Early retirement board for colonels delayed - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Early retirement board for colonels delayed

The Air Force is delaying the selective early retirement board for colonels about six weeks after identifying 125 more eligible officers.

The board had been scheduled to meet the week of July 19; now the board will convene the week of Aug. 30. The selective early retirement board for lieutenant colonels will convene for the week of July 19 as scheduled.

“We were going through our very extensive checks and balances in preparation for what was the July 2010 combined selective early retirement board when we identified 125 additional eligible colonels,” said Maj. Gen. (select) Sharon Dunbar, the Air Staff’s director of force management policy.

The selective early retirement boards were announced June 1 as part of the service’s latest drawdown. In April, the Air Force announced it needs to trim about 6,000 airmen — enlisted and officers — in the next two years.

The delay was to “allow time to notify these colonels and to afford them time to be able to prepare to make a decision as to whether or not they wanted to submit retirement papers or for [the] other previously notified colonels if they want to submit retirement papers,” Dunbar said.

The eligible colonels now have until Aug. 20 to submit voluntary retirement applications. The colonels selected by the board should be notified by Sept. 30.

Also pushed back by the delay is the mandatory retirement date for affected colonels. The date had been Jan. 1 and still is for lieutenant colonels. The date for colonels is now Feb. 1.

Colonels who volunteer — and are approved — have until May 1 to retire.

The Air Force had notified 459 colonels that they were eligible for selective early retirement before it discovered the additional 125 officers, said Col. Tom Deale, director for colonel management. Now, the number of colonels eligible is 584.

As of June 30, the Air Force had approved 86 voluntary retirement applications and was processing 55 others, Deale said.

The SERB for colonels in the Judge Advocate General Corps has been canceled because enough officers — five — have volunteered to retire. Boards will be held for three other competitive categories — line of the Air Force, Medical Service Corps and the Chaplain Corps.

If the JAG competitive category had gone to the SERB, manning levels at that grade would have dropped to critical levels, Dunbar said.

Eligible colonels have four years in grade and a date of rank of July 18, 2006, or earlier, Deale said.

Those who have been selected for promotion, have a scheduled mandatory retirement date in fiscal years 2010 or 2011, or who voluntarily retire are exempt from the SERB, he said.

Also, officers who faced the last colonel SERB in 2007 are exempt because of the five-year sanctuary period, Deale said.