The Overseas Pay Gap
Here's today's column:
Michael Keller has worked on five continents during his 15 years in the foreign service. He's been in Germany, where the standard of living is pretty good, and the Central African Republic and Cambodia, where he could only hope that his three children suffered nothing more than bumps and bruises because of poor medical care.
He likes his work, but he's always confronted with a big source of frustration -- the overseas pay gap.
When State Department diplomats are posted abroad, they lose locality pay. That's the amount added to a federal worker's salary based on where they work.
Since 1994, when locality pay started, the increase for federal employees in the D.C. area has amounted to almost 21 percent. Moving overseas from the State Department's Foggy Bottom headquarters and other area installations means workers lose that differential.
"It doesn't fundamentally undercut my commitment to the career," said Keller. Currently he's the director of economic and commercial studies at the National Foreign Affairs Training Center in Arlington, but he was speaking for himself.
"I didn't join the foreign service for the pay."
But neither man nor woman can live on the love of public service alone.
Money helps.
There is support, on Capitol Hill and in the administration, for legislation that would close the gap. Committees in the House and Senate have approved such measures.
"We have always supported reducing or eliminating the pay gap between what people receive in domestic positions versus what they receive overseas," said Linda Taglialatela, a deputy assistant secretary of state.
But that support has not moved Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican physician also known as "Dr. No." He's earned that nickname because he relentlessly uses a Senate procedure to hold up bills that require additional federal spending unless the legislation provides money to pay for its project.
"Congress should be focused on improving conditions of workers who have lost their jobs or may lose their jobs and not on handing out huge raises to foreign service officers who already receive very generous benefits overseas," said John Hart, Coburn's communications director.
That kind of talk could make a diplomat get very undiplomatic.
But John Naland, president of the American Foreign Service Association, knows how to keep his cool (which should come in handy when he's transferred to Iraq next year).
Closing the gap is not a pay raise, he said calmly. "It's fixing an unintended inequality."
Naland doesn't quarrel with Coburn's right to oppose legislation closing the gap, "but his hold is preventing his 99 colleagues from voting," Naland said. "That's just the way the Senate works nowadays."
He does quarrel, however, with Coburn's notion that foreign service officers are seeking huge raises on top of other big benefits. It's true that diplomats get a housing allowance and, in some cases, dangerous duty or hardship duty pay. But that doesn't negate the need to close the gap, especially for lower-level diplomats.
Senior foreign service officers get those same benefits, but their pay is not reduced by the locality amount when they go abroad. That cut applies to only the junior and mid-level diplomats.
Furthermore, Naland said, the "allowances were never meant to obviate the need for the basic locality pay adjustment that all other federal employees get."
That's what upsets foreign service officers -- working cheek by jowl with colleagues from the CIA, who might pretend to be foreign service officers, and other agencies whose pay is not cut when they leave the D.C. area.
"It becomes an equity issue," Keller said.
And foreign service officers don't have the option of staying in D.C. They spend most of their careers outside the country.
The issue is compounded when a diplomat takes his family abroad because the family often loses the spouse's income, too. Sonja Keller had a growing career as a journalist and public relations officer when Michael was sent to the Central African Republic.
"The financial impact was significant," she said.
Her income was greater than his, but the family had to give that up.
"Once I left my job, my career basically stopped," she said.
She worked in embassies where her husband was posted, but it was "generally nominal stuff," she said.
That's not the kind of information that would attract potential foreign service officers, even if they were driven by public service more than big bucks. It also makes folks like Keller wonder if they should stay in the foreign service, when their retirement funds are being shortchanged by the current pay system.
"Will it affect how long I stay in? Quite possibly," he said. "I could leave sooner rather than later."
Nobody becomes a diplomat to get rich, but no one wants to be on the short end of a system with built-in pay inequality.
By
Terri Rupar
|
November 19, 2008; 10:14 AM ET
| Category:
Foreign Service
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Posted by: ggwbike | November 19, 2008 9:26 PM | Report abuse
"It's true that diplomats get a housing allowance and, in some cases, dangerous duty or hardship duty pay.
How greedy can these people be. I get locality pay, but I don't get a housing allowance.
Posted by: truth2 | November 19, 2008 11:24 PM | Report abuse
Housing has nothing to do with it, unless you want to call all of the other federal and military employees stationed at embassies overseas who get both housing benefits and locality pay "greedy" too.
It's just a basic pay equity issue among federal employees from different agencies assigned overseas. There's no good reason for it, other than the fact that State has historically been really bad about lobbying for resources on the Hill. Coburn will come around eventually when he realizes how important foreign service officers are in encouraging foreign investment in the US economy and avoiding really, really expensive wars. Diplomacy is a pretty good strategic investment.
Posted by: Interlocutor1 | November 20, 2008 2:19 PM | Report abuse
"It's just a basic pay equity issue among federal employees from different agencies assigned overseas."
Yes it is being greedy. They get something we don't have and we want it to. Whether the government should provide housing to anyone other than military, I would say stop that too.
Just like everyone else that works for the government, you get a pay check and you should use that to pay for your housing.
Posted by: truth2 | November 20, 2008 11:28 PM | Report abuse
"Housing allowance" is not a good way to describe what diplomats and other government officials receive overseas. "Embassy-procured housing" is probably better in most cases. There are a few places where people find their own housing, but typically it is arranged through the Embassy. Would you want a visa officer who was been in the department six months trying to find a place to rent in downtown Khartoum? Or trying to afford an apartment in Tokyo that is more than their salary? Diplomats do not receive any housing assistance when assigned to Washington. It is a fairness issue, because most other agencies receive locality pay in addition to the Embassy housing when overseas.
Posted by: mcmiller27 | November 21, 2008 4:08 AM | Report abuse
Gimme a break, truth2. If your employer sends you overseas to do your job, it's standard practice to provide you a place to live. The housing allowance kicks in only in those cases where "Government-owned or Government-rented quarters are not provided to the employee without charge." (5 USC 5923) This only applies in a minority of US missions abroad.
Or perhaps you would deny all the servicemen, FBI agents, DEA agents, ICE agents, TSA agents, USAID personnel and Peace Corps Volunteers proper housing while they're serving their country overseas. Many of them work in embassies right next to and with Foreign Service personnel.
The goal of the locality pay system is to narrow the pay gap between Federal and non-Federal salaries. Why should this disparity reappear just because someone serves overseas? And why only for Dept of State employees, and not for employees of other agencies serving in the same embassies?
Posted by: joebleaux | November 21, 2008 11:48 AM | Report abuse
"Yes it is being greedy. They get something we don't have and we want it to. Whether the government should provide housing to anyone other than military, I would say stop that too.
Just like everyone else that works for the government, you get a pay check and you should use that to pay for your housing.
Posted by: truth2 | November 20, 2008 11:28 PM | Report abuse "
Obviously you never served an overseas assignment and really obviously is that you can't think past your own pay chack... you have absolutely NO business commenting on something you know zilch about!
I don't know what agency you work for, but I work for the DoD and we all follow the State Dept rules. I went to Okinawa for a year and I would have zero money to spend if I had to find my own place to live since the rent is sometimes more than my pay.
No! let's send your butt to places like that. Oh yes, it is voluntary... so you can decline. Since you'll most likely decline. STFU idiot!
Posted by: darmar40 | November 25, 2008 7:02 AM | Report abuse
Of course the government provides housing, and it has to be a certain level of secure, and conform as much as possible to OSHA regs; to provide non-compliant government housing would be illegal. And try to find OSHA-compliant housing in Ougadougou.
And usually the government provides it for you because you have neither the time nor the knowledge to find, furbish/refurbish and negotiate the rent of a place when you arrived with your family of three small children the night before.
Compared to those working for private industry, Foreign Service digs tend to be on the small and definitely non-ritzy side. Don't think we're living it up in mansions while you pay the bill.
As for the supposedly lavish allowances granted the FS, generally they lag well behind actuality. Usually the cost of living has to be way above and beyond the US to get even the most minimal allowance. Hardship allowances have to be applied for, and reconfirmed every year - and it is much more likely for allowances to be taken away than given out, no matter what the actual situation in the country.
Obviously some people have an image stuck in their head of fancy-schmancy diplomats sipping tea with the Queen; they need to go do a two-year tour on the visa line in Nigeria or Uzbekistan, then they'll see the reality of the Foreign Service.
These people basically paint a target on their back to go overseas and work for YOU the American citizen, usually for much less pay than they were making in the States. (Remember, they can't carry weapons!) Evidently appreciation for their consistent hard work is too much to ask.
Posted by: Mailimi | November 26, 2008 9:05 PM | Report abuse
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The Rest of US locality should be the minimum salary any Federal worker receives regardless whether that person works overseas or here in the US.