Army Times, 11 June 2001, page 8
Dueling pay plans
What the Defense Department wants isn’t what one congressman thinks you need
By Rick Maze
Times staff writerPentagon plans to spend $1 billion on targeted military pay raises in January have run into a major obstacle - Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.
In a May 30 interview, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld confirmed the Pentagon wants to use the $1 billion for pay pledged by President Bush to revise military pay scales, giving a raise to all service members and bigger raises to certain ranks.
Although Rumsfeld said no final decisions have been made, officials in the Pentagon and Congress said the services have agreed on a plan that would provide a minimum 5 percent raise for all ranks on Jan. 1, 2002, and pay increases of up to 9.6 percent for senior enlisted members, 8.5 percent for warrant officers and 6.5 percent for mid-grade officers.
But Murtha is pressing for an across-the-board 7.3 percent raise and calls targeted increases unfair to too many troops.
“Selectively targeting a pay raise isn’t fair to those in the military who are left out,” Murtha said in a May 24 letter to Army Times. “The entire military is suffering from a pay gap compared to the private sector, and all deserve a significant raise.”
The 7.3 percent raise proposed by Murtha is the amount calculated last fall when Bush first promised the $1 billion pay increase. While new calculations show that the $1 billion would amount to a 6.8 percent raise if applied equally to all ranks, Murtha continues to push for the larger increase because he believes anything less would leave troops feeling cheated.
The cost difference between a raise of 6.8 percent and 7.3 percent is about $200 million, according to congressional aides.
The Murtha dilemma
Murtha’s initiative is a problem for the Pentagon because he is not just any lawmaker, congressional aides said. A former Marine and now ranking Democrat on the House defense appropriations panel, he has considerable influence over military spending, which makes defense and service officials wary of angering him.
As a conservative Democrat with strong credentials on national security issues, his views also carry great weight with his House colleagues. And the Bush White House might need his support on a wide range of spending issues that will come before the House Appropriations Committee this year, making them reluctant to do battle.
“There will be a lot of people with him on the 7.3 percent raise,” said a House Armed Services Committee aide.
Meanwhile, repercussions are still being felt over last year’s unusual change to the military’s pay tables. At the Pentagon’s request, Congress approved an unusual July 1, 2000, revision that defense officials said was intended to boost the reward for promotion while decreasing the reward for longevity.
Those adjustments gave larger raises to officers than enlisted members, which sparked many complaints and led Congress to approve another mid-year adjustment in the pay scales this year. On July 1, E-5s, E-6s and E-7s will get basic-pay raises ordered by Congress.
Murtha, in his letter, says he does not necessarily oppose more revisions in military pay tables, but thinks that closing the pay gap for all service members is a higher priority.
“Once this is done, Congress and the administration should work on a top-to-bottom reform effort to modernize the entire military pay structure,” he said.
“Over the years, we have developed, in piecemeal fashion, a crazy quilt of special pays and bonuses to address a variety of short-term personnel shortfalls,” he said. “It is now so complicated that in some instances a promotion can result in a pay reduction. It is time to rationalize and modernize this system, not simply add another set of targeted bonuses on top.”
He said last year’s targeted raises are a perfect example of why pay-table reforms need more thought.
“Pay reform cannot be artificially constrained by pre-determined dollar figures,” he said. “Partial solutions that are hamstrung by arbitrary dollar ceilings create new, unintended problems that can end up hurting retention and morale. Witness the last pay reforms that did not treat career petty officers and noncommissioned officers equitably.”
Murtha said the gap between military and private-sector pay is dangerous for the long-term health of the all-volunteer military.
“Today it is generally recognized that military pay is 10 to 11 percent behind the pay rates for equivalent workers in the private sector,” he said. “This pay gap varies between the different military pay grades, but no grade is close to parity with the private sector.”
White House uncommitted
While Murtha and the Defense Department square off, the Bush White House has committed only to a 4.6 percent basic-pay raise for January while waiting on the Pentagon to submit a formal proposal for spending the extra $1 billion.
White House budget analysts continue to recommend spending it on bonuses and special pays instead of bigger basic-pay raises because that would reduce the military’s long-range costs, since bonuses and special pays don’t factor into retired pay.
But internal briefing papers on the pay debate, obtained from Pentagon and congressional sources, show that two services - the Navy and Marine Corps - appear to back Murtha in favoring across-the-board raises for everyone.
The Air Force wanted minimum raises of 6 percent for all ranks, with E-5s through O-4s getting slightly more. The Army, which has no senior enlisted retention problems, pushed to give bigger raises to warrant officers and O-3s.
The services also drew up an alternative that would provide 6 percent pay raises for all ranks, leaving $360 million of the $1 billion for bonuses and other retention incentives. But even that might be unacceptable to White House budget officials.
Along with cutting the Pentagon’s long-range costs, briefing papers indicate that another reason the White House Office of Management and Budget dislikes larger across-the-board military raises is the effect that might have on pay hikes for federal civilians.
President Bush’s proposal to give federal civilians a 3.6 percent raise instead of the 4.6 percent proposed for the military has already drawn complaints from some lawmakers, and those are likely to multiply if the military gets an even larger pay raise.
Rumsfeld said in the interview with Air Force Times editors that he thinks troops are generally underpaid compared to the private sector, but is not fixed on any one pay plan. He is waiting for advice from David S.C. Chu, the newly confirmed undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, who is expected to review the pay options. Rumsfeld gave no clear timetable for a decision.
Still, he said, “There is no question but that a pay raise is in the offing.”
The military has to pay good salaries today to remain competitive with the private sector, Rumsfeld said.
“We simply must pay the market rate. We have to be able to attract and retain the people we need,” he said.
Copyright, ATPCO, 2001
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