Senior Foreign Service

The Senior Foreign Service (SFS) comprises the top four ranks of the United States Foreign Service. These ranks were created by the Foreign Service Act of 1980 and Executive Order 12293 in order to provide the Foreign Service with senior grades equivalent to general- and flag ranks in the military and naval establishments, respectively, and to grades in the Senior Executive Service. Like military ranks and other Foreign Service ranks, the Senior Foreign Service grade system assigns rank in person, not rank in position. The Senior Foreign Service pay system is an open-range, performance-based pay system that is linked to the Senior Executive Service (SES) pay system. SFS members, like SES members, are not entitled to automatic across-the-board increases and locality-based comparability payments. Instead, pay adjustments are based on a member’s individual performance and/or contribution to the agency’s performance.

As amended under 5 U.S.C. 5376, Executive Order 12293 prescribes three SFS salary classes linked to the Executive Schedule, ranging from 120 percent of the pay rate for a GS-15, step 1 to the pay rate for ES-II:

Career Minister (CM) with a pay cap equal to the rate of pay for ES-II (Note: Career Ambassador (CA) SFS members are also paid within the CM rate range);

Minister-Counselor (MC) with a pay cap equal to 1.07 times the rate of pay for ES-III; and

Counselor (OC) with a pay cap equal to 1.02 times the rate of pay for ES-III.

The Executive Order originally prescribed three SFS salary classes linked to the SES as follows:

Career Minister (CM) with a range from 94 percent of the rate payable to level III of the Executive Schedule to 100 percent of the rate payable to level II of the Executive Schedule;

Minister-Counselor (MC) with a range from 90 percent of the rate payable to level III of the Executive Schedule to 100 percent of the rate payable to level III of the Executive Schedule; and

Counselor (OC), with a range from 120 percent of the rate payable to GS–15, step 1 to 100 percent of the rate payable to level III of the Executive Schedule.

Prior to creation of the Senior Foreign Service (i.e., prior to implementation of the Foreign Service Act of 1980) Career Ministers were paid at the same rate as Class 1 Foreign Service Officers. In 1979, an FSO-1 earned from $61,903 to $65,750 per annum, with the caveat that civil service and Foreign Service salaries were capped at $50,112.50 per annum, equal to the pay rate for Level V of the Executive Schedule, per Section 5308 of Title 5 of the U.S. Code. The top theoretical annual salary, $65,750, was equal to that of a GS-18. In order to be promoted into the Senior Foreign Service, an FS-1 Foreign Service Officer or Specialist must "open his/her window", that is, must formally request in writing consideration for promotion into the Senior Foreign Service. This application starts a clock; if the officer is not promoted into the Senior Foreign Service within a specific number of convocations of Selection Boards (set by regulation in each foreign affairs agency), the officer is mandatorily retired.

Like the rest of the Foreign Service, as well as their military counterparts, Senior Foreign Service officers are subject to time-in-class provisions. If not promoted within a specific "time in class" for the rank encumbered, the officer is mandatorily retired. The time in class for each grade varies both by grade and by foreign affairs agency, and is established by agency regulation. Times in class are now cumulative, so that early promotion to higher grades no longer leads to rapid retirement of rapidly rising officers.

These stipulations ensure flow-through of the senior ranks of the service, a specific goal of the rank-in-person Foreign Service personnel system.

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