, professionalism, and commitment to mission, service, or stewardship outcomes and initiative awards for either individuals or teams that have directly improved mission, service, or stewardship outcomes. Each agency may recognize from two to 25 employees annually, and from among them President’s Awards will go to between 10 and 20 government-wide. Like its predecessor, the more limited Federal Customer Service Awards Program, recognition carries no cash component. See www.performance.gov/gearawards.

Time off awards—Agencies may grant time off from duty without charge to leave or loss of pay as an award to individuals or groups of employees. (5 U.S.C. 4502; 5 CFR 451) Also see Time Off Awards in Chapter 10.

Rank awards—Career senior executives are eligible for the annual Presidential Rank Award. There are two categories of awards, Distinguished Executives and Meritorious Executives; the awards are lump-sum payments of 35 and 20 percent of base salary, respectively. Award winners are chosen through a process which includes nomination by their agency heads, evaluation by boards of private citizens, and approval by the President. Senior level and senior scientific-and technical employees are eligible for similar awards.

DANGER PAY AND POST DIFFERENTIALS

Under 5 U.S.C. 5928, the Department of State may establish a danger pay allowance for all federal employees stationed in a foreign area on the basis of civil insurrection, civil war, terrorism, or wartime conditions in that area which threaten physical harm or imminent danger to the health or well-being of an employee. Danger pay is authorized from 5 to 35 percent in 5 point increments. The allowance is payable as a percentage of pay, including applicable locality rates, to individuals officially assigned to a post (including temporary duty) for periods of at least four hours in one day (including while on detail or in a temporary duty travel status).

Similarly, the State Department authorizes a foreign post differential when it determines that an overseas location involves extraordinarily difficult living conditions, excessive physical hardship, or notably unhealthful conditions affecting the majority of U.S. government employees assigned to the location. Living costs are not considered in the differential determination. Foreign post (hardship) differentials are authorized at rates up to 35 percent in 5 point increments. The differential is payable as a percentage of pay, including applicable locality rates, to individuals officially assigned to a post who are also eligible for a living quarters allowance. Additionally, the differential is payable to employees on detail to such posts after 42 consecutive days at the post.

A list of current allowances and differentials is at http://aoprals.state.gov.

DEDUCTIONS FROM PAY

The following types of deductions can be made from federal pay—in this order, in case the pay is not sufficient to make all deductions. Not all are applicable to every employee.

1. Deductions for Civil Service Retirement System/Federal Employees Retirement System

2. Social Security OASDI tax

3. Medicare tax

4. Federal income tax

5. Federal Employees Health Benefits premium

6. Basic Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance premium

7. State income tax

8. Local income tax

9. Collection of debts owed to the U.S. government (tax debt, salary overpayment, failure to withhold proper amount of deductions, advance of salary or travel expenses, etc.; debts which may or may not be delinquent; debts which may be collected through the Treasury Offset Program, an automated centralized debt collection program for collecting from federal payments)

10. Court-ordered collection/debt (child support, alimony, bankruptcy, commercial garnishments)

11. Optional benefits (flexible spending accounts, Federal Dental and Vision Insurance Program, health savings accounts, optional FEGLI, Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program, Thrift Savings Plan loan repayments, basic and catch-up contributions, other optional benefits)

12. Other voluntary deductions/allotments (military service deposits, professional association or union dues, charities, personal allotments, other)

ENVIRONMENTAL DIFFERENTIAL PAY

Environmental differential pay is for wage grade employees the counterpart to hazardous duty pay for general schedule employees. Differentials are paid according to schedules that vary the payment amounts according to the risk involved in the job or the degree of exposure to a hazard.

Human resources offices determine the local situation for which EDP is payable and obtain approval from OPM for additional categories. EDP is included as part of an wage grade employee’s basic rate of pay for computation of overtime, holiday pay, Sunday premium, and the amount of retirement, Thrift Savings Plan, and life insurance deductions. It is not part of basic pay for purposes of lump-sum leave payments and severance pay.

If a wage system employee receiving environmental differential pay moves to a GS position that involves the performance of the same duty that prompted the payment of EDP, he or she may receive hazardous duty pay, as long as the requirements for that type of pay are met.

Under 5 U.S.C. 5343(c)(4) any entitlement determination for prevailing rate employees concerning exposure to asbestos must be consistent with permissible exposure limits set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Implementing rules are at 5 CFR 532.

EVACUATION PAYMENTS

Evacuation payments are made to employees or their dependents, or both, who are ordered to be evacuated from or within the United States and certain non-foreign areas in the national interest because of natural disasters or for military or other reasons that create imminent danger to the lives of the employees, their immediate family, or their dependents (note: same-sex domestic partners who meet certain qualifications and their children are eligible). Evacuation payments may be made to dependents 16 years of age or older, or to designated representatives, with prior written authorization from the employee.

When an employee has been ordered to evacuate, agency heads may make advance payments of pay, allowances, and differentials to cover up to 30 calendar days, provided the agency head or designated official determines the payment is required to defray immediate expenses incidental to the evacuation. The initial evacuation payment may cover up to 60 days of pay, allowances, and differentials, including the period covered by the advance payment.

EXTENDED ASSIGNMENT INCENTIVES

Under 5 CFR 575 subpart E, agencies may pay an extended assignment incentive (EAI) to certain employees to assist in retaining experienced, well-trained employees in certain locations for a longer period than the employee’s initial tour of duty. An employee who meets the definition of employee under 5 U.S.C. 2105, including employees in general schedule positions, senior-level and senior scientific or technical positions, Senior Executive Service positions, and prevailing rate positions, is generally eligible to receive an EAI.

The head of an executive agency may provide an EAI to an employee if:

•the employee has completed at least two years of continuous service in one or more civil service position located in a given territory or possession of the United States, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands;

•the agency determines that replacing the employee with another employee possessing the required qualifications and experience would be difficult; and

•the agency determines that it is in the best interest of the government to encourage the employee to complete a specified additional period of employment with the agency in one of the covered locations.

Before an employee may be paid an EAI, the employee must sign a written service agreement to complete a specified period of additional employment with the agency in one of the covered locations. In addition, the service agreement must specify the amount of the incentive payment, the method of paying the incentive, the conditions under which an agreement may be terminated, the requirements and procedures for the repayment of incentive payments if the employee separates prior to the completion of the service period, and any other terms and conditions for receiving and retaining the EAI payments.

An EAI may not exceed the greater of: 25 percent of the annual rate of basic pay (excluding additional pay of any kind) of the employee at the beginning of the service period times the number of years in the service period; or $15,000 per year in the service period.

An EAI is not considered part of an employee’s rate of basic pay for any purpose.

FLEXIBLE SPENDING ACCOUNTS

The government offers employees Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs), in which they can designate payroll money to be withheld on a pre-tax basis to be put into accounts usable for certain dependent care and medical and dental care expenses (note: temporary employees and employees working on seasonal or intermittent schedules are eligible only if they are eligible for health insurance under policies described in Chapter 12):

•A health care FSA allows an employee to use pre-tax allotments to pay for certain health care expenses that are not reimbursed by any other source and not claimed on the participant’s income tax return. The annual minimum an employee may set aside is $100 and the maximum is $2,700; if both members of a married couple are separately eligible for an FSA through their employment, each may have an account up to the maximum. Over the counter medicines and drugs are included only if prescribed by a doctor, with the exception of insulin. Some types of care, such as most cosmetic surgery, are excluded. Also, premiums of long-term care insurance, such as in the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program, cannot be paid through FSAs. However, FSA participants can use those accounts to pay for long-term care expenses not paid by their or their spouse’s FLTCIP coverage, such as expenses greater than the daily benefit amount payable under the FLTCIP coverage.

•A dependent care FSA, through which employees may use pre-tax allotments to pay for eligible dependent care expenses of between $100 and $5,000 annually ($2,500 maximum if the employee is married and filing a separate income tax return). This includes reimbursement of day care expenses for dependent children under age 13 and for dependent adults, including parents and siblings, but not long-term care type expenses, nor if an adult resides in another city. The general requirement is that the participant must be paying for such care services in order to be able to work. Thus, it would apply to situations of two working spouses or one working spouse and one student, but not to one working spouse and one stay at home spouse. To be eligible, the expense would have to be paid to a care provider who pays taxes on income received for providing care.