§10105 Retention Bonuses

Summary

The Administrator can give a one-time retention bonus to an agency employee when the employee has unusually high or unique skills or the agency has a special need, and the Administrator thinks the employee would likely leave federal service or take a different federal job without the bonus. The payment only happens if the employee signs a written agreement to stay for a set period. That agreement must say how long the employee must stay and what happens if the agreement ends early. The bonus can be at most 25 percent of the job’s annual basic pay, must be paid all at once, and is not part of basic pay. The bonus cannot cover time already used for a recruitment bonus and cannot be paid to presidential appointees who need Senate approval, noncareer Senior Executive Service appointees, or jobs excepted from the competitive service for confidential or policy-making reasons. After a strategic human capital plan is finished, bonuses must follow that plan. The power to pay these bonuses ends five years after the law was passed. The Office of Personnel Management must report each year for the first five years to the appropriate Congressional committees about how the bonus authority was used, including numbers and dollar amounts by pay grade and whether the bonuses met their goals.