Q: Why is it that the GS base salary does not equal the annual salary when multiplied out? (I’m a GS 13/3 in D.C. My annual salary is $94,969. My base salary is computed as $45.51/hour x 80 hours x 26 weeks = $94,660.80, a difference of $308.20, or approximately 38 hours). We’re in the middle of refinancing the house and the bank is asking. A: Regardless of what you see on a pay chart, your basic pay will always be the actual amount received during a calendar year, which, by law, is 2,087 hours long.
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Q. I work for the Air Force in Germany (YA-02/GS-13). In a recent question/answer on your Web site, it was stated locality pay would start for “affected employees” in 2010. In my situation, would I be an “affected employee?” It further states the locality pay will be phased in. In 2010/2011, overseas employees would only get one-third/two thirds of the locality pay. Will we still be getting some type of post allowance/COLA so that we don’t end up getting paid less than we did in 2009? Why are overseas employees going to be tied to the “rest of the U.S.”…
Q. My husband is retired civil service, and receives a civil service annuity retirement. When we filed our federal tax return, $250 was deducted from our return even though we did not receive $250 in January 2010. Is this correct? So we did not get a $250 tax credit, I suppose. A. To better understand the mechanics of the stimulus payment, I recommend that you read the well-written summary provided by the National Association of Active and Retired Federal Employees (NARFE). Just go to www.narfe.org/departments/home/articles.cfm?10=1989.
Q. I see that the approximate COLA for retirees this year might be 0.1 percent. My question is, does that include postal retirees? I know we all go through OPM now, but sometimes it looks like postal retirees fall into a different group. A. The cost-of-living adjustment for retirees in 2010 was zero. While it’s been estimated that it will be 0.01 percent next year, when it comes to COLAs, no distinction is ever made between postal and non-postal employees
Q. I am retiring and live in Alaska. I want to determine how and when I would be allowed to buy back the locality pay/COLA pay percentage I worked for, since January of 2010. I am suppose to be able to buy back the portion of my locality pay rate that I would be entitled to. The P.L. 111-84 was effective Jan. 1, 2010 and I retire on April 2, 2010. That would amount to three months that I could pay back to obtain the full RUS rate, which is 13.86 percent for this part of the year that I…
Q. I am a CSRS employee who will have 40 years of government service in mid-April 2010 at age 63. When would it be in my best interest to retire to obtain the 80 percent annuity? Whatever that date may be, would I then be entitled to the next full cost-of-living increase? A. To receive an annuity worth 80 percent of your high-3, you’d need to have 41 years an 11 months of creditable service and owe no deposits or redeposits to the retirement fund. If you worked longer than that, any retirement contributions you made to the retirement fund…
Q: Do biweekly or yearly pay cap limits apply to restored Base Closure and Realignment Leave? A: No, they don’t.
Q: In your Jan. 25 article “New year, same COLA,” you say that the Social Security withholding stays at $106,800, and that “if you are a Federal Employees Retirement System or Civil Service Retirement System Offset employee, any amount you earn above that amount won’t be subject to the 6.2 percent Social Security deduction.” However, I am a GS-810-14, Step 10, Forest Service employee under CSRS Offset and the National Finance Center withholds Social Security from my paycheck for the entire year. Withholding from my paycheck doesn’t cease at the $106,800 limit. This seems contradictory to what the article states.…
Q: I’m curious about the rationale behind shift differentials counting toward a WG employee’s basic pay and high-3, but it doesn’t count for GS employees. Why is this? Is this an OPM regulation? Is there a way I can learn more about what I see as an inequity to GS employees because shift differential doesn’t count toward their high-3? A: Shift differentials for wage-system employees are provided for in law. Such a provision isn’t needed for general-schedule employees because these and other factors are included when determining their job grades.
Q: I am a federal firefighter who works a 72-hour workweek. This is the required hours that I work. As a GS-8, Step 9, I make $83,658 per year. However, my “High Three” would be based off of the firefighter base pay of $73,906. I know that the difference is overtime. However, the overtime is part of the required hours for a firefighter’s tour of duty. My question is, why is our retirement not based on the higher pay? Seeing that this is what we are really paid and not the so-called base pay of 73,906. If a federal employee…