Personnel chiefs warn against cuts to bonuses - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Personnel chiefs warn against cuts to bonuses

Despite meeting all recruiting and retention goals, the service personnel chiefs pleaded with a House panel Wednesday to keep paying enlistment and selective re-enlistment bonuses.

Clifford Stanley, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, said military pay and benefits generally are competitive with the private sector, and that large across-the-board increases are not wanted or needed.

“The state of military compensation is healthy,” Stanley told the House Armed Serfices Committee’s military personnel panel. “For the first time, we truly have the ability to target pay with pinpoint accuracy to achieve desired aims and maximize effects of dollars spent.”

Service officials said they may be recruiting and keeping enough people to meet numerical goals — and they noted that they are reducing bonus budgets — but they worry about Congress cutting too deeply.

The Air Force, for example, wants $645 million for bonuses in fiscal 2011, said Lt. Gen. Richard Newton, that service’s deputy chief of staff for manpower and personnel.

“These pays are critical as we shape the force to meet new and emerging missions and support the combatant commanders in today’s fight,” Newton said.

Lt. Gen. Richard Zilmer, the deputy Marine Corps commandant for manpower and reserve affairs, said the Corps also is cutting bonuses but continues to expect to need significant entry bonuses to meet goals for recruits in some critically needed skills.

The Army budget for recruiting and retention was $4.9 billion in fiscal 2009 and was reduced to $4.4 billion this year. For 2011, the Army wants $4.6 billion, an amount that reflects the cost of anniversary payments for bonuses already signed, said Lt. Gen. Thomas Bostick, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for personnel.