POLICY MEMORANDUM
| FROM: | A. Ellen Terpstra, Administrator /s/ 02/11/05 |
| SUBJECT: | Senior Foreign Service Pay Upon Promotion Recalculation |
The Farm Service Agency's Human Resources Division (HRD) has completed a review of the pay setting procedures that have been used to set the pay for Foreign Service (FS) employees being promoted into the FAS Senior Foreign Service (SFS). The results of this review indicate that the method used to set the pay of employees promoted into the SFS could have been done differently in order to maximize the financial benefit to the employees. Because the method used resulted in a lower pay rate for some FAS SFS employees, an administrative determination has been made that some of these employees are entitled to back pay.
Under section 5596 of Title 5 of the United States Code ( 5 USC), an employee is entitled to back pay if an act of omission resulted in the reduction of that employee's pay. Under this same section of 5 USC, an agency may not authorize pay for a period beginning more than 6 years before the date of the administrative determination that the employee is entitled to back pay.
Based on this information, the pay of all SFS employees promoted into the SFS whose pay upon promotion was set such that the resulting salary did not equal a 6 percent pay increase will be re-calculated. Because the law restricts back pay entitlements to 6 years, this re-calculation will not include any adjustments to pay prior to 1999.
This re-calculation will include:
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Back pay and interest;
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Resetting of an employee's individual pay rate as of the January 11, 2004 SFS adjustment; and
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All other appropriate adjustments based on the adjusted salary.
HRD will prepare the necessary personnel actions to affect these changes. Employees are not required to take any action. The new personnel actions will result in adjustments to other benefits (i.e., life insurance premiums, retirement and TSP deposits, etc.). These re-computations will be made by the National Finance Center (NFC). A notice of these changes will be provided by NFC to each affected employee.
Questions concerning the information contained in this letter should be addressed to Sheila T. Bruce, Chief, Foreign Operations Branch, HRD via e-mail (Sheila.Bruce@usda.gov) or phone (202-418-9010).
