The federal government’s senior executives are growing more dissatisfied with their pay, according to a new survey released May 13.

Less than two-thirds of Senior Executive Service members are happy with their pay, according to the Office of Personnel Management survey conducted in January and February. The 61 percent satisfaction level is 12 percentage points lower than two years ago.

SES members are now barely more satisfied with their pay than they were in 2002 — two years before their pay-for-performance program started. The Federal Human Capital Survey found that 60.1 percent of senior executives were happy with their pay in 2002.

One possible reason for the decline, said Nancy Kichak, OPM’s associate director for strategic human resources policy, is that more senior executives may have hit or are nearing the maximum $172,200 pay agencies can pay them. And senior executives’ lack of locality pay also likely is hurting morale, she said.

Senior Executives Association President Carol Bonosaro said that Congress should reinstate locality pay, which senior executives lost in 2004 with the switch to performance pay, and should consider raising all SES pay ranges.

The survey also found more dissatisfaction with performance appraisals. Sixty-eight percent of surveyed executives felt their performance appraisals were fair — six percentage points lower than in 2006.

Agencies also are not doing a good job communicating with their executives about pay-for-performance systems. Only 35 percent of surveyed executives received the overall results of their agencies’ ratings, awards and pay adjustments.

And about one-third of executives say their agencies aren’t doing enough to further train them. Thirty-five percent think their agencies are not assessing what they need to further hone their skills, and 37 percent have not taken part in developmental programs such as 360-degree feedback.

Kichak said that the Chief Human Capital Officers Council will review the survey’s results. Agencies that showed the highest satisfaction levels on the survey, such as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Social Security Administration and NASA, will share their best practices with other agencies, she said.