Thursday, September 16, 2010

Nickle and Dime'n in three-quarters time ...

Well, that is one way to save some money and trick-frack the system - but really. Really?
Navy modifies officer promotion phasing plan
From chief of naval personnel public affair
s

As part of the Navy’s multiple efforts to achieve fiscal balance, the Secretary of the Navy has approved a revised phasing plan for active duty officer promotions beginning in fiscal year 2011.
Under previous plans, five percent of officers selected for captain, commander and lieutenant commander were promoted in each of the first eight months of the year, with 15 percent per month during the remaining four months.
Effective Oct. 1, 2010, active duty officers selected for promotion to the grades of captain, commander and lieutenant commander will be promoted at a three percent per month rate for 11 months, with the remaining officers to be promoted in September 2011.
All officers selected for promotion during fiscal year 2011 will be promoted in that fiscal year. This phasing plan does not affect future selection board promotion rates.
Unrestricted line and human resources officers of the full-time support (FTS) community will continue to promote at the same rate as their active duty counterparts.
Vice Adm. Mark Ferguson, chief of naval personnel, said the plan contributes to keeping the Navy’s manpower account in fiscal balance.
“We will continue to fulfill mission requirements for 2011 while controlling growth in manpower costs,” Ferguson said. “We will revisit this plan each fiscal year.”
For more information on line and staff officer promotion phasing plans, visit http://www.npc.navy.mil/Boards/ActiveDutyOfficer/.
VADM F., if you want to save some real money - start cutting programs. There is one which is a negative force-multiplier, that you own, that is ripe for the axe. Send me an email - I'm here to help.

36 comments:

ender said...

Agreed.  This is a cheap accounting trick.  More business thinking invading my warrior culture.  Lets screw our people and hide our costs instead of facing some real decisions. 

Anonymous said...

Stand by for a bunch of alcohol-related incidents following next September's wetting down events.

SCPO said...

What programs are you looking at cutting?

GIMP said...

Leadership 101.  Screw your people first.  Who's running this clown show - Goldman Sachs?

MR T's Haircut said...

Phib would start with the Racist Diversity Directorate... then he would kill TFU.. both are located on the same base as VADM F, hell he probably passed them going into work everyday...

MR T's Haircut said...

Yea next we will be increasing time in rate for E-2 and E-3's and E-4's to reduce out dollars...

and only have rating exams once a year...

Curtis said...

Clever ploy.

Those that know, imagine for an instant the current O force.  Instantaneous promotion from ENS to LTjg and to LT.  No referral to senate for confirmation.  What this tool is doing is the same thing on an 04-06 scale.  You got selected, you got promoted, you didn't get FROCKED without pay.  Remember when we FROCKED?

and seriously, if you want abuse, look what the services did after each of the wars of the last century or even the previous one and took Maj Generals and invited them to stay in at their permanent rank of major.

I'll give F this one.

G-man said...

I am just about ready to delete the bookmark to this blog.  Reason?  My blood pressure can't take it any longer.  Every day Phib finds something more stupid, insipid,insane, irrational than the day before.  As a brand new LT flag aide in DC I was awed by the sheer prfessionalism of the flags I came in contact with on a daily basis.  VADM Fowler, RADM Meyer,VADM Rowden to name a few, and I was an aviator.  they were blackshoes!  I left DC thinking "no wonder we're so much better at what we do than the Air Force and Army".  Now after 10 years of retirment I'm thinking "who da hell are these clowns and how did the system fail so dramatically to put them in positions of leadership - of which they have none".

But then I read Fullbore Friday and decide I can hang on another day.

cdrsalamander said...

G-man!  Don't leave!!!!!  

Oh, and RADM Meyer - yep, I agree; a mench.

John said...

"Balancing the budget on the backs of the poor."

RIF about a dozen superulous flags and their staffs (out of a very large pool) and that should cover the pay.

Delay the promotion date of everyone inside the beltway until 2359 on 30 September.

Salty Gator said...

Hmmmmmm......I wonder if diverse promotions will be affected by this.  Way not to consider 2nd and 3rd order Diversity affects, Admiral.  Now report to CNO for re-education.

Byron said...

A dozen? Half would be a good start. If it were me in charge, there would be one flag for every 5 ships or wings or equivalent groupings. DivDir would be a Lt. JG. Cyber Warfare would be run by a grizzled GMMC. Millington would go away and put into the Pentagon with a sharp WO5 in charge. In otherwords, any command that doesn't put warheads on foreheads directly would not have a flag in command.

Skippy-san said...

A couple of easy fixes right off the bat:

Go to one TYCOM staff-period. Put some whatfront smaller "dets" to handle supply expediting etc-under an O-6 reporting to the TYCOM directly.

Do away with CNIC. Put the shore stations back under the TYCOMS-that would allow you to cut about 1/3 of the CNIC billets right away and the rest could be folded into the TYCOMS for shore station management. Come up with common business rules for Airfor, Surfor, and Subfor and stick to them.

Go to a single Type wing per community in aviation. Every other community has had to consolidate-except for one: F-18's. While we are at it-go to two 15 plane squadrons instead of three 10 plane squadrons per CVW.

Eliminate 4th fleet.

Eliminate 10th fleet.

Reduce joint billets by 1/3.

Eliminate all activities related to diversity.

Take a turn on the aquisition programs and elimate a fair amount of flags in Navsea and Navair.

Those are all things the Navy already has statutory authority to do with the one exceptio of the joint billets.

Grumpy Old Ham said...

...brought to you by the same high-speed, low-drag (sarcasm alert) MBA types that thought changing payday from the last day of the month to the first day of the following month actually saved money...as opposed to just moving an expediture across an FY boundary...

Navig8r said...

[Steps up on soapbox] This a a perfect example of government money management.  I work in the DoD acquisition field, and we are constaly seeing new ideas in the form of "acquisition reform."  Never once have I seen anyone take a serious look at the way we fund programs.  Expring fiscal year money is the biggest source of waste.  If you ever see a case of "pay me now or pay more later," guess what the answer is?  I have seen cases where it would cost over $200 million over the next 20 years to save $2 million in the current fiscal year.  Remember the year they moved the 30 September payday back one day to October 1st?  They "saved" millions of dollars in the previous fiscal year.  Stupid!! Who do they think they are fooling?

Sorry for the rant, [Steps down off soapbox]

Robbo said...

Just because, I ran some numbers.

20% of selectees will get promoted on the same timeline as before.
21% will get promoted 1 month later
An unlucky 2% will get promoted 5 months later.
On average: 1.91 months

That turns out to be about a 2% pay cut compared to the old timeline.

Sure, it's still better than getting passed over, but ...

Grandpa Bluewater said...

Remember when they moved the end of the FY from 30 Jun to 30 Sep? All right, that was the 70's, but it's the same cheap trick, cook the books, doesn't save a dime con game.

Want to save some real money?  New rule: All flag officers above one star are to be frocked, and all revert to one star upon retirement. All special pays freeze at O-7

All Flag Officers would be equal, but some would be more equal than others.

Step 2: Deep six the supergrade uncivil non servants, and all the perks of a flag officer that go with it.

Step3: Make the Aide the Admiral's driver instead of swiping one TAD from a subordinate command. The sailors from the extra duty list from the last mast can wash, wipe and vacuum.

Step 4: Make fly pay, sub pay, you name it pay for staffies hour for hour. No more ride for 2 days and perstrans off at the sea bouy and collect a month's sub pay.

If they want to chisel, I am available for consultation, just bring my pay up to active duty level from my retirement, day for day. Keep the airplane ticket, I'll phone it in.

MR T's Haircut said...

Concur with all except 4th Fleet.. I say shitcan 2nd Fleet

Salty Gator said...

until submarines start showing up again off the coast of the united states.  oh wait.

LT B said...

A colleague said he read in Popular Mechanics that they are marketing and selling full on diesel subs to the drug trafficing crew not just the semi submersibles they build in the jungle.  I say, "Great!  Live fire ASW training!"  I bet our training is better than theirs! 

G-man said...

Skippy
You should have withheld these suggestions.  Worth tens of thousands to some contractor looking for a contract on ways to increase efficiency and cut costs.  Why would Gates or CNO poll those that had "been there done that" when they can shovel funds to an out-source?  Would cerftainly be interesting to do the homework and determine exactly how many billets and how much $$$ could be saved/re-directed/more efficiently used.

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't have a problem with that plan if we promoted in order of merit instead of lineal number.  It ticks me off that I wait for nearly a year to promote while some above zone guy that got selected on the second try promotes immediately.  Start ranking the selectees on merit and promote in that order.

prschoef said...

Or after Korea when Colonels were retained as Sargeants.

ewok40k said...

I propose running the admirals thru simulated Savo using LCS versus Chinese frigates. All those who fail to sink anything (I am not counting on them to stay afloat) are to be retired with the lowest officer grade retirement pay.

xformed said...

Dude;

You handled a full career, because there was more ability to fix the crap in than out.  I vote with Phib.  Haqng on and become a voice here.  Look at all the traffic from important eyeballs he gets.

Even if not directly observed, the effect is loud and clear, and I suspect a sea story or two around here has been used to smooth the process of the currently AD folks.

MR T's Haircut said...

I'm youre huckleberry...

Butch said...

I'd dis-establish all fleets except 2nd & 3rd: they provide forces to COCOM Naval Component Commanders.

Skippy-san said...

Damn-another missed money making opportunity! :( They can hire me as an analyst though.

The TYCOM issues I am pretty familiar with . We did in Japan with 75 people what it takes over 300 to do at Airlant-so I know the savings are there. With a little time I am confident I could give you a billet by billet analysis and a ROM of what the cost savings would be.

Skippy-san said...

Butch,

   How would you handle the Naval Component responsibilites for the overseas COCOMS? If not in a fleet how to you task organize?

xbradtc said...

Oh my. I'm in agreement with Skippy.

Did I just see a pig fly by my window?

Anonymous said...

I wonder how that breaks down USNA vs other accession sources?

DM05 said...

Real results and program choices vs. "activity" and screwing staff. There's some tough choices the big boys get paid for.

PERMDUINS said...

Arghhh!   So everyone now understands that labor isn't cheap. Then how come we still act like it is. Funny business with the books drives away those with integrity and those with a sense of duty, leaving...(uncomfortable gaze at shoe, mirror, elephant).

Skippy-san said...

Care to explain the history of this? I'm curious how it happened.

Curtis said...

Well,

We got CINCPACFLT and had CINCLANTFLT.  All the Fleets fell under them. We could try making them work for a living.  Of course CINCLANT is gone and good riddance.  2 FLEETS should cover it don't you think?

Curtis said...

one reverted to one's permanent rank in the army.  don't know how it worked in the navy.  There were an awful lot of generals that reverted immediately after the war to their permanent rank.  some of them were enlisted ranks.  At Selfridge Air National Guard Base the word was that the base commander reverted to his permanent rank and was offered a job stocking shelves as an enlisted man.  After the war the hate was strong when the USAAC and AUSA split.