[Prevailing Rate Employees Pay Adjustment Limitation]

GAO was requested to make a decision as to whether Federal prevailing rate employees, whose tabulated rates of pay are rounded down rather than rounded to the nearest cent, are entitled to have their pay rates adjusted to the nearest cent with back pay to the date that their fiscal year 1982 pay rates became effective. GAO held that the language of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1981, mandating that no adjustment to the prevailing rate employee wage schedule could exceed an amount which is 4.8 percent above the schedule or rate payable on September 30,1981, requires the rounding down of fractions of a cent when to do otherwise would exceed the statutory pay adjustment limitation.