Army Times
Published: 1/8/2001
Category: Newslines Careers
Page: 14

Enlisted soldiers could see big pay changes
Matching education with compensation, warrant officer expansion factors in study

By Vince Crawley

Senior Pentagon officials are close to completing a study that will suggest drastic changes in pay and compensation for career enlisted people.

Details of the changes were still being discussed in late December. But officials say the issues include matching pay to the higher education leves of today's enlisted force, as well as expanding warrant officer ranks to create more opportunities for those with high-tech skills.

"Sure, we will still have the historic break between enlisted and officers for the foreseeable future," Bernark Rostker, the Pentagon's personnel chief, told defense reporters in late December. "But we're going to have to come to grips with paying the enlisted force commensurate with their education and opportunities."

The findings of the ninth Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation will likely be made public shortly before the Bush administration takes office, Rostker said.

The study "will illuminate these problems" and offer suggestions for the incoming administration, Rostker said.

The study has been scheduled for completion by the end of the year, but officials have been struggling to eliminate old pay problems without creating new ones.

Such changes must be done "very carefully," said Alphonso Maldon, the Pentagon's force-management policy chief. "Otherwise you get into pay-inversion, pay-compression problems."

In pay inversion, some subordinates are paid more than their leaders. In pay compression, subordinates earn nearly as much as their superiors.

"This has to be done in a very thoughtful way to make sure we avoid these kinds of Pitfalls," Maldon said.

Pay compression has been a particular concern of warrant officers in the past year, as Congress and the Pentagon focused on improving the pay of noncommissioned officers and petty officers.

The eight QRMC in 1966 led to reforms in the basic pay table so that promotion was rewarded more than length of service.

In July, an improved pay table was introduced, offering targeted pay raises to junior NCOs and midcareer officers. But, while some career officers received increases of more than $200 a month, their career enlisted counterparts saw pay hikes of just a few dollars a month.

Addressing concerns by the senior enlisted ranks, Congress has authorized targeted raises of $32 a month for E-5s, $51 a month for E-6s and $58 a month for E-7s. Those raises take effect July 1 unless the Pentagon submits an alternate enlisted pay plan that meets the approval of Congress.

Fundamental changes in labor

Although the QRMC pay proposals will be made public after the new administration takes office, Rostker said enlisted pay checks should be kept separate from Washington political battles. "This is not a Republican or a Democratic issue, " Rostker said. "We are talking about fundamental changes in our labor force."

In most cases, the military has made education a requirement for climbing through the enlisted ranks.

"It is very hard to advance if you don't have a least some college," Rostker said. "These are superb individuals who provide great leadership, and we have to learn how to compensate them in other ways than if they were just high school graduates."

Rostker said he is particularly interested in creating more promotion opportunities among the warrant officer ranks. Warrant officers are typically specialists, such as helicopter pilots or advanced mechanics, whose expertise is highly valued and difficult to duplicate.

Opening warrant officer ranks to more high-tech specialists would help bolster the skills needed to run the modern military, Rostker said. The digitized forces of the future will require an ever-growing number of sophisticated computer-network administrators.

"Today we train them and they leave us at $30,000" a year in pay, he said. "Then they show up the next day working for the contractor at $60,000."

The military can keep more of these people in uniform if it continues to improve living and housing standards, as well as pay and career-advancement opportunities, Rostker said.

End

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