Originally Posted by
DustoffVT
Pretty much. Full disclosure: I am a northern region dude staying for 20 barring extreme duress (i.e. unit closure, forced drone flying).
That said, a couple points in defense of AMO and the SSR here. I have been personally, first-hand told by EY that the SSR is programmed already for outlying years. This actually makes sense. Remember AMO is late to the SSR for pilots, non-LEO aviators at many other agencies have been getting it since January. Rarely in the federal gov't is such a standard reduced once set (USMC, curious if you are getting it).
Also, there are a couple of advantages to this raise many have not thought of. The SSR is a locality pay, not a bonus. So it counts toward your pension. With caps, that essentially means that a career line pilot will earn a director's pension. Only has to last for 3 years to achieve that. Also, the increase will be reflected in your TSP matching funds and agency automatic. This will make a BIG difference over time.
Are there issues with it? From a management standpoint, yes. High locality pay cities are getting basically zilch. And it eliminates any financial incentive to promote. Thus why AMO balked at first, but the outcry was huge.
I think everyone in AMO realizes the SSR will do nothing to solve the issues at play in this thread. But, I was looking pretty hard at trying for a major, and now I'm not. At least for 9 more years.
It seems that we line guys just found out about this. Few weeks ago after one of our pilots was sent a detailed email about it with the pay tables attached. Come to find out - the Marshal’s (JUSTICE) pilots are already on that pay scale. I was talking to our ACP about it last week after this was brought out and he said our upper mgmt has been aware for at least a year. Of course he said that getting it would be a long road since it is a line item budget and must be written in and then all the way to Congressionally approved; but there is hope.
So let me get this part straight because I don’t know a lot about it...but you guys - if SSR (what does that stand for?) is the same thing I’m talking about which I seems to be, is just a locality/COLA adjustment? The email I was referencing earlier made it seem like a plain old PAY increase for purposes of manning shortages (I did NOT mean to sound like I thought it was a short term bonus like they used in the military), but rather an increase in base GS/Step pay and I wondered if then the locality pay would be on top of that. What has been said here makes me think that is not the case.
Good luck to us all.