thedrifter
05-02-06, 11:41 AM
May 08, 2006
Half-point boost for basic pay?
House bill would push ’07 raise to 2.7 percent
By Rick Maze
Times staff writer
Worried that retention problems could be just around the corner, a House subcommittee passed a bill that would boost the minimum 2007 military pay raise to continue a seven-year trend of staying ahead of wage growth in the private sector.
The 2.7 percent increase in basic pay and drill pay, approved April 26 by the House Armed Services personnel subcommittee, is just slightly larger than the 2.2 percent raise proposed by the White House. But that 0.5 percentage-point difference means the gap between military and private-sector pay will continue to shrink.
Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y., the subcommittee chairman, said the services keep saying they have no serious problems retaining career service members. But he worries that the stress of military life, particularly in terms of repeated deployments, has created a situation where large numbers of troops could leave the military without warning.
In addition to the all-ranks raise that would go into effect Jan. 1, the subcommittee’s portion of the 2007 defense authorization bill includes a Pentagon plan for targeted pay raises for warrant officers and some midgrade enlisted members on April 1. Those raises would range from less than 1 percent to a maximum of 8.3 percent on top of the 2.7 percent increase.
About 500,000 troops out of the 1.4 million on active duty would get April 1 raises, including all warrant officers, most E-5s and E-6s and some E-7s. Defense officials earlier had described the raises as applying to midgrade and senior enlisted members, but no targeted raises were requested or approved for E-8s or E-9s.
Targeted raises are intended to adjust pay levels so that service members make more money than 70 percent of private-sector workers with similar education and responsibility levels, which is the Defense Department’s goal for providing comparable pay scales.
By that standard, junior enlisted members are slightly overpaid, while wages for the two top enlisted grades and for officers are about right after previous pay-table adjustments.
The subcommittee also approved a Pentagon request to raise the limit on military pay so the 39 four-star admirals and generals can get a full pay raise. Military pay is capped by law so that O-10s do not get more than subcabinet executives at Level III of the executive pay scale. The change raises the cap to $165,000, the cap for Executive Level II civilians.
One major Pentagon proposal failed: The subcommittee did not extend the military pay table to provide pay increases for those with more than 30 years of service, an initiative that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has discussed for several years.
The Pentagon recommended a 5 percent pay increase at the 30-, 34- and 38-year marks for flag and general officers and for E-9s, but the subcommittee turned it down because members felt it did not have sufficient justification, aides said.
Whittling the gap
McHugh said the 2.7 percent minimum raise represents an effort to continue closing the gap between military and private-sector pay — a gap that peaked at 13.5 percent in 1999.
For seven consecutive years, Congress mandated a pay formula that set military raises 0.5 of a percentage point above private-sector wage growth in order to close the gap. That formula expired with the Jan. 1, 2006, raise, allowing the Bush administration to propose a 2.2 percent increase that matched average private-sector salary growth, the basis for pay hikes given to federal civilian workers.
But the Pentagon has never accepted the idea that a pay gap can be measured by comparing raises. Defense officials instead favor a standard that looks at wages for comparable experience. Since 2000, several adjustments in the military pay tables have been made to try to achieve comparable salaries and reward promotion over longevity.
Targeted raises continued through 2004.
When the Pentagon reassessed pay scales to determine if more adjustments were needed for further targeted increases, the Bush administration’s staff at the Office of Management and Budget rejected the proposal because there were no signs of widespread problems with re-enlistment rates.
The proposed 2.2 percent raise, the smallest since 1994, drew fire from military associations and some lawmakers. While it might match the average civilian raise, it is less than the inflation rate and thus would erode the value of military pay. Even the 2.7 percent raise is less than the 3.4 percent increase over the last year in the price of goods and services, and inflation is expected to jump because of higher energy prices.
Still, the 2.7 percent raise would mean military wages will have increased 41 percent in the last eight years, McHugh said. With the targeted raises, pay for midgrade and senior noncommissioned officers and warrant officers will have increased 49 percent.
Along with the pay raises, the bill includes bonus increases sought by the Pentagon. The maximum special pay for a reserve health care professional would increase by $15,000, to a maximum of $25,000; nuclear career accession bonuses would increase by $10,000, to a maximum of $30,000; and a two-year pilot program would offer new but unspecified recruiting incentives for critical medical specialties.
McHugh said he would have liked to do more, but money was short after spending $300 million for the basic pay increase, $735 million for military health care and $159 million for Army active-duty recruiting and retention bonuses and Air National Guard bonuses.
Some low- or no-cost provisions also are in the subcommittee-passed portion of the bill:
• A Cold War Victory Medal for people who spent at least 180 days on active-duty between the years 1945 and 1991.
• An order that the remains of military personnel who die in a combat zone will be transported by military aircraft and met by a military honor guard that provides full honors instead of being shipped as freight on commercial airliners.
• A proposed test program in which the government would pay for some over-the-counter drugs under Tricare in addition to prescription drug coverage.
Ellie
Half-point boost for basic pay?
House bill would push ’07 raise to 2.7 percent
By Rick Maze
Times staff writer
Worried that retention problems could be just around the corner, a House subcommittee passed a bill that would boost the minimum 2007 military pay raise to continue a seven-year trend of staying ahead of wage growth in the private sector.
The 2.7 percent increase in basic pay and drill pay, approved April 26 by the House Armed Services personnel subcommittee, is just slightly larger than the 2.2 percent raise proposed by the White House. But that 0.5 percentage-point difference means the gap between military and private-sector pay will continue to shrink.
Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y., the subcommittee chairman, said the services keep saying they have no serious problems retaining career service members. But he worries that the stress of military life, particularly in terms of repeated deployments, has created a situation where large numbers of troops could leave the military without warning.
In addition to the all-ranks raise that would go into effect Jan. 1, the subcommittee’s portion of the 2007 defense authorization bill includes a Pentagon plan for targeted pay raises for warrant officers and some midgrade enlisted members on April 1. Those raises would range from less than 1 percent to a maximum of 8.3 percent on top of the 2.7 percent increase.
About 500,000 troops out of the 1.4 million on active duty would get April 1 raises, including all warrant officers, most E-5s and E-6s and some E-7s. Defense officials earlier had described the raises as applying to midgrade and senior enlisted members, but no targeted raises were requested or approved for E-8s or E-9s.
Targeted raises are intended to adjust pay levels so that service members make more money than 70 percent of private-sector workers with similar education and responsibility levels, which is the Defense Department’s goal for providing comparable pay scales.
By that standard, junior enlisted members are slightly overpaid, while wages for the two top enlisted grades and for officers are about right after previous pay-table adjustments.
The subcommittee also approved a Pentagon request to raise the limit on military pay so the 39 four-star admirals and generals can get a full pay raise. Military pay is capped by law so that O-10s do not get more than subcabinet executives at Level III of the executive pay scale. The change raises the cap to $165,000, the cap for Executive Level II civilians.
One major Pentagon proposal failed: The subcommittee did not extend the military pay table to provide pay increases for those with more than 30 years of service, an initiative that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has discussed for several years.
The Pentagon recommended a 5 percent pay increase at the 30-, 34- and 38-year marks for flag and general officers and for E-9s, but the subcommittee turned it down because members felt it did not have sufficient justification, aides said.
Whittling the gap
McHugh said the 2.7 percent minimum raise represents an effort to continue closing the gap between military and private-sector pay — a gap that peaked at 13.5 percent in 1999.
For seven consecutive years, Congress mandated a pay formula that set military raises 0.5 of a percentage point above private-sector wage growth in order to close the gap. That formula expired with the Jan. 1, 2006, raise, allowing the Bush administration to propose a 2.2 percent increase that matched average private-sector salary growth, the basis for pay hikes given to federal civilian workers.
But the Pentagon has never accepted the idea that a pay gap can be measured by comparing raises. Defense officials instead favor a standard that looks at wages for comparable experience. Since 2000, several adjustments in the military pay tables have been made to try to achieve comparable salaries and reward promotion over longevity.
Targeted raises continued through 2004.
When the Pentagon reassessed pay scales to determine if more adjustments were needed for further targeted increases, the Bush administration’s staff at the Office of Management and Budget rejected the proposal because there were no signs of widespread problems with re-enlistment rates.
The proposed 2.2 percent raise, the smallest since 1994, drew fire from military associations and some lawmakers. While it might match the average civilian raise, it is less than the inflation rate and thus would erode the value of military pay. Even the 2.7 percent raise is less than the 3.4 percent increase over the last year in the price of goods and services, and inflation is expected to jump because of higher energy prices.
Still, the 2.7 percent raise would mean military wages will have increased 41 percent in the last eight years, McHugh said. With the targeted raises, pay for midgrade and senior noncommissioned officers and warrant officers will have increased 49 percent.
Along with the pay raises, the bill includes bonus increases sought by the Pentagon. The maximum special pay for a reserve health care professional would increase by $15,000, to a maximum of $25,000; nuclear career accession bonuses would increase by $10,000, to a maximum of $30,000; and a two-year pilot program would offer new but unspecified recruiting incentives for critical medical specialties.
McHugh said he would have liked to do more, but money was short after spending $300 million for the basic pay increase, $735 million for military health care and $159 million for Army active-duty recruiting and retention bonuses and Air National Guard bonuses.
Some low- or no-cost provisions also are in the subcommittee-passed portion of the bill:
• A Cold War Victory Medal for people who spent at least 180 days on active-duty between the years 1945 and 1991.
• An order that the remains of military personnel who die in a combat zone will be transported by military aircraft and met by a military honor guard that provides full honors instead of being shipped as freight on commercial airliners.
• A proposed test program in which the government would pay for some over-the-counter drugs under Tricare in addition to prescription drug coverage.
Ellie