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We'll see if this correlates to CSA borders officially tho.
Adding Orange County VT to the Boston CSA would be…surprising.
Interesting too that it’s written as “Boston-Worcester-Providence, MA-RI-NH-ME” which implies that some part of Maine will be included? There isn’t a ME county listed below, though.
Adding Orange County VT to the Boston CSA would be…surprising.
Interesting too that it’s written as “Boston-Worcester-Providence, MA-RI-NH-ME” which implies that some part of Maine will be included? There isn’t a ME county listed below, though.
Agreed. Not sure what it correlates to. The one for Detroit includes both Huron and Clinton counties, which are north of Saginaw and Lansing respectively. Would be very surprised to see either of them included in its CSA.
Wait how are Huntsville’s CSA and Birmingham’s CSA and their surrounding counties locality pay areas but Mobile CSA (Baldwin County) and surrounding counties not?
Probably not enough General Schedule employees in the area. I believe the linked writeup said 750 civil service GS employees were needed to have their own locality pay scale.
Adding Orange County VT to the Boston CSA would be…surprising.
Interesting too that it’s written as “Boston-Worcester-Providence, MA-RI-NH-ME” which implies that some part of Maine will be included? There isn’t a ME county listed below, though.
The list is of additions to the existing area, not the complete components of the area. Boston's CSA already includes York, Cumberland, Androscoggin & Sagadahoc Counties in the Portland-Lewiston MSA.
The list is of additions to the existing area, not the complete components of the area. Boston's CSA already includes York, Cumberland, Androscoggin & Sagadahoc Counties in the Portland-Lewiston MSA.
Not true. The Boston CSA has never included any Maine counties.
Probably not enough General Schedule employees in the area. I believe the linked writeup said 750 civil service GS employees were needed to have their own locality pay scale.
Yea… not sure what that’s supposed to mean
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nemean
It's a weird list. Memphis, New Orleans, Tampa, Orlando, Tulsa, Salt Lake City, Oklahoma City, Chattanooga, Augusta, either Charleston, Columbia, Greenville, Jacksonville, Louisville, Nashville, Ashville, Knoxville, Grand Rapids, Madison, Little Rock, Boise, Wichita, Pensacola, Sarasota, El Paso, Toledo, Roanoke, Savannah, McAllen, Baton Rouge, Jackson, Lexington, Peoria, Scranton and Syracuse aren't included either.
Agreed. Not sure what it correlates to. The one for Detroit includes both Huron and Clinton counties, which are north of Saginaw and Lansing respectively. Would be very surprised to see either of them included in its CSA.
The OPM locality pay areas are an extreme. They always adopt the OMB CSA delineations as their minimum and build from there. It's because unlike the MSA/CSAs, the point of these delineations is to determine pay of Federal employees who work there and so they aren't getting poached by the private sector.
A GS-15 in the "DC Locality Area" makes $156k while one in "Rest of U.S." makes $137k. That's a $20k pay raise by working one county into the high COL area. So there's a lot of politicking and lobbying by Federal agencies, Congressmen, Labor Unions to get the areas enlarged. Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch were the reason for the expansion of the Boston locality area (Google "Vermont delegation supports locality pay for southeastern Vermont" for more info there). The VA groups in particular care a lot about this because they argue that without a pay increase, rural VA hospitals will see major labor shortages, as staff will simply move into another public hospital job one county over.
And because you can't cut Federal worker pay, there's never been a case of a county leaving a higher paid locality area to go to a lower one. So as soon as you get locked into the higher one, you're good forever.
I live in Washington DC and I have a friend who works for the Federal Government. During COVID he was considering buying a home near Harrisburg (where he grew up). He was very careful though and was only searching in the New Market area just outside the Harrisburg Airport (about 8 minutes from the Pennsylvania State Capitol). Why? Because that's in York County, which is part of the "Washington-Baltimore Locality Pay Area." So yes, someone could work in New Market (Google Maps) and make much higher wages because decades ago, York County successfully lobbied to leave Harrisburg and join the DC locality area. In reality, almost nobody is making that 2h15m one-way commute.
So he knew that there would be no questions about whether he should be paid DC or Harrisburg wages by living there. And many Federal agencies later adopted rules that if you "telework" you must live in the Washington-Baltimore Locality Pay Area. And that you can only live outside of that boundary if you are employed under "remote work."
Which is all to say - there's a lot of politicking and chicanery that goes behind these boundaries, whereas MSA/CSA is objectively focused on commuting patterns.
Last edited by manitopiaaa; 07-07-2023 at 11:44 PM..
If you are a typical Federal employee, you are on the "General Schedule." That is your pay scale. On top of that, the Federal Government gives you a "locality pay bonus" depending on where you work. If you work in a metro area where public sector workers are poached by private sector, you get a higher wage.
Contrary to popular opinion, it is not based on cost of living, but is instead based on how much an equivalent job in the private sector would pay. Which is why working in Houston - which has a much lower cost of living than DC, especially housing - gets you higher pay than DC. It's because in Houston, the white-collar salaries are disproportionately high due to O&G sector jobs which pay abnormally high.
If you are an undergrad, you're normally starting as a "General Schedule Grade 9" which means you'd be paid $60,314 in Atlanta, $64,251 in Boston, $63,633 in Chicago, $65,928 in Houston, $66,134 in Los Angeles, $66,757 in New York, etc.
If you work in an area that doesn't have enough Federal employees, you aren't eligible for your own area and get paid the "Rest of U.S." rate (pg. 53 of the attached), which is the lowest of them all. So every year there's a big song and dance about counties trying to get added to nearby locality areas.
The list is of additions to the existing area, not the complete components of the area. Boston's CSA already includes York, Cumberland, Androscoggin & Sagadahoc Counties in the Portland-Lewiston MSA.
The Georgia map is bothering me. The Columbus area should have its own locality pay area if this is going by federal workers.
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