§9807 Pay Authority for Critical Positions

Summary

Gives the Administrator the power to set the basic pay for certain high-level, hard-to-fill jobs in the agency so the agency can hire or keep top experts. “Position” here means one of four kinds: a job covered by chapter 51 (including Senior Executive Service jobs), a job on the Executive Schedule (sections 5312–5317), a job created under section 3104, or a senior-level job under section 5376(a)(1). The pay authority can be used only for jobs listed as a critical need in the workforce plan, only for jobs that need extremely high expertise in science, technical, professional, or administrative fields, only to recruit or keep someone exceptionally well qualified, and only for keeping agency employees or hiring people who are not employees of another federal agency (as defined in section 5102(a)(1)). Despite section 5377, the Administrator alone must set the pay and cannot give that power to someone else. No more than 10 jobs can have pay set this way at once. Pay set under this rule cannot be less than what the job would otherwise pay, and it cannot be higher than the annual salary rate in section 104 of title 3. Also, no extra allowances, bonuses, or similar cash payments may be given in a year if they would make a person’s total pay for that year go over the section 104 cap.