Imminient Danger Pay Now Pro-Rated

[MIDNJAC]

^^^ Or when a command eats a wardroom worth of last minute commair non-refund tickets as a NALO backup just in case. Or when nobody can understand "bounce load" going through the pits and FCLP players go out and dump 4-5k #'s of gas for no other reason than poor planning. Or going out to TABUE and holding at max E for 2 hours to burn FY flight hours.....we could probably fill 100 pages with this shit.

 

[Pags]

I agree that the money system gets a little out of whack and is incredibly wasteful. It'd be nice if you could call your ISIC/TYCOM and say "hey, we don't need more office chairs, but we sure could use some more flight hours."

On the other side, although it's ridiculous, it does allow the squadron level to focus on training/warfighting and leave the budgeting to the OPNAV folks.

 

[phrogdriver]

I agree that the money system gets a little out of whack and is incredibly wasteful. It'd be nice if you could call your ISIC/TYCOM and say "hey, we don't need more office chairs, but we sure could use some more flight hours."

On the other side, although it's ridiculous, it does allow the squadron level to focus on training/warfighting and leave the budgeting to the OPNAV folks.

True dat. It just seems that just as we declare ourselves so poor that we can't pay attention in one thing, we simultaneously rush to blow money somewhere else in an extravagant and wasteful fashion. I don't exactly know how to fix this, but I wonder if private enterprise ever has it this bad. "No, Pags, your department doesn't have the budget for that software...but, would you mind taking your company car and driving it to Nova Scotia and back? We've got some extra in the gas budget we need to spend."

The thing that brings it home to me is that TAD funding is so painful now I don't even want to go on CCXs. "Yes, we know you're flying all day, but there's a chow hall 10 miles away that's open from 1100-1115, so here's your 8 bucks a day. No, you can't get a car, either." At the same time, when it comes to ops, it's like Christmas in February sometimes.

The military is so incompetent in budgeting that if it had full discretion, they'd try to fund a new hangar or something by initiating a "bring your own toilet paper to work" policy. After all, if you'd adopted a diet per your "Nutrition for Marines" MCI, you wouldn't have to shit at work.

 

[SynixMan]

^^ I did time in the civilian world at General Electric. They were as bad at budgeting as the Navy is. And the same "different pots of money" argument came into play all the time.

There's middle managers fighting tooth and nail for whatever metric their evals are written on. There were tons of things we could've done to save the company money but didn't make sense for our specific group's work/metrics. Institutional intertia is a bitch.

 

[NightVisionPen]

The problem grows with any bureaucracy. As it gets bigger it also gets more complex. It would be great to have more control at lower levels, but most of us probably know of some shady characters that managed to climb into command spots. How bad could they screw things up with even more control? Does that justify the way it is now? No, but going the other way won't solve all the problems for everyone, just create different problems. Unfortunately all we can do is try to work for better solutions from within the given framework. There was a wing staff guy in Lemoore working on his EMBA back in 2004. He did a lot of work analyzing the cost of fuel burned by jets waiting to go through the hot pits. It eventually paid off and Lemoore gained a better fuel truck situation out of it, but it took a few years.

On the pay crap though, some of it is a slap in the face to people who are actually in danger. For example, when I was in Qatar I was getting pretty much all the same hazardous duty and imminent danger pays as guys with boots on the ground in Iraq. How messed up is that? My biggest danger was someone trying to swipe my beer ration card! And family sep pay is a joke. You know, cause single guys don't have family at all.

 

[pourts]

There was a wing staff guy in Lemoore working on his EMBA back in 2004. He did a lot of work analyzing the cost of fuel burned by jets waiting to go through the hot pits. It eventually paid off and Lemoore gained a better fuel truck situation out of it, but it took a few years.

He still flies with 122 every once in a while.

 

[insanebikerboy]

And family sep pay is a joke. You know, cause single guys don't have family at all.

This is the one thing that I have to disagree on. Yes, a lot of single guys have to pay rent, insurance, car payment, etc, just like a married guy, while they are gone. The difference is that when I was on the boat deployed, I paid roughly $10 a day for mess dues and still had to pay for four mouths to feed back home for buying groceries (notice I'm not including every other bill). Yet, the single guy only has to pay for his mess dues and doesn't have any type of food bill back home. BAS doesn't cover the food budget back home just like it doesn't cover the total mess dues while deployed. In my mind (and budget) that is exactly what family separation pay helps cover and equalize.

 

[phrogdriver]

It comes out in the wash. That single guy is probably paying a service to cut his lawn, auto-bill-pay, etc. The married guy's wife is doing a lot of free labor, especially if they're DINKs.

Like I said, it all evens out eventually. I hated the policies that had single guys getting duty right before deployment because married guys needed "time with their families." Meanwhile that single guy was trying to line up twenty different things on his own.

 

[insanebikerboy]

It comes out in the wash. That single guy is probably paying a service to cut his lawn, auto-bill-pay, etc. The married guy's wife is doing a lot of free labor, especially if they're DINKs.

And I'll argue that with three little kids and a single source income, I was also paying for lawn service and all the accompanying costs. Not complaining, but in the end the single guy usually has a lot more free money than I do!

Like I said, it all evens out eventually. I hated the policies that had single guys getting duty right before deployment because married guys needed "time with their families." Meanwhile that single guy was trying to line up twenty different things on his own.

I'm in agreement with you on this. Even though I have kids and a wife I thought it was bs when the idea was thrown out that the single guys had to suck up the last few days.

 

[NightVisionPen]

This is the one thing that I have to disagree on. Yes, a lot of single guys have to pay rent, insurance, car payment, etc, just like a married guy, while they are gone. The difference is that when I was on the boat deployed, I paid roughly $10 a day for mess dues and still had to pay for four mouths to feed back home for buying groceries (notice I'm not including every other bill). Yet, the single guy only has to pay for his mess dues and doesn't have any type of food bill back home. BAS doesn't cover the food budget back home just like it doesn't cover the total mess dues while deployed. In my mind (and budget) that is exactly what family separation pay helps cover and equalize.

I totally get your argument. However, my problem is that two officers of equal rank in a squadron are there for the same job. One should not be paid more simply because they happen to be married and have kids. The decisions to get married were conscious ones and every single Naval Officer should be well aware of the deployment lifestyle in the Navy before joining up.

 

[scoolbubba]

Flip side: You want FSA and more BAH? Get married. It definitely helps me roll in the cash monies. I'm making it rain over here.

Like I said, it all evens out eventually. I hated the policies that had single guys getting duty right before deployment because married guys needed "time with their families." Meanwhile that single guy was trying to line up twenty different things on his own.

What squadron is this? I need to be there.

 

[pilot_man]

Same argument thrown back at you. Single guys have known since they signed up that they get paid less than married ones.

Now lets talk about what is really important here. Why do we still pay mess bills on the boat. You want to pro-rate my IDP, good. You want to only give combat pay to those in combat, good. Now stop making me pay for food that is the same as the rest of the ship. It would be one thing if it was the old days, where the Mess O went out with mess funds and bought us better foods. But that isn't how it is. Since all of our traditions are going away, then this one needs to go with it.

 

[insanebikerboy]

Now lets talk about what is really important here. Why do we still pay mess bills on the boat. You want to pro-rate my IDP, good. You want to only give combat pay to those in combat, good. Now stop making me pay for food that is the same as the rest of the ship. It would be one thing if it was the old days, where the Mess O went out with mess funds and bought us better foods. But that isn't how it is. Since all of our traditions are going away, then this one needs to go with it.

Or, why do we even have to pay mess bills? When you go eat at a DFAC while deployed, it's all free and it has good food, hard pack ice cream, and drinks like bottled gatorade.

Meanwhile, on the boat we get the Tour of Italy and pay for it. (For the uniformed, as the main course you choose from four or five different pastas, usually without sauce, and not a whole lot else).

 

[MasterBates]

IBB, I asked that on four different boats. Know what the answer was?

Different pots of money.

My boss was an Army tank guy. He's shocked we pay for food, as was every non Marine LNO I ever dealt with on the CG, CV or CVN.
Sent from my PH44100 using Tapatalk

 

[Gatordev]

Meanwhile, on the boat we get the Tour of Italy and pay for it. (For the uniformed, as the main course you choose from four or five different pastas, usually without sauce, and not a whole lot else).

One of my favorite lines at dinner by a guy at my last squadron while having Noodles Jefferson:

"You gave me the noodles, but where's the Jefferson?"