[Federal Register Volume 75, Number 249 (Wednesday, December 29, 2010)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 81829-81830]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2010-32961]


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  Federal Register / Vol. 75 , No. 249 / Wednesday, December 29, 2010 / 
Presidential Documents  

[[Page 81829]]


                Memorandum of December 22, 2010

                
Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments 
                and Agencies

                Freezing Federal Employee Pay Schedules and Rates That 
                Are Set By Administrative Discretion

                On November 29, 2010, I proposed a two-year freeze in 
                the pay of civilian Federal employees as the first of a 
                number of difficult actions required to put our Nation 
                on a sound fiscal footing. As I said then, Federal 
                workers are not just a line in a budget. They are 
                public servants who, like their private sector 
                counterparts, may be struggling in these difficult 
                economic times.

                Despite the sacrifices that I knew a pay freeze would 
                entail for our dedicated civil servants, I concluded 
                that a two-year freeze in the upward statutory 
                adjustment of pay schedules is a necessary first step 
                in our effort to address the challenge of our fiscal 
                reality. The Congress responded to my proposal by 
                including such a freeze in the Continuing 
                Appropriations and Surface Transportation Extensions 
                Act, 2011 (H.R. 3082), which I signed into law today 
                (the ``Act''). The Act freezes statutory pay 
                adjustments for all executive branch pay schedules for 
                a two-year period. It also generally prohibits 
                executive departments and agencies from providing any 
                base salary increases at all to senior executives or 
                senior level employees, including performance-based 
                increases.

                While this legislation will prevent adjustments in 
                executive branch pay schedules that are made by 
                statute, some laws allow such adjustments to be made by 
                agency heads as an exercise of administrative 
                discretion. In order to ensure consistent treatment of 
                executive branch employees and to promote the fiscal 
                purposes of my original proposal, agency heads who have 
                such discretion should not provide any upward 
                adjustments in Federal employees' pay schedules or 
                rates during the two-year period covered by the 
                statutory pay freeze.

                Accordingly, you should suspend any increases to any 
                pay systems or pay schedules covering executive branch 
                employees that could otherwise take effect as a result 
                of an exercise of administrative discretion during the 
                period beginning on January 1, 2011, and ending on 
                December 31, 2012. You also should forgo any general 
                increases (including general increases for a geographic 
                area, such as locality pay) in covered employees' rates 
                of pay that could otherwise take effect as a result of 
                the exercise of administrative discretion during the 
                same period. To the extent that an agency pay system 
                provides performance-based increases in lieu of general 
                increases, funds allocated for those performance-based 
                increases should be correspondingly reduced to reflect 
                the freezing of the employees' base pay schedule.

                This memorandum shall be carried out to the extent 
                permitted by law and consistent with executive 
                departments' and agencies' legal authorities. This 
                memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any 
                right or benefit, substantive or procedural, 
                enforceable at law or in equity by any party against 
                the United States, its departments, agencies, or 
                entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any 
                other person.

[[Page 81830]]

                The Director of the Office of Personnel Management 
                shall issue guidance on implementing this memorandum, 
                and is also hereby authorized and directed to publish 
                this memorandum in the Federal Register. 
                
                
                    (Presidential Sig.)

                THE WHITE HOUSE,

                    Washington, December 22, 2010

[FR Doc. 2010-32961 Filed 12-28-10; 8:45 am]
Billing code 6325-01-P