Senate boosts military pay and benefits

The Senate Wednesday approved a 4.8 percent pay raise for military personnel, along with boosts to military benefits and retirement packages.

Under the bill (S. 4), which still must be approved by the House, service members would receive a 4.8 percent across-the-board raise in 2000. Raises would be set at 0.5 percent above the Employment Cost Index in future years. The current formula sets raises at 0.5 percent below that index.

The bill also would allow military members to participate in the Thrift Savings Plan, federal civilian employees' 401(k)-style investment program. Retirement packages would also be boosted. S. 4 would repeal a 1986 change to military retirement that reduced pensions for 20-year retirees to 40 percent of basic pay from 50 percent.

Other provisions of the bill include:

• Restructuring the military pay tables to give more money to mid-level officers.
• A special subsistence allowance of $180 per month for low-level enlisted personnel who are eligible for food stamps.
• An increase in monthly education benefits under the Montgomery G.I. Bill.

The Clinton administration's fiscal 2000 budget called for only a 4.4 percent pay raise for military personnel. Defense Secretary William Cohen sent a letter to the Senate on Feb. 19 noting that the Senate's higher proposed raise, along with additional provisions, add up to at least $7 billion more in spending than the administration's budget proposal.

"I am concerned that until there is a budget resolution that sets the defense budget level, this bill constitutes an unfunded requirement on the department," Cohen wrote. "Absent an increase in the top line for Defense, these items will only displace other key elements of our program."

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., defended the measure. The bill "comes at a time when we're asking more and more of our military with less and less," he said. "It would be insanity for us not to do this bill, and do it now."

Now that the Senate has passed S. 4, action on military pay and retirement reform issues shifts to the House. The House Armed Services Subcommittee on Military Personnel has begun a series of hearings on the subject, but a source said the full armed services panel has not yet determined whether it will follow the Senate's lead and consider a military pay raise as a separate bill or roll it into the annual defense authorization bill.