The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has finalized four new locality pay areas, ensuring approximately 33,000 Federal employees will receive a pay raise in fiscal year (FY) 2024.
In a final rule published to the Federal Register on Nov. 16, OPM said the four new locality pay areas established by the final regulations are Fresno-Madera-Hanford, Calif; Reno-Fernley, Nev.; Rochester-Batavia-Seneca Falls, N.Y.; and Spokane-Spokane Valley-Coeur d’Alene, Wash.-Idaho.
The regulations are effective on Dec. 18, 2023, and employees will see a pay raise on the first day of the first applicable pay period beginning on or after Jan. 1, 2024.
The new regulations come from a recommendation from the Federal Salary Council and have already been approved by the President’s Pay Agent for nationwide use in the locality pay program.
Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, OPM Director Kiran Ahuja, and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh – who together serve as the President’s Pay Agent – approved the recommendation in October.
Meanwhile, President Biden plans to give Federal civilian employees a 5.2 percent pay raise next year – making it the largest annual pay raise for Feds in 43 years.
The average pay increase of 5.2 percent for civilian personnel would come in as the largest since 1980, when the Carter administration issued a 9.1 percent average pay increase.
However, as the pay gap between Federal employees and those outside the Federal government doing similar jobs is getting wider, employee unions such as the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) are calling for an 8.7 percent pay raise.
“While the increase is significant, it’s still not enough to make a dent in the double-digit pay gap between Federal and non-Federal workers,” AFGE said in a statement today.
AFGE said it is “still fighting” for the 8.7 percent pay raise that Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., and Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii proposed in the latest version of their Federal Adjustment of Income Rates (FAIR) Act.
