washington scene
Facts Are Hard to Find
Pentagon must reveal data.
In early November 2013, the service chiefs, one after another, outlined to members of the House Armed Services Committee that rising personnel costs are unsustainable and now consume nearly half the DoD budget.
This might sound alarming, especially in light of the Pentagon stating in April 2013 military personnel costs consumed about one-third of the budget.
The fact is, it does consume nearly half the budget if you include all personnel costs — military and civilian personnel, delivery of military health care, and in-kind compensation (DoD schools, commissaries, etcetera).
What’s difficult to find is what goes into in-kind compensation, because these figures are embedded in several accounts, and only DoD knows how it’s defined.
When analyzing the first three budget items — military personnel, civilian personnel, and the defense health program — history shows these personnel costs have gone from a high of half of the defense budget share in 1980 and 1991 to now less than 40 percent.
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel stated in November the personnel cost area “consumes roughly half of the DoD budget and is increasing every year.” When you include in-kind compensation (however that is calculated), it could be true, but the statement of “increasing every year” bucks the downward trajectory trend of the three measurable budget items depicted in the chart.
So why then are the chiefs stating:
■ Army personnel costs are projected to reach 80 percent by the next decade;
■ compensation costs soon could reach 60 percent of the total defense budget; and
■ by 2025 or so, 98 cents of every dollar will be going for benefits?
Fortunately, we are not the only ones asking why and how. A recent Andrew Tilghman article, “Top brass claim personnel costs are swamping DoD, but budget figures say otherwise,” in the Army Times, directly addresses the grossly exaggerated public statements being made by senior Pentagon leadership regarding military pay and benefits.
MOAA President Vice Adm. Norbert R. Ryan Jr., USN (Ret), forwarded the article to each member of Congress asking them to have DoD show how it is forecasting future personnel growth instead of simply accepting the Pentagon’s rhetoric of spiraling out-of-control personnel costs.
But the rhetoric continues. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, in a recent interview at The Wall Street Journal’s CEOCouncil, talked about the importance of keeping faith with the American military and military families to include “active, Guard, Reserve, families, veterans, gold star families, and so forth.” When doing so, he made it a point to talk about keeping faith in the context of personnel cost growth.
40 MILITARY OFFICER FEBRUARY 2014
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