Presidential Documents

Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 249 / Wednesday, December 29, 2010 / Presidential Documents 81829 

Memorandum of December 22, 2010 

Memorandum for the Heads of Executive Departments and 

Agencies 

Freezing Federal Employee Pay Schedules and Rates That Are Set By 

Administrative Discretion 

On November 29, 2010, I proposed a two-year freeze in the pay of civilian 

Federal employees as the first of a number of difficult actions required 

to put our Nation on a sound fiscal footing. As I said then, Federal workers 

are not just a line in a budget. They are public servants who, like their 

private sector counterparts, may be struggling in these difficult economic 

times. 

Despite the sacrifices that I knew a pay freeze would entail for our dedicated 

civil servants, I concluded that a two-year freeze in the upward statutory 

adjustment of pay schedules is a necessary first step in our effort to address 

the challenge of our fiscal reality. The Congress responded to my proposal 

by including such a freeze in the Continuing Appropriations and Surface 

Transportation Extensions Act, 2011 (H.R. 3082), which I signed into law 

today (the ‘‘Act’’). The Act freezes statutory pay adjustments for all executive 

branch pay schedules for a two-year period. It also generally prohibits executive departments and agencies from providing any base salary increases 

at all to senior executives or senior level employees, including performancebased increases. 

While this legislation will prevent adjustments in executive branch pay 

schedules that are made by statute, some laws allow such adjustments 

to be made by agency heads as an exercise of administrative discretion. 

In order to ensure consistent treatment of executive branch employees and 

to promote the fiscal purposes of my original proposal, agency heads who 

have such discretion should not provide any upward adjustments in Federal 

employees’ pay schedules or rates during the two-year period covered by 

the statutory pay freeze. 

Accordingly, you should suspend any increases to any pay systems or pay 

schedules covering executive branch employees that could otherwise take 

effect as a result of an exercise of administrative discretion during the 

period beginning on January 1, 2011, and ending on December 31, 2012. 

You also should forgo any general increases (including general increases 

for a geographic area, such as locality pay) in covered employees’ rates 

of pay that could otherwise take effect as a result of the exercise of administrative discretion during the same period. To the extent that an agency pay 

system provides performance-based increases in lieu of general increases, 

funds allocated for those performance-based increases should be correspondingly reduced to reflect the freezing of the employees’ base pay schedule. 

This memorandum shall be carried out to the extent permitted by law 

and consistent with executive departments’ and agencies’ legal authorities. 

This memorandum is not intended to, and does not, create any right or 

benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any 

party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its 

officers, employees, or agents, or any other person. 


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81830 Federal Register / Vol. 75, No. 249 / Wednesday, December 29, 2010 / Presidential Documents 

The Director of the Office of Personnel Management shall issue guidance 

on implementing this memorandum, and is also hereby authorized and 

directed to publish this memorandum in the Federal Register. 

THE WHITE HOUSE, 

Washington, December 22, 2010 

[FR Doc. 2010–32961 

Filed 12–28–10; 8:45 am] 

Billing code 6325–01–P 


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