Military reserve pay cut?

[mangeorge]

Has the Air Force Reserve’s drill pay been cut? My friend and co-worker told me that he was told to come for one day of weekend drill instead of the normal two because of Obama’s defunding.
I found some info about an internal reccommendation to the military to that, but nothing about any action on that.
So, was this cut due to Obama or was it something else. Most of my friend’s political information appears to come from a conservative morning talk show on radio.
Peace,
mangeorge
BTW; he drills at Travis AFB.

[DrDeth]

No, no cuts. But indeed, there was a committee set up of 50/50 Dems/GOP that was supposed to come up with a budget plan, and if they didn’t budget cuts for military were part of what could occur.

But they haven’t yet. When it does, there does not appear to be any pay cuts involved. And, the fault will be equal.

Pretty much when you hear “This is Obama’s fault”- it ain’t. Since the GoP controls the House, which controls spending, any budget issues cant be laid 100% on the Presidents lap.

[Ravenman]

I don’t believe anything has happened yet, but there is discussion about the fairness of reservists’ drill pay as compared to active duty pay: link.

One big change would involve simplifying pay so that reservists on duty get the same regular military base pay that active-duty troops receive, regardless of the type of duty they perform — weekend drills, annual training or full mobilization.

In practice, that would reduce the pay for many reservists, who under current rules earn a higher daily rate of pay for weekend drills than for deploying to a combat zone. The QRMC recommends offsetting that with targeted career incentive pays as needed in order to maintain strong recruiting and retention.

The proposed change seems to be linked to other forms of compensation: Link.

The QRMC acknowledges the new system would require added payments to offset a loss of compensation for drilling reservists. That would likely involve one or more incentive pays, such as a fixed annual amount paid to all reserve troops, an additional percentage added to annual pay, or a targeted special pay offered only to troops with eight to 15 years of service, for example.

The cuts in drill pay would be partly offset by other proposed changes, such as increased housing and food allowances and a travel stipend for weekend drills, said Tom Bush, QRMC director.

Those who are opposed to the change argue this:

Most reserve troops have full-time jobs during the week, so weekend drills amount to overtime. Moreover, reservists do not have the same health care benefits and support that active-duty troops do. And they have to do physical training on their own.

ETA: the debate on this topic is not the same as the debate on the overall budget that DrDeth mentioned. That’s a separate issue that does not relate to the policy of how reservists are compensated.

[mangeorge]

Interesting.
Bui I still can’t see why they would (or could) cut one day of a two day drill. Can, I wonder, a local command do that to meet a budget?
I’ll talk to him tomorrow for more details. Maybe he miss-heard his boss.

[pilot141]

Yes, a local command can do that.

The federal government’s fiscal year ends 30 Sep. Units tend to micro-manage the budget the last few weeks of the FY. This means spending every dollar allocated to them in every pot of money, but also not overspending.

Your friend’s unit at Travis may have figured out that they used up more UTA (mandatory drill) dollars than they thought, and only have enough left for everyone to do a single day this month.

Any cuts will be in the next fiscal year (starting 1 Oct). The sequestration cuts required as part of the budget deal will hit some units really hard. But again, not until 1 Oct.

As far as pay cuts - there are no actual cuts to “pay”. But if a unit sees a huge cut in the number of man-days that they are allocated, each reserve member will be forced to do fewer days of work. This will result in less overall pay for the year (just as your friend is seeing by doing only one UTA day instead of two). The rate of pay for the day is the same, just fewer days of work available.

[spifflog]

And I would say no the local Commanding Officer cannot control that.

In the Navy (not the same thing I know) drill pay is centrally managed in Norfolk for all reservists around the world. And drill pay is a title X entitlement, so we would have to take action elsewhere in the budget to make funding available for drill pay. We cannot make a local policy telling Reservists that they can only drill half of the time. From some discussion I’ve had with the other Service’s Reserve Component, I think they run their personnel budgets in a similar fashion.

And clearly the President does not get involved in these lower level budget discussions at all, nor should he.

And Congress recently sent a memo to DOD stating that military personnel appropriations would be exempt from sequestration, so that should not effect next year.