Officer Promotions To Be Delayed

“Great! What we really need are some more 0-5s around here…”
MAJ (EUCOM) on the release of the list of 0-5 promotables
--From the Staffer's Hard Sayings Log

It looks like the Navy has figured out a way to save some money -- hold off on paying people for promotions for as long as they can. From the PERS-42 website, you can download a story and a FAQ about the Navy mid-grade officer promotion phasing plan for FY11 and beyond. Excerpts from the story:

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.

While I'm always in favor of Sailors getting all the money that they've earned, I guess I'm not surprised that the Navy would look at this as "low-hanging fruit" to "save" a few million dollars. Hopefully, they'll return the saved money to taxpayers or augment the maintenance budget, rather than using it to fund something like an extra Senior Officer Conference in Phukett where they share lessons learned on how it's stupid to write yourself TAD orders to go visit your girlfriend.

I figure as long as the selected officers can still get frocked, it's not that big a deal. (Their wives might think otherwise, of course.) How do you feel about the concept of frocking?