Military Update
Bigger raise urged for middle, senior enlisted grades
By Tom Philpott
Military Update focuses on issues affecting pay, benefits and lifestyle of active and retired servicepeople. Its author, Tom Philpott, is a Virginia-based syndicated columnist and freelance writer. He has covered military issues for almost 25 years, including six years as editor of Navy Times. For 17 years he worked as a writer and senior editor for Army Times Publishing Co. Philpott, 49, enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard in 1973 and served as an information officer from 1974-77.
The services have agreed to recommend to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that a proposed January 2002 military pay raise to be unveiled next month should be "targeted" so bigger increases go to mid- and senior-enlisted grades.
If Rumsfeld and, ultimately, President Bush and Congress agree, all service members would get a "base" raise of at least 4.6 percent Jan. 1, 2002, service sources said. That would be a half percentage point higher than recent wage growth in the private sector.
The extra $1 billion in military pay that Bush promised to deliver during the presidential campaign would be used to close a widening pay gap between enlisted careerists and comparably educated private sector workers.
A Pentagon study group, the Ninth Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation, concluded last fall that basic pay of mid- and senior-enlisted grades has fallen behind civilian peers. That's because pay adjustments over the past decade failed to take into account rising education levels in the ranks.
Current pay scales still assume that most enlisted only completed high school. The review confirmed that, in fact, most seasoned enlisted have some college and many have degrees.
An extra $1 billion in 2002 won't close the pay gap. But the services want to begin to narrow it.
The sizes of raises, by grade, have not been decided, service sources said. But all the services now agree the extra $1 billion shouldn't be applied equally across all grades and ranks.
Mid-grade enlisted already are slated to get a one-time special basic pay increase this July, the result of congressional action last year. The aim is to "rebalance"' pay of mid-grade enlisted compared with junior ranks to raise the incentive of advancement. The Fleet Reserve Association had pushed for the mid-grade raises.
Concurrent receipt
House and Senate Budget Committee negotiators will meet behind closed doors the week of April 23 to pound out a compromise on the 2002 budget resolution that could affect 237,000 career military retirees who have service-connected disabilities.
Since 1891, federal law has prohibited "concurrent receipt" of both disability compensation and military retired pay. Retired pay for those who served full careers must be offset, dollar-for-dollar, by any tax-free compensation received for their disabilities.
Last year the Senate amended the 2001 defense authorization bill to include a proposal to lift the ban on concurrent receipt. It was defeated in conference with the House.
On April 5, Reid offered his amendment again. Again, Reid's proposal was approved by voice vote but this bill actually would put money aside — $40 billion over 10 years — to lift the ban on concurrent receipt.
The hitch in the Reid amendment, and it's a big one, is a provision that makes it meaningless if Congress can't finance it without dipping into the Medicare trust fund.
