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American Military News
02-06-2025
- Politics
- American Military News
Pentagon targets 50% reduction in permanent changes of station
The Pentagon distributed a memorandum last week requiring each of the military branches to submit plans to reduce permanent change of station budgets by as much as 50% by Fiscal Year 2030. In a memorandum sent to the secretaries of the military departments last Thursday, the Pentagon noted that the Department of Defense currently spends roughly $5 billion per year to move military personnel and military families to different assignments. 'While these permanent change of station (PCS) moves support mission requirements, the frequency can reduce quality of life for Service members and their families, harm spousal employment, and disrupt functional communities, unit cohesion, and long-term talent management,' the memorandum stated. 'As we look across the Department for efficiencies, the Military Departments must determine which PCS moves are most critical to support operational requirements and key professional development,' the Pentagon added. 'Lower-priority PCS moves should be reduced for Service members and their families seeking greater geographic stability.' The Pentagon's memorandum directed the secretaries of the military departments to develop plans to reduce 'discretionary move' budgets for permanent change of station moves. The memorandum states that the 'discretionary move' budges should be reduced by 10% by Fiscal Year 2027, 30% by Fiscal Year 2028, 40% by Fiscal Year 2029, and 50% by Fiscal Year 2030. READ MORE: Pentagon changing transgender soldiers' records to biological sex: Report According to Fox News, Acting Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Tim Dill told reporters that the Pentagon's permanent change of station budget cut target has not been finalized despite the release of the memorandum. 'We want them to come back and tell us if that seems like the right number for them,' Dill told reporters. 'If they come back and say, well, this specific course of action could be harmful, then we don't want to accomplish it.' Dill told reporters that based on the results of the 2024 Survey of Active Duty Spouses, which showed that 32% of military spouses supported leaving the U.S. military, it was time for the Defense Department to 'look at reducing the frequency of those moves, especially if we want to maintain the momentum that we have today both in recruiting and the retention of service members.' Addressing the issues caused by permanent changes of station, Dill said, 'Families have to go find a home, they need new arrangements for their children… and they're displaced from the community of support that they've developed over the years in their previous duty station.'
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Pentagon targets fewer moves for troops to trim PCS costs
Military members should be moving less frequently for greater stability — and to save taxpayers' dollars, according to defense officials who have set the process in motion for those reductions. In a memo announced Wednesday, Pentagon officials ordered the military service branches to cut in half the amount of money they spend on permanent change-of-station, or PCS, moves by fiscal 2030. DOD spends about $5 billion a year on these moves, which include the physical moves of household goods as well as allowances and other entitlements related to moving. The services are required to develop plans within four months to reduce the moves, so it's not yet clear how many actual moves will be cut to achieve those savings. Officials will target 'discretionary moves,' such as PCS moves within the United States, overseas and individual service member training travel. The services are directed to reduce these discretionary move budgets by 10% in fiscal year 2027, 30% in fiscal 2028, 40% in fiscal 2029 and 50% by fiscal 2030. The reductions will be based on the fiscal 2026 budget, adjusted for inflation. 'Lower-priority PCS moves should be reduced for service members and their families seeking greater geographic stability,' wrote Jules W. Hurst II, acting undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, in the memo. The services must determine which PCS moves 'are most critical to support operational requirements and key professional development,' he wrote. About 80% of DOD PCS moves are in the discretionary category and 20% in the mandatory category, said Tim Dill, acting deputy under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, in a briefing to reporters. Reducing the frequency of moves will improve the quality of life for service members and their families, Dill said. Military families often face challenges related to making PCS moves every few years, ranging from issues with shipping their household goods to securing housing. Families also navigate disruptions in military spouses' employment, difficulty finding child care, children's school transitions and finding new providers for special needs family members. Do military families really need to move so much? Military advocates, including the nonprofit Military Family Advisory Network, have argued that the frequency of military moves must be evaluated. 'We have seen the intersection between the frequency of moves and key quality-of-life concerns ranging from food insecurity to loneliness,' said Shannon Razsadin, CEO of the nonprofit Military Family Advisory Network. 'We're encouraged by the immediate changes outlined by Secretary Hegseth,' Razsadin said, including the Pentagon's separate effort to temporarily increase the reimbursement rates for families moving themselves amid problems with the new Global Household Goods Contract. At times, Congress members have expressed interest in reducing the number of PCS moves. Various efforts within DOD have been made to study the issue, but no large-scale actions have been taken. Military officials have argued that the frequency of PCS moves is necessary to meet operational requirements and fill empty jobs. Hurst's memo also directs service officials to propose various career path changes for officers and noncommissioned officers in ways that promote geographic stability. The services are tasked with proposing changes that could allow some officers and NCOs 'to specialize in lieu of gaining generalized experience across a range of functions,' according to the memo. The services will consider how they can provide 'broadening opportunities and continuing leadership opportunities without the need for a PCS move,' Dill said. DOD isn't dictating to the services the way they should accomplish the changes, he said, and there will be room for discussion about whether the budget cuts are feasible during the time frame. 'We want them to come back and tell us if that seems like the right number for them,' Dill said. 'On top of being efficient from a fiscal perspective, the other goal of this policy … is to ensure that this works well for service members and their families.' The effort is not exclusive to service members with dependents, Dill said, and will not increase the burden on single service members. 'We understand that PCS moves affect everyone and so this is not a policy where we just think we need to take the moves away from the families and put it on someone else,' he said.
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Base Child Care Crunch Could Be Solved by Partnerships, Home-Run Day Cares, Pentagon Says
As the Pentagon continues to struggle with long wait times and limited availability at its child care facilities, officials say that they are exploring off-base partnerships and growing programs that enable spouses to set up child care centers in their homes. "The department is pursuing a number of child care solutions to meet service members and their families where they are," Tim Dill, a top official in the Pentagon's personnel and readiness office, told in an exclusive statement Tuesday. "In some cases, that is in DoD child development centers, but in others, it may be by helping to cover the cost of in-home child care providers," Dill added. Read Next: Trump Pardons Former Army Officer Convicted of Disobeying COVID-19 Safety Rules Earlier this month, dozens of families at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico were told their children would be disenrolled from the base day care. Similar cases have cropped up at other Army, Air Force and Space Force bases, with the Navy also acknowledging staffing challenges at its child development centers. The reduced capacity at base day cares has been partly driven by the Trump administration's push to cut civilian federal employees at the Defense Department as well as other federal agencies. In an exclusive interview with last week, a defense official at the personnel and readiness office said the Pentagon is now looking to create new positions at military child development centers -- a lead educator position in each classroom and then a special needs inclusion coordinator for each center -- to offer upward mobility for employees and "push toward the retention effort." However, the effort overall seems to be shifting from staffing or building new centers on base to programs that aim to have others shoulder some of the burden as well. One potential solution under consideration is to partner with outside groups like the Armed Forces YMCA to operate child care centers off base. The official, who spoke to on the condition their name not be used, said that earlier in May the Pentagon opened one such center in Norfolk, Virginia, which has a large Navy population. "It's a 200-child-space center that is exclusively for DoD families, and we anticipate opening another one this December here in the National Capital Region -- in the Arlington area -- and then another one down in Virginia Beach next spring," the official said. The three centers would provide roughly 600 spaces for children in areas that have some of the longest wait times for military families, the official explained. The official also said that they are pushing forward with a program that buys out space in existing civilian child care centers to boost capacity for military families, with the goal to lease locations in San Diego as well as in the Newport News-Hampton, Virginia, area. "We'll be looking in the next month or so to expand that also to the National Capital Region," the official added. The struggle to build and staff child care centers was already a problem before President Donald Trump's effort to downsize the government. It's an issue that the military has struggled with for years -- and one that has also become a nationwide problem, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Officials within the services have noted that the effort of staffing a child care center is not only challenging, but the pay is not enough. Last fall, a pair of senators even pushed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's predecessor, Lloyd Austin, to increase military child care workers' pay as quickly as possible. "Congress and military families are counting on DoD to update its compensation model for direct care staff expeditiously so DoD can hire and retain more caregivers, and more military families can find the care they need," the senators wrote in a letter to Austin. In March, reported that, because enough day care employees either voluntarily took a deferred resignation offer from the administration or fell within a probationary employment period targeted for firings by the White House's Office of Personnel Management, Hill Air Force Base in Utah was getting ready to scale back its child care center, potentially leaving Gold Star spouses and other defense employees in the lurch. Several weeks later, the base closed one of its two child care centers. Navy officials also told that "administrative delays" had temporarily halted their ability to extend job offers and bring on new child care staffers. "While the Navy is in the process of filling vacant positions due to turnover or need for seasonal staff, military families may experience child care disruptions such as reduced capacity for summer camps, reduced operating hours for certain programs, canceled activities, disenrollment of lower prioritized families, suspension of before-school care, or a pause on new enrollments," the service warned in early May. The Pentagon's considered fixes so far are focused on major metropolitan areas, but service members in more remote areas have said such efforts may offer little help to them due to limited surrounding communities for the military to tap into. When asked about those concerns, the official said the Pentagon hopes to also grow a program that enables spouses to set up small child care centers in their own homes. However, that program is also not without issues. One spouse at Holloman Air Force Base, located in a rural area of New Mexico, told earlier this month that those programs take months to get going because of the vetting and certification processes. Given that families typically live in one place for only a few years, those delays mean that any one house would act as a child care center for only a year or two, assuming an application was filed immediately upon arrival. The official noted that the department has also been working with some states "for the last couple of years to recognize the DoD certification in place of requiring a state license or issuing a state license on the basis that they are a DoD-certified home" in order to enable the program to run more smoothly. Ultimately, the official said that, while the Pentagon is "all-in, committed to quality life for our families ... there's just different nuances in every service on how they execute hiring." As a result, the official said, any issues with breaks in service rest with each individual branch and not the personnel and readiness office. Related: Parents Still Struggle to Get Details on Abuse at Military Day Care Centers Despite Watchdog Probe
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Pentagon Orders Services to Cut PCS Moves by 50% Over Next 5 Years
The Pentagon has directed the military services to cut the amount of money they spend on permanent change-of-station, or PCS, moves for troops in half by 2030 as part of an ongoing effort to reduce spending. The services are tasked with cuts that amount to an initial 10% of the $5 billion PCS budget in 2027 and that increase annually -- hitting 50% by 2030, according to a May 22 memo that was publicly released Wednesday. The memo, by the under secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, says the services should target 'discretionary move' budgets. Pentagon leaders framed the push to cut those PCS moves as a way to reduce costs and provide stability for families. However, department officials did not offer clear definitions on what moves are discretionary and what guardrails will be put in place to keep the cuts from affecting families or careers. Read Next: Pentagon Diverts $1 Billion from Army Barracks to Fund Border Mission Tim Dill, a top official in the Pentagon's Office for Personnel and Readiness, told reporters that the department is giving the services four months to come up with plans to 'reduce the frequency of PCS moves for service members, driving much needed efficiencies for the department and improving the quality of life for warfighters and military families.' The memo charges each service to consider altering troop career pathways or just how many opportunities service members get to serve outside of their specialties. Dill wants the service to 'look at where is a move absolutely necessary to accomplish' giving troops 'the right leadership opportunities,' and where 'a move [is] not necessary to accomplish it.' While the emphasis is being placed on 'discretionary moves,' officials at the Pentagon on Wednesday struggled to define the term, and one explained it as moves that include operational travel inside the U.S., rotational travel to or from overseas, and individual service member training travel -- three categories that include a broad majority of military moves. The memo and Pentagon officials stressed the outcome of the changes should be a boon for families, but they stopped short of offering guarantees on all possible scenarios. The overall idea is also not entirely new. Several years ago, the Marine Corps made a push to offer more opportunities for families to stay put for longer as part of an overhaul of its retention policies. When asked whether a possible outcome of the new policy would be more family separations, given the tightening budget for moves, Dill said they were 'not dictating the way in which this needs to be done and we would want to hear from the services, their concerns … about some of the examples you named.' 'We understand there's some risks associated with some of the methods,' Dill added. Dill also pushed back on the idea that the new policy, framed as protecting military families, would result in single service members bearing the brunt of the burden to support jobs in less popular or less family friendly locations. 'This is not a policy where we just think we need to take the moves away from the families and put it on someone else -- it's for everyone,' he said. Dill also said he is aware that some military locations are just broadly unpopular, and the department is 'very open' to talking to the services about those dynamics. But Dill also said he thought 'that there are service members out there that are perfect for any installation, but we want to make sure that where we can, we match up with service member preferences as much as possible.' According to officials, cutting PCS moves is separate from another effort to address problems with the privatization of PCS household goods shipments and shortcomings with the contractor that is taking over those shipments. In a memo Tuesday to senior leaders and combatant commanders, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced he ordered U.S. Transportation Command to address what he called "recent deficiencies" in performance by the company that manages the $7.2 billion contract to run the department's moving process. Military families have reported numerous issues with scheduling and executing moves that included issues such as packers not showing up, delayed pickups and deliveries, and surprise cancellations. Related: Hegseth Orders Review of Defense Department's Support for Homeschooling
Fox News
28-05-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Pentagon eyes 50% reduction in permanent changes of station as military families brace for moving high season
Just ahead of summer, the high season when military families are packing up for another round of having to relocate, known as permanent change of station (PCS) moves, the Pentagon is now signaling a dramatic shift in policy that could reshape military life for years to come. The Department of Defense (DoD) recently released a memo ordering all military branches to update their PCS policies in an effort to slash relocation spending by half by fiscal year 2030. The May 22 memo directs each service to focus on cutting discretionary travel for operational, rotational and training assignments. "At approximately $5 billion annually, PCS moves are a significant expense," the memo reads. "Lower-priority PCS moves should be reduced for Service members and their families seeking greater geographic stability." The directive mandates a staged budget reduction: 10% by FY 2027, 30% by FY 2028, 40% by FY 2029, and 50% by FY 2030, based on FY 2026 figures adjusted for inflation. Services have 120 days from the memo's signing to submit implementation plans, including career model revisions that support long-term geographic stability. In a briefing with reporters, Acting Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Tim Dill confirmed that the target is ambitious, but not final. "We want them to come back and tell us if that seems like the right number for them," Dill said. "If they come back and say, well, this specific course of action could be harmful, then we don't want to accomplish it." While the effort is framed as a cost-saving measure, the move comes as pressure mounts over quality-of-life issues facing military families. According to the 2024 active duty spouse survey, 32% of military spouses favor leaving the military altogether, a historic high for the biennial survey. Only 48% report being satisfied with military life, the lowest level in nearly two decades. PCS moves are at the center of that discontent. "We just reviewed the results of the 2024 active duty spouse survey, and we hear from them frequently about all of the concerns that are typically associated with PCS moves," Dill said. "It's clear that it's time for the [DoD] to look at reducing the frequency of those moves, especially if we want to maintain the momentum that we have today both in recruiting and the retention of service members." Dill stressed the wide-ranging disruption PCS causes: "Families have to go find a home, they need new arrangements for their children… and they're displaced from the community of support that they've developed over the years in their previous duty station." He emphasized that the new PCS guidance is not about shifting hardship from families to single troops. "PCS moves affect everyone," he said. "We just think we need to take the moves away from the families and put it on someone else — it's for everyone." Still, Dill acknowledged that family experience weighs heavily on whether service members choose to reenlist: "If your family is not supportive of the service member staying in service, that's a very high predictor of whether or not the service member will decide to stay. We want them to stay." The Pentagon estimates roughly 80% of PCS moves are discretionary. "What we're directing the departments to do is purely to examine potential reductions in things that would be defined as discretionary," Dill said. "If they see [a move] as mandatory for mission needs, we're not even asking them to come back with a plan to reduce it." In a statement, Chief Pentagon Spokesperson and Senior Advisor Sean Parnell clarified that this initiative is separate from a broader PCS Task Force established to improve the efficiency of current moves. "This initiative focuses on reducing the costs of PCS and is distinct from the Secretary's direction to establish the PCS Task Force, which is focused on the timely and efficient execution of PCS moves," Parnell said. The PCS overhaul isn't happening in a vacuum. It comes on the heels of a series of other cost-efficiency pushes at the DoD. In a statement issued May 23, Parnell confirmed that the department would be ending its much-criticized "What You Did Last Week" initiative, requiring civilian employees to report weekly accomplishments. First launched in February 2025 under Secretary of Defense guidance, the program was intended to "foster accountability." Parnell said the program would officially conclude May 28, and employees were asked in their final submissions to offer "one concrete idea to enhance efficiency or root out waste."
