Force-retirement tools may appeal to every service

Force-retirement tools may appeal to every service
By Tom Philpott

The Defense Department has asked Congress to resurrect separation incentives and forced-retirement authorities from the post-Cold War drawdown era to be used more sparingly today as force-shaping tools.

The tools sought include:

• A lump sum buyout bonus, perhaps set at $25,000, to entice enlisted members in over-populated or low-demand job specialties to leave service short retirement eligibility at 20 years.


• A voluntary separation annuity to be offered as an alternative to a cash buyout, again to entice careerists in overfilled specialties to leave service before they qualify for retirement.


• New, high-year tenure gates for officers. Like those used to regulate advancement flow for enlisted forces, new gates for retirement-eligible officers would be used to thin out certain low-demand career fields.


• Involuntary Selective Early Retirement Board (SERB) authority. This last resort tool would be used to retire officers involuntarily…

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Though acknowledging SERBs are unpopular, Charles S. Abell, principal deputy undersecretary of Defense for personnel and readiness, said that to make carrots more appealing you have to have a stick.

The Navy and Air Force, the only two services now executing force cuts, likely would be the first to use the new authorities, said Charles S. Abell, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness. But the Army and Marine Corps might use them, too, as they build a different type of force than now fielded. A whimsical example Abell used is if the Army finds it no longer needs analog trash truck drivers.

The Navy, which will cut 25,000 sailor billets by 2007, and the Air Force, which plans to trim 2,300 airmen next year, are more likely to want these force-shaping tools, Abell said, so they don’t have to throw out the good and the bad together. That’s really what this is about: appropriate management of human capital.

Abell commented during a break in testimony March 16 before the House subcommittee on military personnel, where the main topic was the difficult recruiting environment faced by U.S. ground forces and most reserve components as a result of the war in Iraq and an improving U.S. job market.

It may seem counterintuitive that we would ask for these authorities at the same time we’re struggling to recruit and retain, Abell told the panel. But these are for force shaping. It is not about getting rid of folks. It’s about keeping the right folks and right skill and experience mix.

During the post-Cold War drawdown, which began in earnest in 1992 following the Persian Gulf War, the services enticed many careerists to leave with offers of either an annuity, the Voluntary Separation Incentive, or a lump-sum bonus, the Special Separation Benefit. VSI was set at 2.5 percent of a member’s final basic pay multiplied by years served. SSB was 15 percent of a member’s annual basic pay times years served. Abell said the first two new authorities would be very similar though they not yet named. The Army, which needed to separate 245,000 soldiers starting in 1992, offered the incentives not only to overfilled job specialties but to marginal performers. It also had tightened high-year tenure or up-or-out rules so that, for example, soldiers who failed to attain E-5 pay grade by eight years of service, rather than 13 years, were forced out.

Today to shape the force properly, Abell said, We’d like to be able to say to some officers, Look, we know as a lieutenant colonel you can stay until 26 or 28 years but we’re going to establish a high-year tenure that says if you are in this specialty you can’t stay that long. It’s time to go.’ It doesn’t take anything away but it allows us to then continue flowing guys who are in the types of skills that we do need.

Another involuntary separation tool to be revised is the Selective Early Retirement Board, used to review performance of officers from certain year groups and specialties, identify the least capable, and retire them.

Uniformed leaders view SERBs as breaking faith with career officers, said Abell. But they are distasteful enough to spur more voluntarily retirements by officers who don’t want to risk their names going to a board.

If you have high-year tenure you probably never need a SERB, he said. But when you have those authorities out there, people make voluntary choices The carrot is sweeter when they know there’s a stick.

Defense officials rejected a Navy request to seek a fifth tool authority to offer retirement-eligible sailors a buy out of, say, an additional $5,000 if they retire immediately.

What to do with IUs

In other news, Abell said DOD lawyers have not reached a final decision on whether 28,000 retirees with VA disability ratings of IU individuals deemed unemployable will see their military retired pay fully restored back to Jan. 1 under an accelerated concurrent receipt provision in the 2005 defense authorization bill.

We’re going to sort it out, Abell said. He declined to guess when, with lawyers involved.

Enrollment fee reversal

A Bush administration initiative to charge nondisabled, nonpoor veterans an annual enrollment fee of $250 to use Department of Veterans Affairs health care appears to be dead in the Senate.

After embracing the idea two weeks ago, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, said he now supports an amendment to kill the enrollment fee sponsored by fellow Republican Sens. John Ensign of Nevada, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and David Vitter of Louisiana.

I don’t think he found the enrollment fee unreasonable, said Craig spokesman Jeff Schrade. But you do what you can to help veterans.