1 Your federal pay
Pick your grade, step, and duty-station locality — the tool fills in your salary from the official 2025 GS scale. This is your rate at separation; raises during the gap are handled just below.
Your grade and step set here carry into every benefit calculator. Make sure they're right before you continue — the other calculators read them from this page.
Used by the benefit calculators — it sets your leave accrual rate and feeds your service credit. It doesn't change the numbers on this page.
2 The timeline
The initial decision is the hinge. Before it = back pay (offsets apply). After it = interim relief (a separate forward stream).
Set for the group — July 14, 2025.
3 Pay growth
Your corrected pay isn't frozen at your July 2025 salary. Add the within-grade step increases you'd have reached across the gap, plus any allowances you were owed.
4 What you earned elsewhere
Replacement earnings during the back-pay gap only. Do not include income you already had before the RIF — pre-existing moonlighting is carved out and never offsets.
5 What you already received
These were paid because of the separation. They come back out of the award in this order — not a penalty, just no double payment.
6 Interest
Back pay earns interest at the IRS § 6621 overpayment rate, compounded daily. The tool applies the real published rate for each quarter automatically — no assumption to enter.
7 Still with counsel
These questions are unresolved. Toggle them to see how the answer would move your estimate — but treat the result as hypothetical until Joanna confirms.
Concurrent federal pay raises a separate dual-compensation / reconciliation question. Flags the result; does not change the math.
8 Unemployment compensation
Benefits you collected during the gap. How they hit your money depends on your state — netted from your award, billed to you out of pocket, or protected. Pick your state to see.
9 Annual & Sick Leave
The annual and sick leave you'd have accrued across the gap — restored as hours on your record, not paid as cash.
10 TSP + Breakage
Your missed contributions, the agency automatic 1% and match, and breakage — plus the make-up choice that flows back into your award above.
11 Retirement Service Credit
Creditable time added to your record for the gap — feeds your high-3 and retirement eligibility.
12 FEHB & FEGLI Restoration
Health and life coverage reinstated, and how the five-year coverage clock is treated.
$ Estimated cash award
Then the normal withholdings come out before this reaches you — retirement, FICA/Medicare, health & life premiums, and income tax — and finally any administrative offset for other federal debts. Retirement and life are figured on gross before offset; tax and FICA on the adjusted figure after.