Let's Talk Money: Dear HR1, Please Get Your Hands Out of My Husband's Paycheck

This is us. The one showing lots of shoulder (in her Chengdu, China Marine Ball ball gown!) is the EFM who writes this blog. The one wearing a tux (James) is the employee who moves her (and their two sons) around all over the world. The red link, below, is how you can get in touch with me...

The time in Chengdu, China

Chengdu: city of fabulous food and beautiful Buddhist monasteries!

In Our Same Boat (with State)

Beyond the Cornfields
Brand-new State Department family in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Love their two little girls (she just recently had a baby while being posted in Dhaka), horticulture, traveling and adventure!
Email From The Embassy
State Department family formerly in Beijing, China, and recently posted to Amman, Jordan. A trailing spouse, she's also a writer, and frequently publishes articles with major news sources. A very experienced State family, this new post is something like overseas post number six or seven for them.
Just US
A beautiful family of seven - they have arrived at their new post: Jerusalem! They just finished off an unaccompanied tour to Iraq and are very much looking forward to sightseeing around the middle east.
Our Life
State Department family on their second post...Tijuana, Mexico. It's their first overseas assignment and they have two little boys. They love Tijuana so far and post pictures frequently! They also get to enjoy the best of both worlds for they can sneak over the border into San Diego when they want to!
The Dinoia Family
State Department family formerly in California, now in DC for a DC tour. Next, the husband will do a one year unaccompanied tour. A very experienced State family (formerly in Iceland and Caracas) with a blog that has been around quite a while and has great archives. Jen has a sweet heart and a lot to give!
The Perlman Update
State Department family formerly in Chennai, India, who then did a year-long unaccompanied tour in Iraq. They are now on a DC tour and after that will do another unaccompanied tour (Afghanistan). She totally tells it like it is and doesn't sugar-coat what life is really like. Witty, snarky, funny and down-to-earth. Look elsewhere if you want fake. Read if you want REAL.
Where in the World Am I?
State Department family formerly in Bujumbura, Burundi and now in Hyderabad, India. They just had their first baby this summer - a beautiful little girl- (there's a separate blog about this) and she also eats gluten-free (with a separate blog, also).

One of the most intriguing things about Chengdu is that it is a seamless blend of ancient and modern... all together, side by side.

Can't Live Without (non-State)

Crass-Pollination: An ER blog
The best ER nurse blog EVER!
Doctor Grumpy in the House
The best doctor blog EVER!
In Which...
My IRL friend, a stay-at-home, homeschooling Mama of seven. Her darling daughters are, goshdarnit, probably too young to be hoped for as my future daughters-in-law.
The Crib Chick
My IRL friend, a stay-at-home, homeschooling Mama of five. Hopefully two (Any two! I'm not picky!) of which are my future daughters-in-law.
the underwear drawer
An anesthesiologist who is possibly the most talented & entertaining writer ever. I've read her blog ever since she started medical school. No, don't know her in real life. Wish I did.
The Bloggess
This blog is both hysterically funny and hilariously irreverent. I actually let my 17 year old son read it (who loves it as much as I do!), but wouldn't even CONSIDER letting my 12 year old son read it. Which is about all the description it needs!

The grounds of Chengdu monasteries can be very, very peaceful...even though they are smack dab in the heart of a city of millions of people.

Specifics

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02/23/2011

Let's Talk Money: Dear HR1, Please Get Your Hands Out of My Husband's Paycheck

I was horrified to learn today that my husband's paycheck is under assault. Here's how (the simplified version).

Federal employees' salaries are made up of different pieces. For example, my husband has a "base" salary, which you can find here (very first page). He was hired as a 5, and is still a 5, so that gives you a general idea of what this single-income, four-person family is looking at in terms of base salary.

On that same page, you can see that federal employees also get, above and beyond their "base" salary, what is called "locality" pay. Locality pay is a percentage of their base salary. Thus, if you're a new State hire and you come in at the first Step of 5, your "base" pay is $42,948. If you're in Washington DC, you also get 24.22% added on as your "locality" pay. (And trust me, that doesn't even *touch* how expensive it is to live here.)

It used to be that, when stationed overseas, State Department Foreign Service folks didn't get any "locality" pay. I mean, even a quick glance at that locality chart shows you no foreign city names, right? But then, a few years ago, the government slowly began phasing in a plan to eventually give Foreign Service folks stationed overseas "locality" pay equal to Washington DC's. It's being phased in slowly.

Now, as part and parcel with the proposed Continuing Resolution HR1 (so as to try to get some sort of federal budget together?), which has already passed the House, this locality pay for overseas employees (but ONLY overseas State Department employees! Other Departments like FBI and ICE folks overseas have ALWAYS gotten locality pay while overseas!) would be GONE.

I spent a while this afternoon calling my two Senators in my home state (and I also followed up with heartfelt emails) begging them to not let this happen to my family. Because what would happen to my family is that, when we went to China, my husband would literally lose 24% of his salary overnight.

We are a one-income family. With two children. You have already seen my husband's base pay range. We're not wealthy. We can't afford to lose my husband's locality pay when we go overseas.

Are you with State? Are you not, but feel badly for us? Call and/or write your home state's two Senators (it's actually super easy to do it online). Tell them not to let Foreign Service employees who are overseas get their paychecks effetively cut by 24%. Tell them not to let HR1 do that to us.

Please.

[Articles about this can be found here and here.]

~ ~ ~

In other news - guess what today is!?

Today is my exact halfway mark in my Mandarin Chinese class at FSI! WooHoo! I am halfway done!

Just in case anyone wants to know where a 32 week class to a 2/1 in Mandarin is at their halfway mark, I give you the following:

One of our textbooks is:

(Hey Jill, notice the bag?) :)

The chapter we're on right now is:

This chapter is about, like, birthday parties and stuff. Which is FAR superior to last chapter, which was giving people directions. Since I don't even even do that in English, I had NO desire or motivation to learn how to do that in Chinese. I literally learned how to say in Chinese: If you want to go from (Point A) to (Point B)...give my husband a phone call!

So that's one of our millions of textbooks. Another one is our Reading textbook:

Complete with my notes and highlighting. See, Becky? The left-hand side of the page is in Traditional Characters (and I therefore pay it no mind), and the right-had side of the page is in Simplified.

ANYWAY.

This Friday, as in just a couple of days from now, I have my Mandarin Progress Test. You have it when you're halfway through your class.

This scares the ever-living CRAP out of me for many reasons.

One of which is because I saw the nuclear fallout of what happened to folks in James' Mandarin cohort (two months ahead of mine) when they didn't pass their progress tests. Let's just sum it all up with: utter pain, agony, and suffering. Complete with emails to post and CDOs and God and stuff. It's ugly, y'all, and I don't want it to come near me.

Another of which is because I'm not too terribly awful at reading, but I am downright HORRIBLE at speaking. Which is super bad, because I'm supposed to be lopsided in *favor* of speaking, not against it. I'm supposed to get a 2/1, which is a 2 in speaking and a 1 in reading, but I swear to you guys that when this is all said and done and the dust clears, I'll have a 0+ in speaking and a 2 in reading: a 0+/2 instead of a 2/1. James says I'm being silly, but there you go. HENCE: FEAR.

[Note to all y'all well-intentioned souls who would say to me Don't worry about it! You're "Just a Wife!" You don't have to score a certain way anyway!... YES, I DO, IF I EVER WANT TO HAVE A JOB. IF I EVER WANT A JOB, I *HAVE* TO GET A 2 IN SPEAKING. But that's a different blog post for a different day.]

Which means I should be studying! But with the whole money thing and the whole Chinese halfway mark thing, I just really had to blog.

Closing on a cute note:

Squirrel paw tracks in the snow yesterday. That was probably our last snow of the season. Just a light dusting on the ground, but oh so cute!

Now please go call or email your Senator!

Posted on 02/23/2011 at 02:33 PM in Current Affairs, FSI, James, James - State Department, Learning Mandarin Chinese, Money Aspects of State, Training for Chengdu, China (2nd Post) | Permalink

Comments

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FSI is trying to rectify the situation and traditional characters should be going live on the reading class come Friday :) In the meantime, my brain continues to explode. Good luck with the test! You have accomplished so much in such a short time!

Posted by: Becky | 02/23/2011 at 02:43 PM

Suckie and monumentally inequitable to single out Foreign Service people like that. I'm writing the senators tonight, although I don't think there's any way that bill is going to pass. The Senate has much less interest in dealing with the spending crisis than the House. As a matter of fact, Barbara Boxer has just asked for a list of senators' "special projects" for the upcoming budget. She's not calling them earmarks anymore. Apparently, an earmark by any other name is still quite acceptable.

Posted by: Mom | 02/23/2011 at 05:44 PM

I already wrote to my senators!

Posted by: Heidi | 02/23/2011 at 08:33 PM

Yes, I noticed the bag (still glad you like it)... and more importantly, noticed how unbelievably hard Chinese class looks to me. Bless you my friend ... I'm in awe!

And holy tamoly, can I just add how expensive living OVERSEAS is ... let alone DC. The 24% won't begin to touch it. Heck, if you ever want a "taste" of America overseas, just be ready to bend over... because that's what you have to do to afford it.

Shame on them! SHAME!! When they cut their own budgets, take money out of their OWN pockets, THEN, they can consider to cut ours. The nerve.

Posted by: Jill | 02/23/2011 at 08:43 PM

Yep, this sucks.

To add insult to injury, even if this doesn't pass, you're going to lose a chunk of income as soon as you leave DC. Locality pay for those serving overseas is only up to 7% so far. Boo hiss boo.

Sometimes I just don't know if I can handle the FS for the rest of my life.

Posted by: Liz | 02/23/2011 at 10:52 PM

The locality loss on top of the already-existing pay freeze really feels like we're being punched in the face. We got all that excellent press after Wikileaks -- but that apparently wasn't enough. It seems that we're still the red-headed step children of the Federal world.

Posted by: Dakota | 02/24/2011 at 08:56 AM

We had already written to our senators, but I just copied your post and put it on my blog as well, here: http://irunyourun.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/and-i-need-your-help/ Hope you don't mind!

Posted by: Carla @ I Run, You Run | 02/24/2011 at 12:13 PM

Great post Kolbi and kudos to you for trying to bring attention to this! We are just hanging on "by a thread" here in DC, actually we're hanging on "by the plastic of our credit cards" :) USAID employees have to pay for all of their own housing here in DC regardless of how long they're here so we are really just needing to get to post so we can start getting out of the debt this last year (plus some) of training here in DC has landed us in. So we aren't to excited to be loosing any of Jason's paycheck either. Thanks for this post!

Posted by: Kristen | 02/24/2011 at 01:51 PM

Congrats again on passing the Chinese test! That's awesome.

It is time for the Weekly State Department Blog Round Up and you are on it!

It is found here:
http://cyberbones.blogspot.com/2011/02/weekly-fs-blog-roundup-in-news.html

If you would like the links to your site removed (or corrections are needed) please contact me. Thanks!

Posted by: shannon | 02/25/2011 at 10:04 AM

The comments to this entry are closed.

James loves me. And our sons. And his job. But not having his picture taken. In 2011 he finished up over a year and half of training, and in the fall of 2011 we got to our first overseas post - Chengdu, China!