General Schedule (US civil service pay scale)
The GS includes the majority of white collar personnel (professional, technical, administrative, and clerical) positions.
The pay scale was originally created with the purpose of keeping federal salaries in line with equivalent private sector jobs.
[citation needed] Prior to January 1994, GS personnel were generally paid the same amount (for a given grade and step) regardless of where they worked.
Both Republican and Democratic administrations have complained about the methodology used to compute locality adjustments and the projected cost of closing the pay gap (as determined by FEPCA) between federal salaries and those in the private sector.
[citation needed] The United States Office of Personnel Management administers the GS pay schedule on behalf of other federal agencies.
Under FEPCA, the Bureau of Labor Statistics conducts annual surveys of wages and salaries paid to non-federal workers in designated locality pay areas.
A common misconception is that the annual federal pay adjustments are determined according to cost of living fluctuations and other regional considerations.
In fact, the across-the-board adjustments to the GS (but not locality pay) are determined according to the rise in the cost of employment as measured by the Department of Labor's Employment Cost Index, which does not necessarily correlate to the better-known Consumer Price Index, which tracks consumer prices.
In most professional occupations, entry to mid-level positions are classified at two-grade intervals—that is, an employee would advance from GS-5 to GS-7, then to GS-9 and finally to GS-11, skipping grades 6, 8 and 10.
The QSI provides the employee the benefit of receiving an additional step increase at an earlier date than he or she originally would have without losing any time creditable towards his or her next WGI.)
Under FEPCA, the United States (excluding its Territories and overseas employees) are divided into locality areas for purposes of determining pay.
The locality pay adjustment is counted as part of the "high-3" salary in calculating Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) and Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) annuities, as well as the baseline for individuals having a percentage of salary deducted for deposit into the Thrift Savings Plan.
Personnel based outside the United States (e.g. U.S. territories, foreign overseas areas) receive a lower locality adjustment (4.76% for 2010).
While this situation may be advantageous to some personnel during their assignment overseas, these tax-free allowances are not considered to be part of one's salary, therefore they are not counted when computing a civil service annuity at retirement.
Employees stationed in Alaska and Hawaii were formerly considered OCONUS and received a cost of living adjustment, but are being phased into the domestic locality pay system.
Equivalency between civilian pay grades and military rank is only for protocol purposes and informally for delegated supervisory responsibilities.
Another form of the Army "Precedence List" can be found in Appendix D of DA PAM 600-60: A Guide to Protocol and Etiquette for Official Entertainment.
The Department of the Navy "Civilian and Military Pay Grades" list can be found in Annex D of OPNAVINST 1710.7A: Social Usage and Protocol.
[68] The equivalency of GS and military ranks with respect to financial accounting has different rules than those treating protocol.
Under the terms of the 2010 Defense Authorization Act, Public Law 111-84, all employees under NSPS must be converted back to their previous pay system not later than January 1, 2012.
