How the SEC Sets Salaries

The SEC’s pay-setting practices are structured to ensure consistency and objectivity by using tools termed “pay matrices.”  Specifically, use of the pay matrices ensures that a new employee’s pay is set commensurate with the experience – both “relevant” and ”specialized” -- that he or she brings to the position:

• Relevant experience includes experience not directly related to the duties of the position but which nonetheless prepares the candidate for success in the position.
• Specialized experience includes technical experience directly related to the duties of the position to be filled.

Information Used by Office of Human Resources Staff to Set Pay :

The resume a job candidate submits when applying for an SEC position is used by Office of Human Resources (OHR) Compensation Team to identify creditable relevant and/or specialized experience. The SEC encourages job candidates to provide the following information to ensure that compensation is set accurately:

• Complete work history (e.g., not just the most recent 10 or 15 years)
• Job titles
• Duties for each job (be specific in describing the duties)
• Start and end dates for each job, including month and year
• Full-time or part-time status (include hours worked per week)

Base Pay Ranges

The base pay ranges for the different levels of SK series employees are as follows: 

The salary cap, including locality pay, is $240,100 for all SK staff.

The base pay ranges for the different levels of Senior Officer positions are as follows:

New SO Pay Chart

Effective Date: January 8, 2017

Locality Pay

The locality rates presented below are applied to an employee’s base pay based on his/her duty location.

2017 SEC Locality Rates

 Updated January 2017

All locations use minimum and maximum/cap.