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Army delays temp duty limits for reservists

The Army has delayed a policy that would place limits on temporary duty for Reserve and National Guard members.

Some clarifications are in the works for the July 30 policy, which was supposed to have taken effect Aug. 15. The policy would limit the Army’s use of temporary duty assignments to 180 days or less at the same location. Some 16,000 Guard and Reserve soldiers are on temporary orders.

The policy would not affect Guard and Reserve soldiers serving in the combat zones or qualified hazardous duty areas.

The Army decided to make the original changes as a cost-cutting move. But some Guard and Reserve members have said the policy would force them to choose between uprooting their families in a permanent change-of-station move for an assignment that could be six to 12 months, or accepting a lower per diem rate of pay for the assignment if they get a waiver to continue on temporary duty.

Sources outside the Pentagon said First Army has asked for a blanket exception to the policy.

Information on the new timeline was not available, including the deadline for notifying soldiers who are affected.

The new policy “is not a Guard-friendly policy,” said Frank Yoakum, legislative director of the Enlisted Association of the National Guard.

“Typically, the Guard doesn’t move” because its units are hometown units, he said, with both state and federal missions.

The Army’s Office of Manpower and Reserve Affairs is preparing a memo that changes the effective date of the program, and makes some clarifications, said Army spokeswoman Maj. Anne Edgecomb. One clarification is that soldiers will be able to serve on orders of 180 days or less more than once during any 365-day period, as long as it is not at the same location.

“I would hope the Army takes a very serious look at this for the impact it has on Guard and Reserve families,” said John Grady, spokesman for the Association of the U.S. Army.

Waivers of the 180-day limit would have had to be approved by the Army’s assistant secretary for manpower and reserve affairs. But those receiving waivers for temporary change-of-station or temporary duty beyond 180 days in one location would get less money in their pockets: They would be reimbursed at a per diem rate equal to 55 percent of the maximum daily TDY locality per diem rate.

Army civilians get this rate for similar long-term assignments, officials said.

While this move will save the Army money, it will also require commands to evaluate whether some of their positions should be permanent rather than temporary, officials said.

Depending on the need, the soldier might be offered a PCS move, a departure for Guard and Reserve families who generally stay in one community. The other option is to have the soldier released from active duty and the position filled by another soldier.

“You particularly want to ensure everyone feels they are being treated equally” to their counterparts in the other services, Grady said.

Air Force, Marine Corps policy

The Air Force and Marine Corps continue to allow Guard and reserve members to receive full per diem pay past 180 days. Information from the Navy was not available.

The Defense Department’s Joint Travel Regulation requires each branch’s service secretary to approve per diem pay for Guard and reserve members called to active duty for 140 days or more at one location.

The Air Force has approved three extensions of the time period for full per diem pay since Sept. 22, 2001. Air Force Reserve and Air Guard members are approved for per diem pay for up to 1,095 days at one location performing duty in support of operations Noble Eagle, Enduring Freedom and/or Iraqi Freedom.

The last extension, granted Sept. 30, 2003, applies to airmen who completed a 730-day mobilization and then elected to transition from involuntary to voluntary status, Air Force spokeswoman Lt. Col. Clancy Preston said. But none of the 160 Air Force reservists now mobilized in support of activities in the U.S. is serving away from home station.

Marines activated in support of the war in the continental U.S. are entitled to draw full per diem pay if they are assigned duty in a location outside reasonable commuting distance from their permanent residence, and they are entitled to that per diem pay for the duration of their activation orders, said Capt. Erin Wiener, Marine Forces Reserve spokeswoman. After 24 months, Selected Marine Corps Reserve or individual augmentees should accept PCS orders or demobilize, she said.

Active-duty military members generally don’t have long-term temporary duty assignments and are moved on PCS orders.

The July 30 memo signed by Army Assistant Secretary for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Ronald James has caused “a major uproar in the Reserve Component, with many people seeing this as the active component’s ignorance or disregard of the realities Reserve Component soldiers face,” wrote one soldier in an e-mail to the Military Times newspapers.

“Under the new policy, mobilized reserve component soldiers, if they don’t want to go through the drill of selling their houses, etc., will have to pay to live in the mobilized location out of their own pockets,” wrote the soldier. “In essence, the memo will require mobilized reservists to sell the homes they live in, take their kids out of school, move their families to their mobilization location, buy a house at the new location, put their kids in a new school for part of a year, then, at the end of that six- to 12-month period, try to sell the new house, move back to their regular town, try to find a house in their old neighborhood, and re-establish their lives.”

On the bright side …

Edgecomb acknowledged the new policy’s potential to take money out of the pockets of some reservists. “On the positive side, it provides an opportunity for a reserve soldier to PCS to his duty location and let the Army move his belongings and family so they aren’t separated while he is serving on active duty,” she said.

Edgecomb is an Army reservist on temporary orders for one year, stationed at the Pentagon, about a three-hour drive from her husband.

The Army Installation Management Command will work with soldiers to provide lodging either on base or through contracts, so that there will be no money out-of-pocket for lodging, she said. But the soldier would still be titled to full meals and incidental-expenses allowances.

Officials said they made the policy change in an attempt to cut costs after five years of filling mission-essential positions with reservist volunteers in temporary status.

Several options were considered. “We feel that the selected course of action best serves the Army, the soldiers volunteering for duty, their families and the taxpayers,” according to an information paper describing the July 30 decision.

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Michelle Tan contributed to this report.