[Casseres]

Locality ≠ COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment)

Locality is to make a job's salary competitive with other job salaries in the local market, whereas COLA is exactly what it sounds like.

Houston has a high locality rate because of all the high-paying jobs there that one could potentially get instead of the govt job.

I work for the govt and receive both locality and COLA, albeit the COLA is way too low in my opinion (Honolulu).