President Trump signed a bill last week funding the government through Sept 30 and authorizing a 1.9 percent pay increase for federal employees. The bill will reverse the pay freeze for employees providing a 1.4 percent across-the-board increase plus 0.5 percent locality pay adjustment. The pay raise is retroactive to January 1 (or the first applicable pay period of 2019).
Executive Order
President Trump will need to issue an executive order authorizing the pay increase “with comparability payments to be determined and allocated among pay localities by the President,” according to the appropriations bill.
6 New Locality Pay Areas
The pay raise will also include adjustments for the six new locality pay areas the president approved late last year affecting nearly 72,000 employees. The new locality areas are:
- Birmingham, Alabama
- Burlington, Vermont
- Corpus Christi, Texas
- Omaha, Nebraska
- San Antonio, Texas
- Virginia Beach/Norfolk, Virginia
OPM to Publish Revised Pay Tables
After the president issues the executive order, The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will revise the current pay tables and publish them.
“Once those pay tables are published, agency payroll processors will replace existing pay tables in their systems, likely beginning with the next full pay period,” a former Office of Management and Budget official familiar with the federal compensation system told GovExec.com last week. “Since the current pay period ends Saturday, the first paycheck with the raise will most likely go out during the first or third week of March, provided Trump issues the order in a timely manner.”
The former official also said they expect the process of providing raise-related back pay to go more smoothly than post-shutdown back pay.
My Federal Retirement will announce when OPM publishes the revised 2019 federal pay tables so employees can know what to expect in their future paychecks in 2019.