AFSANET President Signs Bill Authorizing Overseas Comparability Pay

AFSANET: Major Success - President Signs Bill Authorizing Overseas Comparability Pay

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It is now official. On June 24th, President Barack Obama signed into law a supplemental appropriations bill that will start the process of closing the overseas pay disparity, beginning in this fiscal year.

For those of you who missed our previous AFSANET announcing this major development several days ago, we have succeeded in achieving the first phase of our members' number one objective of getting Congress and the Administration to correct the historical injustice of excluding Foreign Service members posted overseas from the locality pay that all other federal employees assigned domestically receive. The Department of State and other foreign affairs agencies should now move quickly to close the first roughly one-third piece of that 23.1 percent pay gap in the current fiscal year. This should translate into a base salary increase in the vicinity of 7.7 percent by October 1 for all Foreign Service members FS-01 and below assigned overseas.

Ideally, this adjustment will be followed by similar measures in FY2010 and FY2011 to address the second and third tranches of the pay disparity. AFSA will work hard to make sure that happens.

This victory is the culmination of a protracted, eight-year lobbying effort by AFSA and supportive senior officials at State. Outgoing AFSA President John Naland, who just departed earlier this month for his onward assignment in Iraq, deserves much of the credit for tenaciously fighting this battle over the past two years. Former AFSA President Tony Holmes did much to advance the cause and also shares in the credit. In our last AFSANET, we named the many members of Congress and staffers who deserve our gratitude for defending the Foreign Service. We also have Secretary Clinton and her team to thank for working alongside AFSA to make this happen.

Congratulations to all of our members assigned overseas!