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Cuts target officers, overstaffed fields

More than 3,700 airmen need to leave the service over the next 10 months if the Air Force wants to stay within its budget and shift positions into expanding career fields — and it does.

The decision announced Nov. 17 to cut the airmen came less than two weeks after the service unveiled expanded re-enlistment bonuses and renewed bonus programs for rated officers.

The Air Force wants 2,074 officers and 1,633 enlisted airmen to separate voluntarily or to end their terms ahead of schedule. While the service expects to reach the enlisted goal, it is less certain about the officer goal since the midcareer and junior officers it wants gone would face a double whammy: no voluntary separation pay and a tight civilian job market.

For fiscal 2010, Congress set the size of the Air Force at 331,700 active-duty airmen, said Col. Joan Garbutt, chief of military force policy at the Air Staff’s personnel directorate. As of Nov. 17, the Air Force had 333,113 airmen — 1,413 too many.

Better-than-expected retention would continue to push the number upward unless the service allowed airmen to depart and trimmed the number of active-duty recruits, Garbutt said.

The Air Force can exceed its legislative cap by 2 percent, or about 6,600 airmen, but it doesn’t have $228 million for the added personnel expenses. Money for the extra positions would have to come from elsewhere in the budget, most likely operations and maintenance.

For fiscal 2010, the Air Force has $28.6 billion in its military personnel budget. The figure was $27.5 billion in fiscal 2009.

“It doesn’t leave us the cushion to assign airmen to new and emerging missions,” Garbutt said of the extra money.

Announcing the force cuts shortly after releasing 2010 bonus details does not send mixed messages, she said. The incentives keep airmen in undermanned and critical career fields. The reductions focus on overstaffed career fields and speed the process for airmen already planning to leave.

The last drawdown

Shifting positions into growing missions such as flying remote-controlled aircraft, manning intelligence posts and working as liaisons with Army units has been a goal of Air Force leaders since they eyed an end to a wide-scale drawdown in 2008.

From 2005 to early 2008, the Air Force cut the active-duty force from about 360,000 to 324,000 to save money. When the number fell below 330,000, though, the Air Force found the drawdown had left it short of officers for rapidly growing missions such as security forces, civil engineering and intelligence. And the drawdown didn’t help its money problem because the rising cost of aviation fuel ate away at the personnel dollars saved.

In 2008, then-Secretary of the Air Force Michael Wynne told Air Force Times that if Defense Secretary Robert Gates allowed an end to the drawdown and a buildup back to about 330,000 airmen, the new positions would go to new missions.

Gates agreed with Wynne and allowed the service to end the drawdown. Instead of spending more than $312 million in fiscal 2009 to separate officers, the service used the money to pay their salaries.

The new cuts aim for many of the officer career fields targeted five years ago — communications, weather scientist, aircraft maintenance and personnel, now part of the force support Air Force Specialty Code.

About 78 percent of the eligible officers, mostly captains, were commissioned from 2001 to 2003. When the officers signed up, the Air Force mistakenly assumed the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq would shield it from tight budgets and it would have the money to pay their salaries.

Communications is the career field with the highest number of officers to be cut — 914, according to the Air Force. The second highest is force support, with 328 officers. Weather, at 243 officers, comes in third.

Hiring civilians

At the same time the Air Force wants to ease out 3,700 airmen, it wants to put 9,300 more civilians on its payroll. Money for the positions will come from converting contractor slots to civilian ones. The Air Force has civilian personnel budget of $10.9 billion for fiscal 2010, up from $10.1 billion the year before.

Many of the jobs will go to areas where airmen are being cut. The Air Force needs to fill 1,800 communications and information positions, 700 science and engineering posts, and 600 logistics jobs, according to the Air Force Personnel Center. Airmen who separate are encouraged to apply.

Details of how the drawdown will work:

Enlisted airmen being encouraged to leave are those with fewer than 14 years of service and those with more than 20 years who are retirement-eligible as of April 30.

In both year groups, airmen denied a promotion date must leave by April 30.

Retirement-eligible airmen who want to leave before their declared date of separation can move up their departure to no later than May 1.

The Air Force will cut the number of new enlistees by rejecting recruits who fail their initial technical training.

For officers, the service is asking for volunteers to leave.

Retirement-eligible colonels and lieutenant colonels in over-manned career field year groups can retire with two years in grade instead of three years if they retire no later than Sept. 1.

Lower-ranking officers who are in over-manned career field year groups and agree to leave no later than Sept. 1 will have many of their active-duty service commitments waived. Some commitments won’t be set aside, however — such as service required for professional military education, earning an advanced degree or accepting an overseas assignment.

Eligible career fields include space and missile (13s), weather (15W), aircraft maintenance (21A), munitions and missile maintenance (21M), logistics readiness (21R), communications (33S), force support (38F), scientist (61A-D), developmental scientist (62E) and financial management (65F).

To trim active-duty commissions in 2010, the service will cut Officer Training School accessions by 144, a 21 percent drop from the 695 originally projected for the year.

The number of ROTC cadets coming on active duty will fall by 417, nearly one-quarter fewer than the projected 1,840 commissions. Those 417 cadets will qualify for Reserve commissions and will come on active-duty status in 2011.

Another condition covering all ranks is that an early departure cannot affect an airman’s deployment. An airman now deployed cannot return ahead of schedule by requesting an early separation.

Airmen can apply immediately to leave, Garbutt said. Applications are available through the Air Force Personnel Center Web site or by calling 800-525-0102.

Airmen can work with their base’s Transition Assistance Program to receive pre-separation career counseling, learn what federal and private civilian jobs are available and find out about their Veterans Affairs and education benefits.