Question regarding NOAA payscale (NWA/MLS)

[BackInTex]

The NOAA Payscale includes two columns that I don't know what they are.

1) Step 03 Penalty
2) Step 04 NWA/MLS

Any government, maritime, smart folks know what those are and how they are applied. The other two columns are self-explanatory.

Thanks

My daughter is considering a 1-year assignment on the Hi'ialakai, based out of Hawaii.

Trying to figure our the total compensation and what she is responsible for on the days she is in port (i.e. housing). About 200 days the ship is sailing.

[smilergrogan]

I'm not sure about the penalty thing, but I'm pretty sure the second one is your hazard pay if your ship encounters any narwhals with attitude or majorly lethal sharks.

[Estonut]

I assume you've checked out this site: http://www.wfm.noaa.gov/

You might have some keywords to do a more successful search than I was able to do. Searching on "NWA/MLS" brought up several pay charts similar to yours, but I was unable to find anything to define them.

[plasticene]

I found what NWA stands for, but not what it means.

The attached schedule reflects a 2.32 percent increase to base pay and a 2.26 percent increase to
overtime, penalty pay and non-watch allowance rates, the amount of the increase for GS
employees in the Seattle, Washington locality pay area, as required by Public Law 109-1 15 and
as limited by 5 USC 5348.

There are some references to penalty pay that might be helpful in http://hr.commerce.gov/s/groups/public/ ... 010307.pdf. There are also references to various allowances in the document, but I'm not sure if they have anything to do with "non-watch" allowances.