US Air Force officials announce additional force management measures

WASHINGTON (AFNS) — In on-going efforts to con­tin­ue to size and shape the force to cur­rent and future require­ments, Air Force offi­cials announced addi­tion­al force man­age­ment pro­grams.

The Air Force end­ed fis­cal year 2011 about 1,200 Air­men over endstrength. 

For enlist­ed Air­men, vol­un­tary pro­grams from last year will con­tin­ue. These include waivers for Active Duty Ser­vice Com­mit­ments, time-in-grade, and enlist­ment con­tracts. Invol­un­tary pro­grams from last year will also con­tin­ue includ­ing: date of sep­a­ra­tion roll­backs and ini­tial skills train­ing separations. 

There will be two new enlist­ed force man­age­ment pro­grams effec­tive in fis­cal year 2013; effec­tive 30 Sep­tem­ber 2013 — adjust­ed High Year Tenure lim­its and Career Job Reser­va­tion constraints. 

HYT lim­its will be adjust­ed for senior air­man, staff sergeant, and tech­ni­cal sergeant. Specif­i­cal­ly, senior air­man will be reduced from 10 to eight years, staff sergeant will be reduced from 20 to 15 years, and tech­ni­cal sergeant will be reduced from 22 to 20 years. Staff sergeants with 16 years or more total active fed­er­al mil­i­tary ser­vice as of Sept. 30, 2013, will be grand­fa­thered and their HYT will remain at 20 years. 

Approx­i­mate­ly 1,700 Air­men will be affect­ed by the changes to HYT. Air­men will have two addi­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties to test for pro­mo­tion before the new HYT takes effect. This imple­men­ta­tion time­line pro­vides impact­ed Air­men 20 months to plan for sep­a­ra­tion or retire­ment from active duty should they not be select­ed for promotion. 

CJR con­straints will lim­it the num­ber of first term Air­men who can reen­list based on Air Force Spe­cial­ty Code career job require­ments. The CJR pro­gram objec­tive is to pre­vent sur­plus­es and short­ages in the career force. AFPC con­trols first term reen­list­ments by main­tain­ing a career job require­ment file for each AFSC. Air­men in over­manned career fields eli­gi­ble for a CJR will be deter­mined by a qual­i­ty “rank order” process in those con­strained AFSCs. The Air Force will announce the expect­ed 15–20 AFSCs to be con­strained at a lat­er date. 

For offi­cers, vol­un­tary and invol­un­tary pro­grams will con­tin­ue. Vol­un­tary mea­sures will be offered to offi­cers in cer­tain year groups and over­age career fields to allow time-in-grade and ADSC waivers. Like­wise, the Expand­ed PALACE CHASE and the 10 to eight Com­mis­sion Waiv­er pro­grams will con­tin­ue to be offered. 

There will be one pro­ject­ed invol­un­tary offi­cer board, a Force Shap­ing Board, for pro­ba­tion­ary offi­cers; those offi­cers with less than six years of total active fed­er­al com­mis­sioned ser­vice. The board will con­sid­er eli­gi­ble offi­cers in spec­i­fied AFSCs and in cer­tain year groups. Details of this board will be announced at a lat­er date. 

There are cur­rent­ly no plans for Vol­un­tary Sep­a­ra­tion Pay, a Reduc­tion in Force board or Selec­tive Ear­ly Retire­ment Boards for FY13. Addi­tion­al­ly, some selec­tive con­tin­u­a­tion lim­i­ta­tions, impact­ing twice deferred Cap­tains and Majors, will remain nec­es­sary although poten­tial­ly less stri­dent than in FY12. As a min­i­mum, the Air Force will con­sid­er for selec­tive con­tin­u­a­tion all offi­cers with­in 5 years of retire­ment or those in crit­i­cal skills. 

Air Force lead­ers are com­mit­ted to sus­tain­ing excel­lence and meet­ing fis­cal require­ments. Today’s Air­men should expect con­tin­ued force man­age­ment mea­sures until the desired end­strength is met. For infor­ma­tion about this, and oth­er per­son­nel issues, vis­it the Air Force Per­son­nel Ser­vices web­site at https://gum-crm.csd.disa.mil .

Source:
U.S. Depart­ment of Defense
Office of the Assis­tant Sec­re­tary of Defense (Pub­lic Affairs) 

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