Study suggests raising partial BAH - Military Housing, rentals, home buying, real estate, VA home loans - Navy Times

Study suggests raising partial BAH

About 65,000 single junior enlisted members live in housing that is below Defense Department standards — and they should be paid extra for that hardship, military pay experts say.

Single junior enlisted members generally must live on ships or in barracks or dorms, but the quality of those quarters varies greatly — from the military’s standard “1+1” arrangement, with personal bedrooms and shared bathrooms and kitchens, to claustrophobic shipboard bunks with a sink and toilet down the passageway.

Something called the “partial” Basic Allowance for Housing is supposed to compensate all single troops for the difference between the “in-kind” value of their government quarters and the housing they would be able to rent if they lived off base and drew full BAH.

But a major new Pentagon-sponsored study notes that partial BAH rates have not changed since 1977 — and have been eroded so badly by inflation over the past three decades that the payment is virtually meaningless.

On average, partial BAH now is valued at 1 percent of the differential it was created to cover, the final report of the 10th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation states.

Partial BAH varies by rank, from $50.70 per month for flag officers to $6.90 per month for E-1s — enough for maybe a couple of bars of soap and a tube of toothpaste.

The 10th QRMC says single junior members in paygrades E-1 to E-4 in government quarters that are below the 1+1 standard deserve more — a lot more.

The study calls for an “additional partial BAH” for the estimated 65,000 single junior members living in substandard government quarters that, at the high end, could total more than $200 per month.

“While the quality of housing for most single members has improved, others, especially those aboard ships, have not benefited from significantly improved quarters,” the study says. “In short, single members living in government quarters have not received the same increased compensation” as their peers living off base.

“Moreover, despite the fact that some shared housing situations are better than others, the partial BAH rate does not vary based on the type, or adequacy, of housing,” it says — so E-2s whose living space is a bunk aboard ship get the same partial BAH payment as E-2s who have their own bedroom and shared kitchen and bath.

Under the QRMC proposal, monthly increases in additional partial BAH would range from 5 percent to 25 percent of the average without-dependents BAH rate for each paygrade, with the exact percentage based on the adequacy of a member’s quarters.

Those living in 1+1 on-base apartments that meet the Defense Department standard would not be paid extra. Those in single rooms without a kitchen or private bath would receive a 5 percent additional partial BAH. The highest rates, ranging from 15 percent to 25 percent, would go to permanent-party personnel aboard ships.

“Our recommendation ... [tries] to recognize all those differences in quality,” said retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Denny Eakle, executive director of the 10th QRMC.

The group said personnel living in 1+1 quarters enjoy a quality of life comparable to what they could rent off base.

“That really is very much like a two-bedroom apartment,” Eakle said. “Those people are doing OK. They’ve got more housing than their BAH could buy.”

But those living in “the most inadequate conditions” — aboard ship, according to the QRMC — have “less housing than their BAH could buy,” Eakle said. “And we ... should give them back something in recognition of the fact that they are essentially paying a high rental for their single housing.”

The range of rates for shipboard quarters cited by the QRMC study stemmed from proposals from a sea-service working group.

“The sea services genuinely believed that there is a quality-of-life difference between being on a carrier and being in a submarine, a fast-attack boat,” Eakle said.

Currently, about 348,800 single members live in government quarters and draw partial BAH.

The estimated costs of paying an additional partial BAH to the 65,000 junior enlisted members living in substandard quarters under the QRMC plan would be a relatively modest $80 million in fiscal 2009, the study estimates.

The study said those costs would serve as incentive for the services to move more quickly to improve government quarters for junior enlisted members, since partial BAH costs would decline as more troops are assigned to quarters that meet the 1+1 standard.