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https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/30/trump-s ... -2019.html

Just accepted AUSA position in very high cost of living area. Never mind that this costs me a couple thousand off the bat, there is speculation out there that all locality rates will go to zero under the memo. If so, there's no way I could afford it and would legit have to rescind my acceptance. Anyone know anything?

I have been freaking out bc the memo is so poorly written, but in the context of the feds having proposed creating additional locality pay areas and adding locations to the ones that already exist, it makes much more sense as nixing those changes rather than just taking locality pay away entirely. It just kind of sucks that in this universe you can’t actually be sure.

is he eliminating locality pay entirely?

Anonymous User wrote:is he eliminating locality pay entirely?

That's the entire question I am asking. It seems like it can be read as setting the locality pay increase to zero, which makes more sense (and definitely still sucks and costs some of us thousands--though slightly offset by his tax cuts I guess). But it could also be read to eliminate it entirely, which is obviously insane but so is this admin.

No way he scraps locality pay.

I work for the federal government and even the letter from our union regarding the potential pay freeze didn't say anything about locality pay. First of all, locality pay isn't optional. It's required by legislation and can only be eliminated in a particular locality under certain circumstances which are hard to meet and would be quickly challenged in court. Second, locality pay is something like 30-40% of salary in many high cost of living areas like DC, NYC, SF--there is no way it is being cut. That would lead to a mass exodus of staff from the federal government on a scale that it would effectively be a shutdown.

Anonymous User wrote:First of all, locality pay isn't optional. It's required by legislation and can only be eliminated in a particular locality under certain circumstances which are hard to meet and would be quickly challenged in court. Second, locality pay is something like 30-40% of salary in many high cost of living areas like DC, NYC, SF--there is no way it is being cut. That would lead to a mass exodus of staff from the federal government on a scale that it would effectively be a shutdown.

Agree with all this. I’m an uptight dude and even I’m not worried. We’re fine (well, fine as far as not losing old locality adjustment goes)

He's not eliminating locality pay, he's eliminating increases in locality pay. Like if Miami is currently +20% they were planning to set aside money to put that to +25%, to try to make the locality pay more reflective of actual differences in cost of living. So instead of Miami fed workers getting a 5% increase for locality, plus a 1.9% raise, they get nothing.