Foreign Service Survey Finds Pay Tops Concerns
FrontLines - April 2009
A recent survey of Foreign Service Officers (FSOs) at USAID has found concerns over the loss of 23 percent of their pay when they work overseas.
The 23 percent cut comes because they lose their locality pay—the increase in pay that brings federal employees to comparable
private sector salaries.
The survey of USAID FSOs by the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) found many areas of concern but “the question
of pay equity was the principal
one,” said Francisco Zamora, USAID AFSA vice president.
Foreign Service Officers at USAID and State in grades FS-01 and below lose 23 percent of their salary when they transfer overseas, Zamora said. Certain other federal agencies and FSOs in the Senior Foreign Service do not take this cut when they transfer overseas.
The USAID branch of AFSA conducted its third survey of USAID’s FSOs in late 2008 and received 344 responses. Results of the survey have been published
in The Vanguard, the AFSA newsletter.
The survey revealed that the top concerns of employees are overseas pay equity (67 percent) and ensuring equal benefits for all foreign affairs agencies (65 percent).
Efforts by AFSA to move an overseas pay gap bill through the post-election session of the previous
Congress failed.
“Morale seemed to improve a bit,” said the publication, with the number of people judging morale to be poor falling from 32 percent in 2007 to 22 percent in 2008.
But this was tempered by the fact that 59 percent of FSOs think that things were getting worse.
The percentage of FSOs grading
USAID Human Resources services as poor rose from 24 percent
in 2007 to 33 percent in 2008.
Former Administrator Henrietta Fore got good marks from the FSOs—only 6 percent thought she had done poorly.
Some 60 percent of FSOs opposed the possibility of “directed assignments,” which
are non-voluntary postings to critical
priority countries of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Sudan.
Some 68 percent said the main reason to serve in such posts is the extra pay and benefits,
and 71 percent said that family separation is the main obstacle. Close to half of all FSOs will have served in those countries as of this summer.
Close to three quarters (73 percent) of the respondents favor elevating the Agency to Cabinet level status and a majority of the staff appeared to oppose the idea of merging the Agency with the Department of State.
On another issue, most respondents supported AFSA objections to large scale hiring of mid-level FSOs under the Development Leadership Initiative (DLI) as it might slow down advancement of those still at entry and lower levels.
The association noted that it continues to work on cases of individual assistance that are confidential and difficult or inappropriate
to publicize. These include possible separations, assignments, evaluations, tenure determinations, disciplinary actions, and financial problems.
The complete Vanguard report on the survey includes a sampling of comments including:
- concern over rights for same-sex companions
- requests for improved medical
evacuation
- the fact that State officers receive Difficult to Staff Incentive Differential at many posts while USAID officers do not receive the same benefit;
- a desire to see the F Bureau (Office of the Director of Foreign Assistance), the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, and the Middle East Partnership Initiative incorporated
into USAID
- meeting the need for maternity
leave
- a caution against overworking
field staff by having them train DLI new hires
- an allegation that the International
Cooperative Administrative Support Services is not working well and USAID should be allowed to control its own assets
- a concern that USAID was not in war zones when many people signed up and that civilians
should not be forced to serve as an arm of war
For more information, see the February issue of The Vanguard at http://www.afsa.org/usaid/022009vanguard.pdf (pdf, 1.37mb).
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