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How much money can you get to re-enlist?

After bottoming out in March 2005, the list of Air Force career fields eligible for a Selective Re-enlistment Bonus continues to grow — albeit slowly.

But 2009 holds promise of a huge boost in the bonus cash available for airmen in undermanned career fields who choose to re-up a year from now.

The Air Force announced revisions in the SRB list Thursday.

MORE: See the chart

Complete guide to the new SRBs

Forty-three Air Force Specialty Codes now qualify for a bonus, six more than were eligible after the last revision, in June 2006. Eight AFSCs were added to the list, but two AFSCs that had previously qualified for a bonus no longer do.

Bonuses are authorized in 0.5 increments, or multiples, and in three re-enlistment zones — the years-of-service window, from 17 months to 14 years, in which selected airmen who re-enlist are eligible for cash.

After carefully reviewing all enlisted skills, the Air Force added new bonuses in 15 zones and increased bonuses in another 22, said John Park, chief of the Force Management Division at the Air Force personnel directorate in the Pentagon. Bonuses decreased in 18 zones and were eliminated in nine more. Overall, the bonuses remained the same in 75 zones.

So some airmen will receive higher bonuses under this new program, while others will receive lower or no bonuses compared with those in their specialty who re-enlisted under the previous program.

About 36,000 airmen are eligible to re-enlist in fiscal 2008. Of those, 7,681 would receive a re-enlistment bonus.

New AFSCs qualifying for a bonus include:

* Airfield management.

* Ground radar systems.

* Pavement and construction equipment.

* Structural (civil engineering).

* Mental health services.

* Dental laboratory.

* Contracting.

* Technical applications specialist.

AFSCs that have been removed from the list include:

* Slavic crypto-linguist.

* Weather.

The new SRB program includes a 30-day grace period ending Dec. 15. That means airmen who would have qualified for a bonus before the revisions were announced, but no longer do, still have an opportunity to grab the cash.

However, most airmen can re-enlist only during the 90 days preceding the end of their current enlistment, so those who are unable to act within 30 days are out of luck.

EOD zone

Perhaps the most interesting new wrinkle is the addition of an experimental “Zone E” for explosive ordnance disposal airmen. For just the past couple of years, the Air Force has had the authority to offer bonuses to airmen re-upping after 16 or more years of service, but it hadn’t done so, Park said.

New concerns about a shortage of senior noncommissioned officers in a career field that is in high demand as a result of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan persuaded Air Force personnel managers to offer a bonus to EODs with 18 to 20 years of service. Bonuses can be paid only up to 24 years of service, however.

For a senior master sergeant with 18 years of service who re-enlists for six years, the reward is hefty — almost $75,500.

The Air Force wants to find out whether offering bonuses is an effective tool for keeping very senior enlisted personnel in critically short career fields, Park said. If so, the Zone E concept could be extended to other AFSCs in the not-too-distant future.

For all airmen who receive a bonus, half of the money is paid in a lump sum a few weeks after the re-enlistment.

The rest of the bonus is received in equal annual installments over the period of obligated service, on the anniversary of that re-enlistment.

The criteria used to determine which enlisted skills will remain on or be added to the SRB list included current and projected manning levels, retention trends, career field force-structure changes and career field stress level.

Personnel managers were under tight budgetary constraints as they struggled to figure out the best way to use the limited funds at their disposal, Park said. Ultimately, they were able to add the few Air Force Specialty Codes to the list and tinker with the amounts of bonuses, although in many cases, they will pay less than what they would have liked to dole out.

The $46 million earmarked for new SRB commitments — out of a total SRB budget of $121 million that also includes obligated anniversary payments — was essentially unchanged from the previous program.

But Park said the Air Force is seeking an additional $61 million for new bonuses in the 2009 budget.

Particularly important this year was a new metric for determining who should get a re-enlistment bonus — operational demand, Park said.

They looked at how often airmen in a given career field deployed to the war zones in a 20-month period and how much time they got at home, reliance on reserve forces because of the strain on active-duty airmen, and other factors, he said.

Operational commanders and career field managers were heavily consulted to determine where the bonus money was most needed, he said.

“We were able to modify the list to apply bonuses to our most critical needs,” Senior Master Sgt. Douglas Byrd, manager of enlisted force management at the Pentagon, said in a statement. “Balancing the enlisted force is a constant challenge, and the SRB is the most effective program we employ to retain our No. 1 priority, ... our airmen.”