§3161 Employment and Compensation of Employees

Summary

Creates rules for groups set up by law or Executive order for up to three years to do a specific study or project and end when the work is done. The head of such a temporary group can hire the staff needed. Hires are in the excepted service and usually last no more than three years, with Office of Personnel Management rules allowing up to two more years. The Office of Personnel Management sets basic pay rules for these employees outside the usual civil service pay rules. Top leaders cannot be paid above the Senior Executive Service maximum. Most other staff cannot be paid above the GS‑15 maximum, though an exceptional senior staffer may be paid more up to the SES cap. Basic pay includes locality pay. Agencies can lend staff without reimbursement. Employees may get travel pay like other federal workers and the same benefits given to temporary federal employees. Career employees who move to a temporary group with their agency’s OK can return to their old or a similar job if they leave the temporary group for reasons other than wrongdoing and apply no later than 30 days before the earlier of their temporary job’s end or the group’s end. The head may hire short-term help and accept volunteers, must supervise and qualify volunteers, and volunteers are treated as federal employees for workers’ compensation, certain tort claims, and conflict-of-interest rules.