§5757 Extended assignment incentive

Summary

An agency head may pay an employee an extended assignment incentive to keep the employee working in a U.S. territory or possession, Puerto Rico, or the Northern Mariana Islands. To get the incentive, the employee must have at least 2 years of continuous civil service there, the agency must say the person would be hard to replace, and the agency must want the person to stay for a set extra time. No one can get more than 5 years of service under these agreements in the same place. The total incentive for a service period cannot be more than the larger of two amounts: 25 percent of the employee’s annual basic pay at the start of the period, times the number of years in the period, or $15,000 per year. The employee must sign a written agreement saying how long the service is, how payments will be made (lump sum or installments), and what happens if the agreement ends early. If the agreement ends early, the employee usually must repay any excess payments, unless they were involuntarily moved outside the area or involuntarily separated for reasons other than misconduct. The incentive cannot be used while the employee has a recruitment/relocation bonus agreement or a retention allowance. These payments are not part of basic pay. The Office of Personnel Management can make rules about how this works, but agencies keep their own pay-setting authority.