Project 2025 Tracker / What’s done, what’s next

3. Central Personnel Agencies · Notable · Needs Congress

Have OPM set pay schedules by occupation and region

Not started

77 3. Central Personnel Agencies

“Ideally, the OPM should establish an initial pay schedule for every occupation and region, monitor turnover rates and applicant-to-position ratios, and adjust pay and recruitment on that basis. Most of this requires legislation”

What has happened

  1. Not started

    No occupation- and region-based pay schedules, and no bill to create them. The Quote concedes that most of this requires legislation; searched every bill of the 119th Congress and every public law in the window for pay schedules, locality pay and the General Schedule and found nothing. OPM has worked at the edges of federal pay — Federal Wage System wage-area redefinitions, recruitment and relocation incentive waivers, a critical-position pay authority rule — but has not built a schedule for every occupation and region, and nothing published monitors turnover rates or applicant-to-position ratios to set pay as the Quote describes.

    No action found yet. This entry is the starting point, not a finding.

Research log

What was searched, and what didn’t count as evidence

Research notes

Researched 2026-08-27.

The Quote concedes the point itself: “Most of this requires legislation.”

A search of bills in Congress and public laws, from congress.gov (retrieved 2026-08-28): title and latest-action searches for “pay schedule”, “locality pay” and “General Schedule” return nothing. The General Schedule and its locality-pay structure are set by 5 U.S.C. chapter 53 and cannot be replaced with occupation- and region-based schedules by regulation.

OPM has been active on pay at the margins — Federal Wage System wage-area redefinitions (Hennepin, Raven Rock), recruitment and relocation incentive waivers (2025-12-15), a Critical Position Pay Authority rule (2026-08-26), a First Responder Fair RETIRE Act proposal — and the President set the January 2026 rates by EO 14368. None of that is a pay schedule for every occupation and region, and none of it monitors turnover rates and applicant-to-position ratios as the Quote asks.

Action
create
Object
occupation- and region-based federal pay schedules
ID
118