Language Skills Could Mean Extra Pay

By Rick Maze

Knowing a foreign language could earn federal civilian and military employees more money under a provision of the 2005 Defense Authorization Act.

But Congress is still concerned that financial incentives will not be enough to ensure that enough people with critical language skills are retained in the defense and intelligence arenas.

The House and Senate Armed Services committees want a report from the Pentagon by April 1 about how to meet short- and long-term needs for people who can work as translators and interpreters.

he authorization act, which became law Oct. 28, approves increases in financial incentives for federal employees with foreign language proficiency.

he law approves up to $1,000 in monthly proficiency pay for active-duty members and a bonus of up to $6,000 for National Guard and reserve members, available either in a lump sum or installments.

For federal civilians, the bill repeals a previous limitation that foreign language proficiency pay is provided only to those working in support of contingency operations and allows those with certain language skills to draw the pay full time. For civilians, the special pay can be up to 5 percent of their base salary.

Providing the special pay full time is a way to encourage people with foreign language skills to remain in government service, lawmakers say.

Those pay hikes are unlikely to be enough, lawmakers say in their report accompanying the law, noting that a 2002 report by the Government Accountability Office found that the military, law enforcement, intelligence, counterterrorism and diplomatic programs are all short of qualified linguists and that some linguists working for the government are not actually proficient.

The government has been using contract workers to fill short-term needs and has been considering creating a civilian linguist corps of volunteers to serve long-term needs.

One concern: whether volunteer linguists, many of whom would be foreign-born, would create security problems or would even be eligible for some of the highly classified work for which linguists are needed.

“The federal government has had to enter into private contracts to procure linguist and translator services, including some positions that would be more appropriately filled by permanent federal employees or members of the U.S. armed forces,” lawmakers said in the report.