MILITARY UPDATE
Resolution may allow concurrent receipt
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.
By Tom Philpott
Congress may be ready to put real money behind its rhetoric on "concurrent receipt" — enough to allow career military retirees with serious disabilities to receive both full retired pay and VA disability compensation for service-connected injuries or illnesses by the year 2007.
The House Budget Committee's resolution, approved in mid-March, would raise the ceiling on defense spending by $5.8 billion over five years, allowing phase-in of full retired pay to retirees with disability ratings of 60 percent or higher. If enacted, the law would mean a significant income boost for 60,000 career retirees who now see retired pay reduced by tax-free disability compensation from the VA.
The final formula for concurrent receipt would be left to the House Armed Services Committee, said a budget committee staffer. But there's logic behind the 60 percent-or-higher scheme.
In the last several years Congress approved and upgraded a special disability payment for career retirees with disability ratings of 60 percent or higher. Payments range from $50 a month for 60 percent disabled to $300 for 100 percent disabled.
The House budget plan would replace that with a gradual increase in the amount of retired pay the seriously disabled could keep, starting in 2003.
To qualify for the special payment, retirees must have been awarded their high disability rating within four years of retirement. But under the proposed changes, any career retiree with a qualifying rating, regardless of when awarded, would begin receiving retired pay gains in 2003 along with VA compensation.
Under the House plan, the ban on concurrent receipt would remain for roughly 440,000 career retirees with disability ratings below 60 percent. But the Armed Services Committee could come up with a different plan.
"This ($5.8 billion over five years) is about the maximum (cost) we can accommodate," said a budget committee staff member.
To pay for it, Congress would have to raise defense spending and the nation's budget deficit. No cuts from other defense or domestic programs would be needed.
Pressure also is mounting in the Senate to act. Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. John Warner, R-Va., its ranking Republican, sent separate letters to their budget committee in early March urging extra money to lift the ban on concurrent receipt.
Warner put the cost at $23.7 billion over five years to remove all retired pay offsets for all 500,000 retirees with disabilities. That money should be added to the defense budget's top line, he said, rather than culled from other programs.
Commissary cuts
Lawmakers and service associations are warning that major staff reductions under way at military grocery stores could drive down service and drive out patrons.
At a March 12 hearing of the House Special Oversight Panel for Morale, Welfare and Recreation (MWR), Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., chairman, said the Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) is under pressure to cut costs and reduce the $1.1 billion taxpayer subsidy. Staffing is to be reduced by 7 percent.
Some customers already are reporting declines in service, said Joseph L. Barnes, director of legislative programs for the Fleet Reserve Association, testifying for The Military Coalition group of service associations.
At the hearing to examine a range of military store and MWR issues, commissaries grabbed the spotlight. DeCA's goal, Barnes said, is to eliminate 2,600 positions across the 280 stores over several years. But that raises fears of reduced store hours, longer lines and fewer products, Barnes said.
Air Force Maj. Gen. Robert J. Courter, Jr., director of DeCA, said customer savings are now 30 percent above off-base grocers and patron satisfaction has never been higher. That won't be affected by the staff cuts, he said.
After the hearing, Rep. Robert Andrews, D-N.J., said staff cuts could be a back-door way to lower patron satisfaction and ease into privatization.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wants that concept tested. The MWR panel opposes it, saying it will endanger the commissary benefit.
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