Civilian Pay Technician
Defense Finance and Accounting Service
FreshPosted Mar 20
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Posted: March 20, 2026 (0 days ago)
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Civilian Pay Clerk
Defense Finance and Accounting Service
Department of Defense
GS-3 Pay Grade
Base salary range: $26,979 - $35,074
Typical requirements: 6 months general experience. Some college or vocational training.
Note: Actual salary includes locality pay (15-40%+ depending on location).
Job Description
Summary
This entry-level job involves handling payroll tasks for federal civilian employees, such as setting up accounts, fixing pay and leave problems, and ensuring accurate bi-weekly or monthly payments.
It requires basic office skills and attention to detail to learn on-the-job about government pay systems.
A good fit would be someone with clerical experience or volunteer work in administrative roles who is eager to build skills in a structured federal environment.
Key Requirements
- One year of progressively responsible clerical, office, or equivalent experience demonstrating ability to learn job duties
- Familiarity with processing payroll actions, including establishing, adjusting, and closing accounts for various pay plans
- Ability to research and resolve employee inquiries on pay, leave, special pay, overtime, and debt issues
- Skill in manually handling system rejects and ensuring data flow between payroll systems
- Knowledge of determining eligibility for pay and benefits based on appointment type, tour of duty, and location
- Proficiency in performing clerical and technical tasks for bi-weekly or monthly pay determinations
- U.S. citizenship and ability to obtain a background check for federal employment
Full Job Description
This job announcement uses the Subject Matter Expert Panel Assessment to evaluate applicants.
One year of generalized experience equivalent in level of difficulty and responsibility to that of the next lower grade (GS-03) within the federal service, which demonstrates the ability to perform the duties of the position, is required.
Generalized experience is defined as: Progressively responsible clerical, office, or other work that indicates ability to acquire the particular knowledge and skills needed to perform the duties of the position to be filled.
Paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual, community, student, social) is qualifying.
Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates to paid employment.
You will receive credit for all qualifying experience. Major Duties:
- Duties described below reflect the full performance level GS-06. Duties assigned to an entry grade of GS-04 will be developmental in nature.
- Processes a variety of actions that establish, adjust, and close civilian payroll accounts of serviced Federal Government employees that involve a variety of pay plans and employment situations.
- Researches employee leave/pay issues based on inquiries that include special pay requests, validating and requesting changes to service computation dates, advising supervisors on overtime requests, and resolving issues regarding debt letters.
- Manually processes Defense Civilian Payroll System rejects that occur when data does not flow from one system to another.
- Determines eligibility for pay and benefits based on appointment type and pay plan, tour of duty, and location of employment.
- Performs clerical and technical work resulting in the bi-weekly or monthly determinations of pay for civilian employees.
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