Early NCO promotion list notice comes to end - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Early NCO promotion list notice comes to end

The Army is phasing out its longtime practice of providing advance copies of promotion lists to designated commanders and their representatives.

Called “prepositioning,” the practice has been applied to selection lists compiled by centralized officer and noncommissioned officer boards in the active and Reserve components.

“The process of prepositioning centralized senior NCO promotion lists is discontinued,” according to a policy change announced Aug. 19 by the Office of the G-1 (Human Resources).

Among the first boards affected by the change will be the Regular Army and Active Guard and Reserve master sergeant boards that meet in October and November; the sergeants first class boards that meet in February; and the sergeant major boards scheduled for June.

Previous policy typically called for “close-hold” lists to be prepositioned with selected commanders about one week in advance of Human Resources Command releasing the lists Armywide.

The advance notice ensured that commanders knew the selection status of their soldiers, which might require changes in duty assignments or professional development counseling.

Maj. Tim Beninato, G-1 spokesman, said that with today’s technology, “lists can be made available to commanders and selected soldiers simultaneously across the Army.”

“Our leaders will be involved in the professional development [of their soldiers], such as counseling, as they always have, and we merely are removing a cumbersome and unnecessary step from the process.”

Beninato said the Army will phase in the procedures “beginning with senior NCO lists, and potentially apply them to all selection lists in the future.”

The change also will reduce the possibility of the unauthorized, premature release of promotion data, as has occurred sporadically since the advent of the Internet.

For example, in 2008 “close-hold” lists containing the names and Social Security numbers of more than 50,000 active-duty soldiers considered for promotion to sergeant first class and master sergeant were improperly released over the Internet, triggering a Criminal Investigation Command inquiry.

While no known cases of identity theft were associated with that incident, the Army discontinued the practice of using any part of Social Security numbers on lists.