Federal Pay-Band 5

[Anonymous]

My DH is a gov contractor and his customer is always trying to get him to go and work for the government. He's been advised to only take a job at a band 5 or above. Where can I find a pay scale for this pay grade? I can't seem to find it anywhere.

At the end, I have a hunch that the pay will be significantly lower than what is is making now, so all of this is probably a waste of time. If the pensions were still there and the benefits were as good as the were a decade ago, it would be so much more appealing, but it seems that those days are over. I could see taking a pay cut for the retirement benefits, but since that is dwindling quicker, at the end he would probably only lose out.

[Anonymous]

The OPM website will have the pay scales. But keep in mind that many agencies have pay scales that are better than the "standard" one. I think FDIC is one of the agencies, maybe SEC also?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The OPM website will have the pay scales. But keep in mind that many agencies have pay scales that are better than the "standard" one. I think FDIC is one of the agencies, maybe SEC also?

I looked, but of course, I can't makes heads or tails of data that is there. It is a DoD/Civlian agency.

[Anonymous]

Some agencies use the GS scale, others use the pay-banding. Depending on the job he applies for, he will be rated on his skill set compared to others in the same job so he might very well come in lower than he expected, however it's not too hard to move up. My DH and I are both gov't employees. While I have considered one of us going contract in order to make more money, I think it's more worth having government retirement in the long-run. Where did you hear about no gov't pension? I'm getting a pension, and i've only been with the gov't for 8 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The OPM website will have the pay scales. But keep in mind that many agencies have pay scales that are better than the "standard" one. I think FDIC is one of the agencies, maybe SEC also?

SEC is on the SK scale, which is higher than GS, but is still lower than many other financial regulators such as FDIC and treasury (I think).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The OPM website will have the pay scales. But keep in mind that many agencies have pay scales that are better than the "standard" one. I think FDIC is one of the agencies, maybe SEC also?

SEC is on the SK scale, which is higher than GS, but is still lower than many other financial regulators such as FDIC and treasury (I think).

No, Treasury is on the GS scale, so it's lower than SEC. You may be thinking of the Federal Reserve, which is also off the GS scale. SEC and the Fed Reserve are the highest salaried agencies I am aware of.

[Anonymous]

Treasury is on the GS scale (alas) but I believe the Comptroller of the Currency's office pays more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The OPM website will have the pay scales. But keep in mind that many agencies have pay scales that are better than the "standard" one. I think FDIC is one of the agencies, maybe SEC also?

SEC is on the SK scale, which is higher than GS, but is still lower than many other financial regulators such as FDIC and treasury (I think).

No, Treasury is on the GS scale, so it's lower than SEC. You may be thinking of the Federal Reserve, which is also off the GS scale. SEC and the Fed Reserve are the highest salaried agencies I am aware of.

Ack, I was thinking of the Federal Reserve . . . thanks! I'm pretty sure that most banking regulators are paid more than the SEC, but I was wrong about treasury so take that with a grain of salt!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some agencies use the GS scale, others use the pay-banding. Depending on the job he applies for, he will be rated on his skill set compared to others in the same job so he might very well come in lower than he expected, however it's not too hard to move up. My DH and I are both gov't employees. While I have considered one of us going contract in order to make more money, I think it's more worth having government retirement in the long-run. Where did you hear about no gov't pension? I'm getting a pension, and i've only been with the gov't for 8 years.

Yes, I don't think that gov't retirement benefits have changed significantly in the last 10 years-- they did change the pension system 20+ years ago (so current long term career employees will get a smaller pension, say 25-35% of salary, but also get TSP, including matching funds, whereas under the older system there was no TSP and long term employees got more like 50-60% of salary as pension). OTOH, I'm not even sure there is a pay band 5 (there is an SES level 5, but I think that's actually the lowest level, and whether a position is SES or not will be decided before it's advertised).

[Anonymous]

Don't know if this will apply to your situation or if it's referencing the same type of 'banding', but here's what I know about pay banding.

Within Commerce, they implemented a 'Demonstration Project' (I think in ~2000) to move to a 'Pay for Performance' system, that allowed for more flexibility than the GS system and is designed to replace that scale - don't know what other agencies have utilized something similar. If you google some combination of Commerce, demonstration project, and / or pay band you'll get a fair number of hits - a lot of them to PDFs. Here's a direct link to pay scales that gives some ability to translate a pay band into GS terms: http://hr.commerce.gov/Practitioners/CompensationAndLeave/DEV01_006348

You can start off looking at the Standard scales, but note that your husband may very well actually fit into one of the 'specialty' categories which may mean more money.

For a VERY quick Pay Band to GS comparison:
Band 1 = GS 1-6
Band 2 = GS 7-10
Band 3 = GS 11-12
Band 4 = GS 13-14
Band 5 = GS 15

Note the SES pay schedule would still be separate from the Pay Band schedule.

Hope this helps a bit!