Pay Administration
Questions and answers
No, LEAP is not included. OPM recognizes that there are additional payments that are considered to be basic pay for certain purposes, including law enforcement availability pay under 5 U.S.C. 5545a, availability pay for Transportation Security Administration air marshals, administratively uncontrollable overtime pay under 5 U.S.C. 5545(c)(2) received by law enforcement officers, standby duty pay under 5 U.S.C. 5545(c)(1), straight-time portion of firefighter overtime pay received by firefighters covered by 5 U.S.C. 5545b, and physicians’ comparability allowances under 5 U.S.C. 5948. However, these payments are considered basic pay for a particular purpose only if expressly provided in law or regulation. There is no existing legal basis for automatically treating these payments as basic pay under the reservist differential authority in 5 U.S.C. 5538. These payments are not equivalent to locality pay or special rate supplements, which represent supplemental compensation for hours in an employee’s basic workweek treated as basic pay for purposes of premium pay and benefits.