Review: Air Force botched officer separations - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Review: Air Force botched officer separations

The Air Force bungled the separation of officers during the drawdown, paying some officers to walk away from their active-duty service commitments while preventing other officers — who did not owe more time — from opting out, according to an Air Force Audit Agency review.

But the service’s personnel directorate defended the practice of separating officers on a first-come, first-serve basis, saying it’s sometimes necessary to provide quick decisions to officers making difficult career choices.

Dozens of officers were paid to leave in 2007, even though they owed several years of service after graduating from flight school or the Air Force Institute of Technology.

The report cited the case of a pilot who fulfilled only half of a 10-year service obligation before deciding to quit. Although the service spent at least $400,000 training the pilot, it not only let him walk away, but paid him $75,000 in voluntary separation pay to do so, according to the report.

In another case, a research scientist took $60,000 in VSP to leave the Air Force even though the officer had more than four years remaining on his education commitment after graduating from AFIT.

Meanwhile, officers who did not owe the service more time were prevented from leaving simply because they did not move fast enough to get out, the report stated.

Air Force Times obtained a copy of the audit through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Rules revised, but ...

In response to the criticism, the Air Force’s personnel directorate has revised its rules for approving voluntary separations and payments, but it did not rule out the possibility of allowing more officers to leave with time remaining on their service commitments if a voluntary separation pay program resumes at some time in the future.

The Air Force has offered VSP several times over the years as an incentive for officers to leave service before they are required to face a reduction in force board or become eligible to retire.

The eligible career fields and years-of-service groups vary each year. For 2007, the Air Force targeted officers with seven to 12 years of service — senior captains and junior majors — in Air Force Specialty Codes that were overmanned. As part of the deal, the Air Force agreed to waive up to five years of active-duty service commitment in exchange for the officer exiting.

Just as the service had done before, applications were considered on a first-come, first-serve basis. Once enough officers in a targeted career field and year group agreed to leave, that group was closed and no more applications from members of that group were approved.

Because separations were approved based on when the requests were made, some officers without service commitments were turned away while officers who otherwise would have been obligated to stay were paid to leave.

Of the 317 officers with service commitments who applied to leave, 153 — 48 percent — earned approval, the audit said. The departing officers were paid a total of $13.3 million. At the same time, the Air Force rejected separation requests from about 200 officers with no service commitment.

The auditor concluded the Air Force could have done a better job of protecting its training and education dollars by first considering officers without service commitments.

The agency recommended that instead of considering applications in the order they arrive, the Air Force consider all applications at the same time and that the service not accept voluntary separation requests from officers attending professional education schools.

The Air Force personnel directorate agreed not to approve separation pay for students, but turned down the recommendation to consider all applicants at the same time, said Lt. Col. Scott Arcuri, who serves on the Air Staff as chief of the separations and retirement branch.

Holding on to applications for several months without making a decision would leave officers in limbo, Arcuri said. For example, what would an airman do if he received permanent change-of-station orders while waiting for a decision?

The Air Force had been eyeing a wide-ranging separation program for 2009 as part of the final chapter in drawing down the active-duty force to 316,600 airmen. One idea was to consider the first month’s worth of applications at the same time, since that is when most applications come in, Arcuri said. Requests that came in later would be considered in the order they arrived.

Those plans became moot in June when Secretary of Defense Robert Gates canceled the drawdown in response to a request from then-Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne and then-Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley.

As a result, details of the voluntary separation plan did not reach the stage of having to be approved by the service leadership, Arcuri said.

Now the service is looking to boost its manpower to 330,000 in 2010.