The Foreign Service Journal, November 2005

N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 5 As of early Oct- ober, AFSA has re- ceived almost 2,000 responses to the survey of our 8,100 State active-duty members launched in August. This sur- vey confirmed what we already knew: getting overseas comparability pay (OCP, aka “locality pay”) for non-senior FS personnel posted overseas is over- whelmingly our members’ highest pri- ority. We’ve made significant progress on the locality pay issue over the past few years, in part because State Depart- ment management has shared our analysis of both the fundamental unfairness and the medium-term threat to recruitment and retention that the pay gap represents. Our success three years ago in achieving “virtual locality pay” to stop the erosion of FS annuities was an important step. However, you will recall that virtual locality pay was always billed as an interim measure until overseas and Washington pay could be equalized. Today, as I write in early October, we have never been closer to achieving the legislative breakthrough we seek. But formidable obstacles remain to gaining OCP. The primary one is con- tinued opposition by the White House and OMB based on cost and budgetary impact. (The proposed three-year phase-in will cost $28 million this year and $110 million over three years.) So far, neither AFSA nor the previous State Department management’s big push last year has been able to attain the administration’s blessing for OCP. So even if it is, as several senior depart- ment officials tell us, the department’s “highest priority” employee-related issue, we nonetheless are facing a situa- tion where department principals can- not support the issue on the Hill due to the “official” White House position. As we enter this year’s budget legis- lation end game, we have two impor- tant advantages that give rise to at least some hope. First, even though we have not yet succeeded with a standalone bill or in finding a champion in the Senate, the House included language granting OCP in its FY 2006 authorization bill. Thus, though it will be tough, there is some possibility that the conferees who will craft the FY-06 foreign operations budget might be persuaded to include some of the House bill’s provisions, including our OCP authority. I believe that a serious, no-holds-barred effort now, which AFSA has already begun, just might succeed. Even if it does not, this effort will only increase our chances in FY-07, which seems to be the timeline the department has in mind for its next attempt. The other reason for optimism is that we have a new Secretary of State with an unparalleled relationship with the president and unrivaled influence at the White House, who has succeed- ed in re-centering foreign policy back at the State Department. Secretary Rice has made a number of statements about her determination to take care of the department’s employees and her personal interest in and focus on good management. If there were ever a Secretary in a position to reverseOMB’s veto of OCP, Condoleezza Rice is it. We believe that if she asks the presi- dent for what department principals tell us is her “highest priority” for taking care of her people, he will say yes. This is necessary because the simple fact is that Congress is not likely to grant something that it believes the adminis- tration opposes. The key to ending that opposition is in the Secretary’s hands. By the time you read this column, the battle almost certainly will have been fought and the results or lack of them will be apparent. AFSA has no illusions about the difficult road ahead. But we also have been struck by the Secretary’s encouraging words and have been looking for actions to put them into effect. From our perspective, Secretary Rice’s willingness to use her personal political capital and special relationship at the White House on this and other resource issues will be the lit- mus test for her intention to follow through on her many, much-noticed statements of support of the depart- ment’s personnel. n P RESIDENT ’ S V IEWS Overseas Comparability Pay: Defining Issue and Litmus Test B Y J. A NTHONY H OLMES J. Anthony Holmes is the president of the American Foreign Service Association. If there were ever a Secretary in a position to reverse OMB’s veto of locality pay, Condoleezza Rice is it.