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- The Department of Defense has asked Congress to roll
back on Jan. 1 increases in Family Separation Allowance (FSA) and Imminent
Danger Pay (IDP) enacted last April for deployed forces and, instead, to
raise Hardship Duty Pay (HDP) only for military personnel serving in Iraq
and Afghanistan. If Congress agrees, FSA for tens of thousands of personnel
would fall in January, from $250 a month down to $100, and IDP would drop
from $225 a month down to $150. So, depending on individual circumstance,
the pay cut could range from $75 to $225 a month. Among deployed forces,
only troops in Afghanistan and Iraq would be spared an actual pay cut.
Indeed, many in those theaters could see a pay gain. Their HDP would be
raised Jan. 1 by at least $225 a month, an amount to match any combined
drop in FSA and IDP. HDP, in fact, could be raised as much as $300.
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- The uncertainty, as of Oct. 1, reflected the fact that
Defense officials still weren't prepared to discuss their plan to roll
back FSA and IDP increases, and to raise HDP, even though broad details
were revealed during a Sept. 25 hearing of Senate Appropriations Committee.
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) criticized panel witnesses, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld and his comptroller, Dov Zakheim, for making "a serious
mistake" with their plan to return FSA and IDP to pre-April levels.
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- "How in the world do we justify activating all these
Guard and Reserve [forces], removing them from their families and saying,
'If you don't happen to be assigned to Iraq or Afghanistan, we're going
to revert back to $100 a month in Family Separation Allowance?',"
Durbin asked Rumsfeld. The move, said the senator, doesn't square with
recent rhetoric.
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- "We can give all the speeches we want about our
respect for men and women in uniform but I find it unconscionable that
we are going to say to so many thousands who have been activated that they
are not going to receive an increase in Family Separation Allowance [because]
it will be eliminated. How can that help morale? How can that say that,
beyond those speeches, we really do care about these men and women?,"
said Durbin.
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- Zakheim, who appeared with Rumsfeld to defend an $87
billion spending request for 2004 for Iraq and Afghanistan, acknowledged
the plan to shift special pay levels. He argued, however, that raising
Hardship Duty Pay would be fairer for troops in the two theaters because
last April's FSA increase went only to all members with families while
HDP is paid to all members in the two hostile areas.
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- "So that removes an inequity," Zakheim said.
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- "I disagree completely," said Durbin. "The
inequity is that somebody has to leave a family behind .... and the impact
of increasing the hardship pay only in two theaters means an activated
Guardsman out of Illinois who is sent to some other place -- so that an
active soldier can go to Iraq or Afghanistan -- now is not going to get
higher separation allowance."
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- Rumsfeld offered his own defense of the special pay rollback.
It was his understanding, he said, that the $87 billion request before
the committee, under arrangement between the administration and Congress,
"would be restricted to Iraq [and] we've conformed to the requirements."
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- But Durbin warned that reductions in FSA and IDP were
untimely and wrong. "You're going to hear about it," he told
Rumsfeld. "And you should."
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- It was unclear whether the warning had an impact and
might be why Defense officials declined a week later to discuss their plan
in more detail.
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- Congress raised FSA and IDP to show appreciation for
troops involved in the war on terrorism. Defense officials opposed the
move as inefficient, going to many more thousands of personnel than those
in Iraq and Afghanistan. David Chu, the department's top personnel official,
likened the April raises "to using a sledgehammer to hit a small nail."
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- Congress made the FSA and IDP increases retroactive to
October 2002. They were to expire Sept. 30 but passage of the fiscal 2004
defense appropriations bill that day, with $128 million to continue higher
FSA and IDP through December, appeared to prevent a temporary drop in payments.
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- One reason to delay the drop until January, the administration
reasoned, is to mask the overall impact on troop paychecks by timing the
cuts to coincide with annual raises in basic pay and allowances. But a
quick look at military pay tables suggests most enlisted member pay and
allowances won't climb by enough on Jan. 1 to avoid an overall pay cut
for those who would see FSA and IDP fall by a combined $225 a month.
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- Though House-Senate appropriators supported the plan
in the 2004 defense spending bill, a House-Senate conference on a defense
authorization bill continued negotiations that still could alter plans
for FSA and IDP. The Senate version of the authorization bill would make
last April's increases permanent. The House version would narrow eligibility
to personnel involved in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring
Freedom, in Afghanistan.
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- Defense officials were "emphasizing the warrior,"
said a source involved in the conference and "making a strong case"
that the way to raise wartime pay is higher HDP, and only for those serving
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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- As of July, 173,000 service members drew FSA, including
sailors and Marines on routine sea deployments, if away from spouses and
children more than 30 days. About 217,000 drew IDP, payable in any of scores
of designated danger areas worldwide.
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