SES, SL/ST and Executive Schedule pay caps

Above GS-15 the federal pay structure stops being a grid of grades and steps and becomes a set of ranges with ceilings. The ceilings are levels of the Executive Schedule, the five-level table for presidential appointees, and almost every rule on this page is a reference to one of its levels.

The Executive Schedule as a yardstick

The Executive Schedule sets the salaries of cabinet secretaries (level I) down through lesser appointees (level V). Its levels also serve as caps written into other statutes: level IV limits General Schedule locality rates, level V limits the base-pay adjustment, and levels III, II and I bound the senior ranges described below. When the Executive Schedule is adjusted, every cap tied to it moves.

The Senior Executive Service

Section 5382 directs OPM to establish a single range of rates for the Senior Executive Service and has each executive paid at a rate within it, set on individual performance, contribution to the agency’s performance, or both, under what the statute calls a rigorous performance management system. There are no steps. The floor of the range is the minimum rate under section 5376, which is 120 percent of GS-15 step 1; OPM’s compensation page states the same figure. The ceiling is level III of the Executive Schedule, unless the agency’s performance appraisal system has been certified under section 5307(d) as making meaningful distinctions based on relative performance, in which case the ceiling rises to level II. An executive who moves from a certified agency to an uncertified one may not have pay reduced on that account.

The SES page on this site prints OPM’s current minimum and both maximums.

Senior-level and scientific or professional positions

Section 5376 covers two groups that are not in the SES: positions classified above GS-15 under section 5108 (senior level, SL) and scientific or professional positions established under section 3104 (ST). The agency head fixes each rate within the same range: not less than 120 percent of GS-15 step 1 and not more than level III, or level II for an agency with a certified appraisal system. When the General Schedule is adjusted under section 5303, each SL/ST rate is adjusted by whatever amount the agency head considers appropriate, so these rates do not move in lockstep with the GS percentage. The SL/ST page shows the range.

The aggregate limitation

Section 5307 caps total cash compensation in a calendar year. Allowances, differentials, bonuses, awards and similar payments may not be paid to the extent they would push the year’s total above the rate for level I of the Executive Schedule; for employees under section 5376 or the SES pay section in agencies with certified appraisal systems, the limit is instead the Vice President’s total annual compensation. Amounts withheld under the cap are paid in a lump sum at the start of the next year, and count against that year’s limit. Certifications last up to 24 months, extendable by six, and are made by OPM with OMB’s concurrence. OPM’s page notes that SES performance awards, which must be between 5 and 20 percent of basic pay, are among the payments subject to this limit.

Locality pay above GS-15

SES and SL/ST rates generally do not receive locality payments; section 5304 excludes SES positions from the locality program except for a grandfathered group in the non-foreign areas. The ranges are national. By contrast, the administrative law judge, administrative appeals judge and contract appeals board schedules do receive locality pay, with their own level III ceiling, as the ALJ page explains.

Pay freezes

OPM’s compensation page records that appropriations law has at times barred basic pay increases for SES, SL and ST positions, citing section 147 of the Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011, as amended. In such a year the ranges stand still even if the Executive Schedule levels that bound them would otherwise move.

Compared with market wages

The occupation tables for chief executives and general and operations managers show what employers across the economy pay, and the state tables show that distribution by state; at the top those cells are often top-coded. A federal senior range is a set of statutory bounds, not a distribution, and the number of people paid near the ceiling is a matter of agency decision rather than market measurement.