Obama Orders new Military pay Study
Jim Higgins
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,208037,00.html
Tom Philpott | December 24, 2009
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Should military pilots who have been reassigned from cockpits to
ground-based computer consoles to fly remotely-piloted vehicles continue
to draw the same flight pay as pilots who still fly jets and helicopters?
Should reserve component personnel on lengthy overseas assignments in
locales like Germany continue to draw the same overseas cost-of-living
allowances as active duty counterparts?
Is it time to review and possibly streamline various piecemeal
improvements made in recent years to compensation and benefits provided
to wounded warriors and their families?
These are some of the questions to be answered next year by a new
Department of Defense pay study -- the 11th Quadrennial Review of
Military Compensation (QRMC). President Obama ordered the study to
begin in a Dec. 11 memo to Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Current law requires that the executive branch conduct a study of
military compensation every four years. The law leaves it to the
president to decide what issues the study should focus on, however.
Obama wants the 11th QRMC to focus on four areas. They are:
1) Review of compensation for service performed in combat or hostile
fire areas, during combat operations or while exposed to a hostile fire
event.
Congress signaled its interest in this by including in the fiscal 2010
defense authorization act a provision to curb some combat pay abuses.
The services will begin soon to pro-rate hostile fire pay, imminent
danger pay, hazardous duty pay, assignment pay and skill incentive pay,
based on actual days spent in qualifying danger areas. Service members
have been drawing a full month�s payment, for example, if they crewed an
aircraft into a war zone, or visited a war theater headquarters, as
little as a day per month.
2) Review of Reserve and National Guard compensation and benefits for
consistency in current and future �utilization� of these forces.
The consistency sought appears to refer to how reserve compensation
stacks up against that of active duty members, in light of a heavier
load current reserve component carry compared to past generations. One
goal of the study, explained a Pentagon manpower official, will be to
smooth �on and off ramps� for reservists mobilized and demobilized for
Iraq and Afghanistan.
Another will be to make pay rules for reserve components as simple as
possible and to end reserve versus active pay disparities where appropriate.
Army headquarters proposed recently, for example, that overseas
cost-of-living allowances end for reserve component members sent on
permanent change of station orders to Germany for long tours in support
of the war effort, a source explained.
Critics of the move in Europe countered that this attempt to hold down
personnel costs would come at the expense of reservists� who face the
same off-post prices for goods and services as do their active duty
colleagues.
�This is indicative of a collision between different judgments of what�s
fair and equitable,� said a Pentagon official who wants to see the QRMC
review such issues and recommend policies or law changes that would end
any inappropriate or illogical active/reserve compensation disparities.
3) Review of compensation and benefits for wounded warriors and their
caregivers and survivors of fallen service members.
Congress has much to improve disability benefits and to support programs
for veterans wounded or disabled since 9/11. That pattern continues
with the Senate this year voting an unprecedented payment for family
members or other at-home caregivers who attend to needs of severely
wounded veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. That Senate plan still must
be reconciled with less robust initiatives approved by the House.
�The QRMC gives us an opportunity to organize a lot of good initiatives�
that have been approved piecemeal over the last several years, this
official explained. Where initiatives conflict or overlap, the QRMC will
be able to recommend ways to improve or to clarify recent pays or benefits.
4) Review of pay incentives for critical career fields to include mental
health professionals, linguists and translators, remotely piloted
vehicle operators, and special operations personnel.
Bonuses and special pays have been increased significantly in recent
years to attract and retain these specialties. The QRMC will judge
whether it has been enough. Pentagon officials already had been
reviewing aviation pay. Indeed without start-up of the QRMC, they might
have been ready to make recommendations early in 2010. But Obama�s memo
speficially identifies incentive pay for operators of remotely-piloted
vehicles as an area needing more study.
The rising population of RPV operators in the Air Force, for example,
draws the same flight pay as other pilots with equal years of
experience. Relative risk is likely will be a new factor the QRMC
weighs when it decides if RPV pilots are properly compensation, said a
manpower official.
Current compensation, Obama said, �has allowed us to recruit and retain
the highest caliber men and women in our Nation's history, and that
system needs to be regularly validated for sufficiency and responsiveness.�
�What�s laid out [by the president] is perfectly healthy for the
department to look at,� said a Pentagon official. �These are all areas
that, if you ask anybody on the street what�s bothering them, these are
them.�
Gates, executive agent for the pay review, is expected to name a QRMC
director in early 2010. The study is to have representatives from other
agencies including Homeland Security, Commerce, and Health and Human
Services. Obama wants the review completed within a year of its
initiation and to see a progress report after six months.
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