Supervisor's Retroactive Pay Adjustment

A Federal employee appealed a Claims Group settlement which denied his claim for a retroactive pay adjustment. The employee had been promoted to a supervisory position in which part of his duties involved supervising an employee whose rate of pay exceeded his own salary. A personnel action was initiated to adjust the employee's salary based on the subordinate employee's prevailing rate. However, the agency's practice on effecting such pay adjustments was temporarily suspended pending a review of the appropriateness of granting such adjustments at the time of the initiation of the personnel action. Therefore, the personnel action was not processed, and the employee's salary was not adjusted until a later date. The employee claimed the difference in pay from the initial date of his promotion until the day before his salary was subsequently adjusted alleging that the failure to properly adjust his salary upon promotion was in violation of a mandatory agency policy. He stated that he was unaware of any suspension of the agency's policy and that the 11-month delay between his promotion and salary adjustment constituted an administrative error. The Claims Group denied the claim on the grounds that the pay adjustment of supervisors is within the discretion of the agency concerned. While there may have been a mandatory policy in the agency to grant the adjustments, it was appparently suspended during the period of his claim, and therefore, there was no authority upon which the claim could be allowed. The decision to grant an employee a pay adjustment and the timeframe in which to effectuate the pay adjustment is within the discretion of the agency. Therefore, the delay between the employee's promotion and subsequent pay adjustment did not constitute an administrative error. GAO found nothing which would establish that the agency abused its discretion or acted improperly when it did not grant the pay adjustment during the period in question. Accordingly, GAO sustained the determination of the Claims Group in denying the employee's claim for retroactive compensation.