Plan would boost BAH for E-8s - Military Housing, rentals, home buying, real estate, VA home loans - Navy Times

Plan would boost BAH for E-8s

The House of Representatives has approved a modest first step toward improving off-base living conditions for enlisted members by ordering housing allowances for E-8s to be based on the rental costs of single-family homes rather than townhouses.

The change, part of the House version of the 2009 defense authorization bill approved May 22, would not take effect until June 30, 2009. The delayed effective date would cut costs for a benefit that would apply to Army and Marine Corps master sergeants and first sergeants, Navy and Coast Guard senior chief petty officers, and Air Force senior master sergeants and first sergeants who have dependents and live off-base.

About 30,000 people would benefit, receiving an average of $130 a month more in basic allowance for housing than they do under the current standard, which bases their payment on the rental costs for a three-bedroom townhouse, according to a May 20 cost estimate prepared by the Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan arm of Congress responsible for putting price tags on pending legislation.

The five-year cost is a modest $202 million over five years, out of an overall personnel budget of about $124 billion a year, according to the CBO.

Because there is no similar provision in the Senate version of the defense bill, the fate of the change is likely to be determined by future negotiations to iron out differences in the two versions. The Pentagon has not offered an opinion on the House provision, though defense personnel officials have been talking since 2006 about the need to revise housing standards.

“This is a strong step in the right direction,” said Joseph Barnes, national executive secretary of the Fleet Reserve Association, which represents active and reserve members of the sea services.

“We have been calling for years to change the housing standards because they just don’t match the expectations for living conditions of career service members and their families,” he said.

Barnes, who is also co-chairman of the Military Coalition, a group of more than 30 military-related associations sharing a common legislative agenda, said he thinks many career service members are unaware that their housing allowances are based on the assumption that they will live in townhouses or apartments, and end up feeling cheated when they rent a house and their monthly payment does not cover the cost.

“I do not think there is a lot of awareness of the standards, and that there are a significant percentage of enlisted members living in single-family homes who are not being paid enough to be there,” Barnes said.

Current housing standards for enlisted members with families, in place for a decade, assume two-bedroom apartments for E-4s and below, two-bedroom townhouses for E-5s and three-bedroom townhouses for E-6s through E-8s. Of the enlisted ranks, only E-9s have their basic allowance set to cover the cost of a single-family home — a three-bedroom home under the standard.

The House bill, HR 5658, would change this standard by setting the housing allowance for E-8s to also cover the average cost of renting a three-bedroom single-family home in the location where the member is assigned.

The rest of the housing standards would not change.

Current standards for enlisted members without dependents assume a one-bedroom apartment for E-5s and below, a two-bedroom apartment for E-6s and E-7s, and two-bedroom townhouses for E-8s and E-9s.

Officers are assumed to live better under the Defense Department standards.

For officers with families, the standard calls for two-bedroom townhouses for O-1s and O-2s, and three-bedroom townhouses for W-1s, W-3s, O-1s, O-2s and O-3s with prior enlisted service. More senior officers rate single-family homes as their standard: three-bedroom homes for W-3s and W-4s, O-4s and O-3s, and four-bedroom homes for O-5s and above.

For officers without families, the standard calls for two-bedroom apartments for O-1s, O-2s and W-1s; two-bedroom townhouses for O-3s, W-2s and W-3s; three-bedroom townhouses for O-4s, O-5s, W-4s and W-5s; and three-bedroom single-family homes for O-6s and above.

DISCUSS: BAH changes