Claim for Retroactive Temporary Promotion and Backpay

An employee appealed a Certificate of Settlement which disallowed his claim for a retroactive temporary promotion and backpay. The Air Force employee, a GS-09, had been assigned additional duties which were associated with the Real Property Installed Equipment (RPIE) Removal Program. At the time he submitted a form to update his personal qualification record, a job audit was held, and the major duties associated with RPIE were graded at the GS-11 level and added to an existing GS-11 position. Thirteen months later, he was promoted to that position and filed a claim for retroactive temporary promotion and backpay from 1967 until his promotion in April 1978. His claim for that period subsequent to January 1973 was disallowed on the basis that the duties he claimed to have performed were not classified at a higher grade until March 1978. It is well established that an employee of the Federal Government is entitled only to the salary of the position to which he is appointed regardless of the duties performed. When an employee performs duties which should be classified at a higher grade, he is entitled to the pay of the higher grade only after the position has been reclassified upward to the higher grade and the employee is promoted to it. GAO held that legislation did not create a substantive right to backpay based on a period of wrongful classification. Since there was no higher graded position to which the employee could have been detailed, the prior action was sustained.