Office of Personnel Management July 2008 – Federal Register Recent Federal Regulation Documents

The Federal Salary Council will meet on September 5 and September 30, 2008, at the times and location shown below. The Council is an advisory body composed of representatives of Federal employee organizations and experts in the fields of labor relations and pay policy. The Council makes recommendations to the President's Pay Agent (the Secretary of Labor and the Directors of the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management) about the locality pay program for General Schedule employees under section 5304 of title 5, United States Code. The Council's recommendations cover the establishment or modification of locality pay areas, the coverage of salary surveys, the process of comparing Federal and non-Federal rates of pay, and the level of comparability payments that should be paid. The September 5 meeting will be devoted to reviewing information and hearing testimony about existing locality pay area boundaries and the establishment of new locality pay areas. The Council will conduct its other business including reviewing the results of pay comparisons and formulating its recommendations to the President's Pay Agent on pay comparison methods, locality pay rates, and locality pay area boundaries for 2010 at the September 30 meeting. Both meetings are open to the public. Please contact the Office of Personnel Management at the address shown below if you wish to submit testimony or present material to the Council at the meetings.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management is issuing an interim rule suspending the requirement set forth in 5 CFR 930.204(b) that requires incumbent administrative law judges (``ALJs'') to ``possess a professional license to practice law and be authorized to practice law.''

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management is issuing an interim rule to add St. Charles and St. John the Baptist Parishes, Louisiana, to the survey area of the New Orleans, LA, appropriated fund Federal Wage System wage area. The purpose of this change is to ensure the lead agency for the New Orleans wage area is able to obtain wage data that best represent the prevailing rates paid by businesses in the area.

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has completed its annual determination of the States that qualify as Medically Underserved Areas under the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program for calendar year 2009. This is necessary to comply with a provision of the FEHB law that mandates special consideration for enrollees of certain FEHB plans who receive covered health services in States with critical shortages of primary care physicians. Accordingly, for calendar year 2009, the following states are Medically Underserved Areas under the FEHB Program: Alabama, Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming. For the 2009 calendar year the State of Illinois is being added.