thedrifter
06-14-07, 07:24 PM
Marine Corps offers up to $80K to stay
Flat-rate bonus plan has something for everybody
By John Hoellwarth - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jun 14, 2007 17:40:54 EDT
Three weeks after the Corps’ top officer told his generals the retention effort “is not progressing according to plan,” the Corps announced a Selective Re-enlistment Bonus overhaul that now offers as much as an eye-popping $80,000 for some Marines to sign on for another four.
The new bonus program, unveiled June 7, kicks off June 24, and at that point, the days of flexible bonus multiples will be gone. It’s all about flat-rate bonuses based on rank and military occupational specialty, with a 33 percent raise in the maximum payment, according to MarAdmin message 349/07. The existing bonus had been capped at an already impressive $60,000.
And under this new plan, everyone can cash in. Even ranks and military occupational specialties that had been left out of bonus plans in previous years can still get at least $10,000 in Assignment Incentive Pay for re-upping. However, after June 23, Marines can no longer take the $10,000 on top of their SRB.
The new SRBs will apply to any eligible Marine whose active service is slated to end between June 24 of this year and Sept. 30, 2008, according to the message.
The message also opens the door for first-term Marines with contracts that end after Oct. 1 to take part as soon as the new SRBs go into effect June 24. Those Marines would ordinarily have to wait until next fiscal year, when their service obligation is up, to re-enlist.
And, as with the existing SRB program, there are no restrictions on how many Marines can re-enlist.
The beefed-up bonuses are part of an overall retention push launched by Commandant Gen. James Conway, who plans on adding 5,000 Marines to the force every year through 2011, when it would reach a total end strength of 202,000.
The big change this time around not only involves the flat-rate bonus, but also how senior a Marine can be when he cashes in. Though the $10,000 AIP announced in February was authorized for everyone re-enlisting during fiscal 2007 in an effort to “rapidly grow Marine Corps end strength and support the force,” SRBs were still limited to Marines in the A, B and C zones, those signing a second, third and fourth enlistment contract, respectively. Zone C goes up to 14 years of service.
But with the new policy, Corps planners established a Zone D for Marines with 14 to 18 years in service and a Zone E for those with 18 to 20 years in, both of which include the full $80,000 for explosive ordnance disposal Marines.
For years, actual SRB amounts were based on multiples. A Marine with a multiple of 2, for example, multiplied his base pay by the number of additional years he would serve, then multiplied that number by his bonus multiple to find out how high his bonus was.
“The move to a simple, flat-rate incentive program shows every Marine what their incentive will be without vague multiples and calculations, eliminates confusion and simplifies our tracking systems,” officials with Manpower and Reserve Affairs wrote in an e-mail response to questions.
Under the new flat-rate policy, all the numbers have been laid out. Sergeants or above re-enlisting for the first time in 10 military occupational specialties, such as intelligence, air-traffic control and aviation communication tech, will rate the Zone A high of $61,000. Corporals in Zone A from these 10 jobs, seven of which are offering their bonus to incoming lateral movers, max out at $52,500, and lance corporals get $45,500.
The maximum for Zone B, which covers six to 10 years of service, offered to eight specialties, including artillery electronics technician, Middle East cryptologist and imagery analyst, is set at $66,000 for staff sergeants and above and at $56,000 for sergeants and below.
Max payouts jump in Zone C for Marines with 10 to 14 years of service to $78,000 for gunnery sergeants and above in reconnaissance, EOD and ATC. Staff sergeants in that zone with these MOSs will rate $68,000, and sergeants get $61,000.
“We ask Marines to remember what they joined for,” manpower officials wrote. “We also remind Marines to not overlook the other major retention incentive — duty station incentives.”
Manpower officials said Marines should “not make a decision based on current operational tempo” because the Corps is progressing toward a dwell-time ratio that keeps them at home two months for every month they spend deployed.
Marines expecting to pick up rank soon may want to wait until then to make their re-enlistment official, because the SRB they rate will be based on “the Marine’s grade on the date of re-enlistment,” the message states.
Marines who want to claim the full cash incentive must re-enlist for 48 months, but bonuses are pro-rated based on the number of months shy of 48 the Marine decides to re-enlist. In simple math, this means the EOD master sergeant who rates $80,000 for a four-year re-enlistment can still pocket $40,000 if he wants to do only two more years, according to the message.
The policy allows Marines assigned to an operational unit to bolster their assigned re-enlistment bonus by $6,000 by agreeing to stay at their present command for another 12 months, though their total bonus still can’t exceed $80,000, according to the message.
The program isn’t just an attempt to keep Marines on active duty, it’s an attempt to lure Individual Ready Reserve Marines back to the active component by offering 80 percent of the bonus for those who have been gone less than one year and 60 percent to Marines who have been out of uniform as long as four years, according to the message. This is referred to as the Broken Service SRB.
The announcement of the bonus overhaul comes three weeks after Conway sent a letter to his generals saying that, based on the number of Marines the Corps was retaining, the effort wasn’t meeting his expectations.
Earlier this year, the goal for re-enlisting first-term Marines jumped from 6,096 in October to 8,298. The number of career Marines needed to re-enlist increased from 6,461 to 7,800. Altogether, that’s 3,541 more Marines that retention officials are on the hook to deliver than they anticipated in October. The near-term end-strength boost involves growing the force from 179,000 to 184,000 by October.
Retention officials have so far re-enlisted 87 percent of the first-term and 89 percent of the career Marines it needs to meet this goal.
After doing a midyear check on the retention numbers, Conway concluded that “if we keep going like this, we’re not going to make it,” a Marine official at the Pentagon said in May.
“To miss the mark during this fiscal year would most assuredly have a ripple effect on our ability to grow our force over the next five years, fund our operations and military construction, and retain the confidence of the American people,” Conway wrote in the letter to his generals, obtained by Marine Corps Times.
The Marine official said the Corps is counting on the money it has asked Congress to appropriate for 5,000 more Marines this fiscal year.
“We’ve told the Congress we’re going to grow by this many, so it’s kind of like writing a check you’ve got to cash,” the Marine official said. “We say we can deliver. If you don’t meet that, then your funding might be in jeopardy.”
Ellie
Flat-rate bonus plan has something for everybody
By John Hoellwarth - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jun 14, 2007 17:40:54 EDT
Three weeks after the Corps’ top officer told his generals the retention effort “is not progressing according to plan,” the Corps announced a Selective Re-enlistment Bonus overhaul that now offers as much as an eye-popping $80,000 for some Marines to sign on for another four.
The new bonus program, unveiled June 7, kicks off June 24, and at that point, the days of flexible bonus multiples will be gone. It’s all about flat-rate bonuses based on rank and military occupational specialty, with a 33 percent raise in the maximum payment, according to MarAdmin message 349/07. The existing bonus had been capped at an already impressive $60,000.
And under this new plan, everyone can cash in. Even ranks and military occupational specialties that had been left out of bonus plans in previous years can still get at least $10,000 in Assignment Incentive Pay for re-upping. However, after June 23, Marines can no longer take the $10,000 on top of their SRB.
The new SRBs will apply to any eligible Marine whose active service is slated to end between June 24 of this year and Sept. 30, 2008, according to the message.
The message also opens the door for first-term Marines with contracts that end after Oct. 1 to take part as soon as the new SRBs go into effect June 24. Those Marines would ordinarily have to wait until next fiscal year, when their service obligation is up, to re-enlist.
And, as with the existing SRB program, there are no restrictions on how many Marines can re-enlist.
The beefed-up bonuses are part of an overall retention push launched by Commandant Gen. James Conway, who plans on adding 5,000 Marines to the force every year through 2011, when it would reach a total end strength of 202,000.
The big change this time around not only involves the flat-rate bonus, but also how senior a Marine can be when he cashes in. Though the $10,000 AIP announced in February was authorized for everyone re-enlisting during fiscal 2007 in an effort to “rapidly grow Marine Corps end strength and support the force,” SRBs were still limited to Marines in the A, B and C zones, those signing a second, third and fourth enlistment contract, respectively. Zone C goes up to 14 years of service.
But with the new policy, Corps planners established a Zone D for Marines with 14 to 18 years in service and a Zone E for those with 18 to 20 years in, both of which include the full $80,000 for explosive ordnance disposal Marines.
For years, actual SRB amounts were based on multiples. A Marine with a multiple of 2, for example, multiplied his base pay by the number of additional years he would serve, then multiplied that number by his bonus multiple to find out how high his bonus was.
“The move to a simple, flat-rate incentive program shows every Marine what their incentive will be without vague multiples and calculations, eliminates confusion and simplifies our tracking systems,” officials with Manpower and Reserve Affairs wrote in an e-mail response to questions.
Under the new flat-rate policy, all the numbers have been laid out. Sergeants or above re-enlisting for the first time in 10 military occupational specialties, such as intelligence, air-traffic control and aviation communication tech, will rate the Zone A high of $61,000. Corporals in Zone A from these 10 jobs, seven of which are offering their bonus to incoming lateral movers, max out at $52,500, and lance corporals get $45,500.
The maximum for Zone B, which covers six to 10 years of service, offered to eight specialties, including artillery electronics technician, Middle East cryptologist and imagery analyst, is set at $66,000 for staff sergeants and above and at $56,000 for sergeants and below.
Max payouts jump in Zone C for Marines with 10 to 14 years of service to $78,000 for gunnery sergeants and above in reconnaissance, EOD and ATC. Staff sergeants in that zone with these MOSs will rate $68,000, and sergeants get $61,000.
“We ask Marines to remember what they joined for,” manpower officials wrote. “We also remind Marines to not overlook the other major retention incentive — duty station incentives.”
Manpower officials said Marines should “not make a decision based on current operational tempo” because the Corps is progressing toward a dwell-time ratio that keeps them at home two months for every month they spend deployed.
Marines expecting to pick up rank soon may want to wait until then to make their re-enlistment official, because the SRB they rate will be based on “the Marine’s grade on the date of re-enlistment,” the message states.
Marines who want to claim the full cash incentive must re-enlist for 48 months, but bonuses are pro-rated based on the number of months shy of 48 the Marine decides to re-enlist. In simple math, this means the EOD master sergeant who rates $80,000 for a four-year re-enlistment can still pocket $40,000 if he wants to do only two more years, according to the message.
The policy allows Marines assigned to an operational unit to bolster their assigned re-enlistment bonus by $6,000 by agreeing to stay at their present command for another 12 months, though their total bonus still can’t exceed $80,000, according to the message.
The program isn’t just an attempt to keep Marines on active duty, it’s an attempt to lure Individual Ready Reserve Marines back to the active component by offering 80 percent of the bonus for those who have been gone less than one year and 60 percent to Marines who have been out of uniform as long as four years, according to the message. This is referred to as the Broken Service SRB.
The announcement of the bonus overhaul comes three weeks after Conway sent a letter to his generals saying that, based on the number of Marines the Corps was retaining, the effort wasn’t meeting his expectations.
Earlier this year, the goal for re-enlisting first-term Marines jumped from 6,096 in October to 8,298. The number of career Marines needed to re-enlist increased from 6,461 to 7,800. Altogether, that’s 3,541 more Marines that retention officials are on the hook to deliver than they anticipated in October. The near-term end-strength boost involves growing the force from 179,000 to 184,000 by October.
Retention officials have so far re-enlisted 87 percent of the first-term and 89 percent of the career Marines it needs to meet this goal.
After doing a midyear check on the retention numbers, Conway concluded that “if we keep going like this, we’re not going to make it,” a Marine official at the Pentagon said in May.
“To miss the mark during this fiscal year would most assuredly have a ripple effect on our ability to grow our force over the next five years, fund our operations and military construction, and retain the confidence of the American people,” Conway wrote in the letter to his generals, obtained by Marine Corps Times.
The Marine official said the Corps is counting on the money it has asked Congress to appropriate for 5,000 more Marines this fiscal year.
“We’ve told the Congress we’re going to grow by this many, so it’s kind of like writing a check you’ve got to cash,” the Marine official said. “We say we can deliver. If you don’t meet that, then your funding might be in jeopardy.”
Ellie