Return to the "POINTER VIEW"
                         April 4, 2003

Federal civilian employees to get pay raise 

By Irene Brown
Editor

When all is said and done, federal civilian employees at the U.S. Military Academy, paid under the General Schedule, will receive a 4.53 percent pay raise in 2003, according to an executive order issued March 21.

President Bush issued the order more than a month after signing the fiscal 2003 appropriations bill into law, which included an across-the-board 4.1 percent pay raise. Though the measure became law in February, administration officials waited to announce how the money would be divided between across-the-board pay and locality-based pay.

The pay raise is retroactive to the first pay period of 2003, which began Jan. 12. The federal pay system allocates more of the annual pay raise to cities with high salaries, so raises will vary from 4.02 percent to 4.87 percent.

According to Kathleen Ridgeway, classification chief for the Civilian Personnel Advisory Center here, they have received some guidance on just when the increase will appear in paychecks.

"We should receive personnel actions for our General Schedule employees beginning April 20," she said. "The new increase should be processed for that same pay period ending May 3."

If the personnel actions are received later than expected, or are not all received during the expected pay period, DCPS processing may also need to be adjusted. Normal rejects and errors may delay processing for some employees, Ridgeway added.

"We anticipate that within two pay periods after May 3, all GS employees should receive their increase for the retroactive pay periods," she said.

The pay increase for wage grade employees is handled differently, Ridgeway added.

"Pay adjustments for the Federal Wage System employees will not be effective until May 18," she explained. "This is the normal effective date for the FWS employees in this wage area," she explained. "The pay adjustment for the FWS employees is based on the results of the wage change survey that was conducted in March. As determined by public law the pay increase for FWS employees may not exceed the sum of the GS across the board percentage adjustment and the difference between the overall average percentage locality payments for GS employees in FY2002 and FY2003."