Pay Our Correctional Officers Fairly Act
The Pay Our Correctional Officers Fairly Act seeks to adjust how locality pay is determined for Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) employees whose duty stations are in the Rest of U.S. locality. The core idea is to treat Rest of U.S. work sites as if they are located in the nearest “other” pay locality for locality-based pay, with specific distance-based rules and tie-breakers. In effect, eligible BOP staff stationed in Rest of U.S. could receive higher pay by aligning their locality pay with nearby localities that have higher comparability payments, rather than remaining in the Rest of U.S. locality. The bill also adds a wage-area framework to ensure Rest of U.S. employees receive the higher wage schedules and rates of the nearest appropriate wage area, subject to certain conditions. The changes would take effect for pay periods beginning 180 days after enactment. In short, the bill aims to boost pay for Rest of U.S. BOP employees by moving them to the nearest higher-paying locality or wage area, using distance-based rules and population/workforce comparisons to determine the applicable rate, with specific procedures if multiple nearby localities or wage areas exist.
Key Points
- 1Redesignates the Rest of U.S. work site as being located in the nearest other pay locality for purposes of locality pay, subject to a 200-mile rule and a tie-breaker based on the highest comparability payment.
- 2If more than one pay locality is within 200 miles, the employee is assigned to the one with the highest comparability payment; if no other locality boundary is within 200 miles, the rule does not apply to that employee.
- 3Adds a new subsection to govern wage-area pay within a covered pay locality (a locality that includes two or more wage areas and excludes Rest of U.S.), defining terms like covered wage area and nearest other wage area.
- 4Requires Rest of U.S. wage-area employees to be paid at the higher wage schedule and rate of the nearest other wage area, with rules for cases where the nearest locality contains multiple wage areas or lacks a nearby BOP facility (in which case the most similar wage area by population, employment, manpower, and industry is used, as of the day before enactment).
- 5For employees in a covered wage area, the bill requires payment at the highest applicable wage schedule and rate for any wage area located in the covered pay locality.
- 6Applies the changes to pay periods beginning 180 days after enactment.