THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 23, 1994 TAG: 9409230553
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 43 lines
If you're among the thousands of Navy Reservists who intended to get in your monthly drilling this weekend, you can make other plans.
The Navy announced Thursday that it has canceled reserve drills and training through the end of September to save money. The service realized this week that it had overspent its payroll account for the reserves by about $36 million, said Lt. Cmdr. Joe Quimby, a Navy spokesman.
Quimby said the involvement of reservists in Navy operations in or around Somalia, Bosnia, Haiti, Cuba and Korea, as well as in firefighting in America's Pacific Northwest, drained the payroll account. Canceling training for the rest of the month will save ``a few million,'' and the Navy is seeking permission to transfer funds from other accounts to make up the rest, he said.
The Navy budgeted $1.56 billion to pay reservists during the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. The beginning of a new year on Oct. 1 will completely refill the account.
Quimby said Navy Secretary John H. Dalton has decided that reservists who miss drills this weekend can volunteer for an extra weekend during the next 12 months to recover their money.
``If somebody out there is worried - `Well gee, that's my car payment' - they're not going to lose any money,'' Quimby said.
Those who choose not to make up the lost weekend won't be penalized, he added. And those who want to drill without pay this weekend may do so.
The decision should affect 15 to 25 percent of the Navy's 90,000 reservists; the service estimates that the rest already have put in their drill time for September. Reservists typically drill one weekend each month.
Also affected will be any reservists who planned to begin their two-week annual cruises between now and Oct. 1. Like the September drilling, that annual training can be rescheduled during fiscal 1995 so the reservists will recover their money, Quimby said. by CNB