THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 7, 1995 TAG: 9502070314
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
The Pentagon's 1996 budget plan ``puts people first,'' Defense Secretary William Perry proclaimed Monday, with a pay raise that is the maximum allowed by law and healthy investments in ``quality of life'' improvements for service members.
But if you're in uniform, don't make any big plans for your new wealth.
It's not that you won't get the money - military pay increases are as popular among Congress' new Republican leaders as they are with the Clinton administration.
It's just that the legal maximum, a figure tied to pay increases in the private sector, is 2.4 percent for 1996.
With more than 1.4 million people in uniform, the Pentagon will spend just more than $1 billion for the increase. But that translates to only $19 per month for each seaman recruit, $104 monthly for a lieutenant colonel with 16 years service and $231 monthly for the highest-paid generals and admirals.
The raise is ``better than the Pentagon has done in recent years,'' said Rep. Owen B. Pickett, a Virginia Beach Democrat who is his party's senior member on the House subcommittee dealing with military pay issues. Last year, the administration sought only a 1.6 percent pay increase for service members; Pickett's subcommittee helped raise that to 2.6 percent.
Either way, the raise won't be enough to close the gap between military pay and the wages military people could earn for comparable jobs in the civilian world. Depending on who is doing the estimating, the differential is 9 percent to 12 percent, Pickett said. ``And it does not seem to be closing.''
Perry said that concerns about the gap prompted the Clinton administration to consider proposing a change in the pay raise ceiling so that it could budget for a healthier increase in 1996.
But the Pentagon is about to do a once-every-four-years review of the differential between military and civilian pay and decided to wait for its analysis before making recommendations. Perry suggested that Clinton might seek an extra military pay adjustment next year if the review indicates that it's warranted.
Current law caps annual military pay increases at one-half of one percentage point less than the annual ``employment cost index,'' a formula that tracks civilian pay increases for comparable jobs. The index often is close to the more familiar consumer price index, which tracks the rate of inflation.
The half-point ``saved'' is supposed to be applied to pay adjustments for federal civilian workers in localities with a high cost of living, said Steven Kosiak, a senior analyst for the Defense Budget Project. Unlike military members, those workers do not get a monthly subsidy to help cover their housing costs.
``The whole thing is a little messy'' because of a debate about the usefulness of the cost index, said Kosiak, whose nonpartisan group monitors defense spending. The index is suspect in part because of a 15-month delay between the civilian pay levels it measures and the implementation of military pay increases.
Though such a small raise might seem stingy to those on the receiving end, Kosiak suggested there's little evidence that similarly small increases in recent years have hurt the military's efforts to attract or keep quality people. ILLUSTRATION: Perry: Extra pay adjustment could occur next year.
MILITARY MONEY
Graphic
[For a copy of the graphic, see microfilm for this date.]
KEYWORDS: DEFENSE SPENDING BUDGET MILITARY SPENDING MILITARY PAY by CNB