Request for Within-Grade Increase

A Federal employee appealed a Claims Division settlement which denied his claim for a retroactive within-grade step increase. The issue presented was whether the repromotion was an equivalent increase for the purpose of determining the employee's eligibility date for advancement to the next rate step. The employee had received a within-grade step increase and, subsequently, received a reduction in force notice informing him that he was to be downgraded. The National Association of Government Employees filed an appeal of the reduction in force. The reduction in force was instituted, and the employee received a lower grade but continued to receive his same pay. The Civil Service Commission upheld the appeal, and the job was reclassified at a higher grade. The employee was promoted to the higher grade. Two years later the employee received a within-grade increase. The union claimed that the employee should have received the within-grade increase 3 months earlier than he did. The agency denied the claim on the basis that the repromotion was an equivalent increase and, therefore, he was not eligible for a within-grade increase until the date he received it. The Claims Division denied the claim on the same basis, holding that, where an employee is demoted and later repromoted to his former grade, a new waiting period for a step increase begins on the date of the repromotion. However, the Federal Personnel Manual provides that a repromotion to a former or intervening grade of an employee whose earlier change to a lower grade was not for cause and not at the employee's request should not be counted as an equivalent increase in pay. In this case, this provision was controlling. The employee's repromotion was not an equivalent increase, and the waiting period for his within-grade increase rate began 3 months earlier than the date when he received it. The decision of the Claims Division was overruled.