Military people next January would get a 3.5 percent pay raise, under a compensation package approved last week by the House armed services' subcommittee on military personnel.

In shaping the personnel section of the fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill, the subcommittee approved other initiatives, too, to please healthcare beneficiaries, surviving spouses and some disabled retirees forced from service short of 20 years by combat-related injuries.

Here are details of what the House panel unanimously approved:

The proposed 3.5 percent raise for next year would be the ninth straight set at least a half percentage point above private sector wage growth as tracked by the government's Employment Cost Index (ECI).

The Bush administration wanted to end the string of ECI-plus-a-half-percent raises with a 3 percent hike in 2008 to match average private sector raises. But breaking the pattern will be difficult politically during wartime.

Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Ark.), chairman of the personnel subcommittee, said the 3.5 percent raise continues to narrow a pay gap between the military and private sector, which stood at 13.5 percent in 1999. It now is 3.9 percent and would drop to 3.4 percent with the revised '08 raise.

Once again, the subcommittee has voted to block the administration's plan for sharp increases in TRICARE enrollment fees, deductibles and pharmacy co-payments. For fiscal 2008, Defense officials didn't propose a new TRICARE fee-raising plan, as they had last year. But Snyder said they left a $2 billion "projected savings" hole in the TRICARE budget in anticipation that the department's Task Force on the Future of Military Healthcare will send interim recommendations to Congress this month in time to be reviewed, approved and included in the 2008 budget.

Eligibility for Combat-Related Special Compensation would be expanded for the first time to benefit a limited number of Chapter 61 retirees forced by disabilities to leave service short of 20 years. The subcommittee provision would limit CRSC eligibility to those Chapter 61 retirees who served at least 15 years, were forced from service by combat-related injuries and have disability ratings of 60 percent or higher. The special CRSC payments would begin Oct. 1, 2008. Disabled retirees would have to apply for the benefit.

Surviving spouses unable to draw full survivor benefits because of the so-called SBP-DIC offset would begin to receive a new survivor indemnity allowance valued at up to $40 a month.

It is touted as a first step toward eliminating the offset for 61,000 surviving spouses who see their Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) reduced, dollar for dollar, by amounts they receive in Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The allowance would begin Oct. 1, 2008.

To comment, e-mail milupdate@aol.com, write to Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, Va., 20120-1111 or visit: www.militaryupdate.com.