THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 11, 1994 TAG: 9406110319
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940611 LENGTH: WASHINGTON
The full House backed the pay increase Thursday afternoon as it completed work on a $262 billion defense authorization bill. And Thursday night, the Senate Armed Services Committee endorsed a defense bill with the same raise, sending the legislation to the Senate floor for debate later this month.
{REST} Navy Secretary John H. Dalton ``and I are certain Navy people will be pleased,'' Adm. Jeremy M. ``Mike'' Boorda, the chief of naval operations, said of the votes. ``But I do not consider this a pay raise. It is a pay adjustment that allows our people to partially offset increases in their cost of living.''
Any military pay raise eventually approved by Congress will be effective Jan. 1.
U.S. Rep. Owen B. Pickett, D-2nd District, said the increase ``at least keeps the faith'' with service members. There was substantial support in the House for a larger raise, Pickett said, but money to cover it could not be found without cutting vital parts of the Pentagon's program.
After taxes are deducted, many military members will hardly notice the increase.
Several Hampton Roads military members, interviewed this week outside the Navy's Dam Neck Exchange, said the raise is probably about the best they could expect.
``With today's economy going the way it is, I believe it equates with what we should be getting,'' said Carlton Harrell, a chief petty officer.
Others were less content. ``Congress is cutting us any way they can; if we get a pay raise, it will probably just go right back into taxes,'' said Stephanie Jimerson, the wife of a Navy airman.
As a member of the personnel subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, Pickett was among those pushing for an increase above the 1.6 percent proposed by Clinton.
The subcommittee juggled other accounts to ``find'' the $500 million needed for the larger raise.
To thousands of service members, salaries are ``the most relevant gauge'' of how they're valued by civilian and military leaders, Pickett said. ``There's nothing more important and more vital to the military people than their paychecks.''
Because consumer price increases have slowed to a projected 2.7 percent this year, analysts suggested that the military raise will be enough to allow the military to retain their most valued members. Last year, when inflation also ran at 2.7 percent, military pay increased by 2.2 percent.
Capt. Mike John, a spokesman for the Navy's Bureau of Personnel, said that at 2.6 percent, the raise ``will probably have a salutary effect on retention.''
Historically, low pay has been one of the leading reasons that sailors opted to return to civilian life, though Navy surveys have indicated it has not been as big a factor as long deployments or the strain on families.
Steven Kosiak, a senior budget analyst at the Defense Budget Project, a Washington-based group that tracks military spending, suggested that because the services are downsizing and don't need to keep as many people, they might have had sufficient retention even with the administration's proposal.
But John said the military would prefer to get larger raises and make its own decisions about who stays and who retires as it gets smaller. When too many individual sailors make those decisions for themselves, the Navy may lose some with vital skills, he said.
{KEYWORDS} MILITARY PAY RAISE
by CNB