MILITARY ORDERED TO CUT THE COST OF PCS MOVES BY 50% BY 2030
Permanent Change of Station (PCS) moves are a part of military life. While they come with the territory of being in the military, they also a part of your journey.
PCSing is a constant struggle for many families, but just recently, the Pentagon has made a move that could change the lives of thousands of military families.
The Pentagon has issued a new directive: by 2030, military branches must reduce their discretionary PCS budgets by up to 50%. The hope is that PCS moves can finally change in the upcoming years.
PCS Moves are a Normal Part of Military Life
Moving is often more frequent than staying when you are in the military, and PCS moves play a large role. Every two to three years, service members are given new orders, and with those orders comes the expectation that families start over again, somewhere else.
PCS moves are paid for and planned with the government’s support, but this doesn’t mean they are easy by any means. You have to consider different factors, as it is not only packing a few boxes or forwarding your mail — it’s also your spouse leaving behind a career, your children saying goodbye to their friends, going through the process of figuring out new housing, and the hardest part: starting all over again.
After every move, military spouses find themselves unemployed because they don’t have that many choices. As Tim Dill, a senior defense official, said,
“There are many aspects to that challenge and that disruption. One of the biggest ones is military spouses’ employment… sometimes they end up underemployed at that location.”
Not only employment but also the community that milspouses have built is at risk of disappearing. Tim Dill went on to explain,
"They're displaced from the community of support that they've developed over the years in their previous duty station."
Everything is gone with just one move. It’s no wonder that most surveys of military spouses include PCS moves as one of the biggest reasons for dissatisfaction in military life.
The Pentagon Calls for PCS Spending Cuts
On Wednesday, May 28th, the Department of Defense issued a memo instructing all military departments to review what’s happening with PCS moves, especially the discretionary moves.
Just to be clear, the directive is not going to eliminate all PCS moves. Many transfers are still necessary, but they want to make sure that it is all accurate. So, when service members require training, and they are needed in specific mission-critical locations, the relocations will still happen. In simple words, service members could be asked to move far less often.
According to the Pentagon, 80% of PCS moves fall under discretionary. Thus, these moves are not directly required by a mission.
"We estimate that about 80% of [military department] PCS moves are in a discretionary category, and 20% are mandatory," Dill said during the briefing.
"What we're directing the [military] departments to do is purely to examine potential reductions in things that would be defined as discretionary. So, if they see it as mandatory for mission needs. We want them to continue that course of action and do the mandatory moves."
With the new directive, they are instructing all military branches to take a hard look at PCS moves and ask if it’s necessary to relocate a military family.
The Pentagon’s Goal for the Cut
Over the next 120 days, each military branch is expected to have a plan showing how it can reduce its discretionary PCS budget by 50% with FY2026 as the baseline.
The memorandum states that their goal is mainly to increase geographic stability for families, increase department efficiency, and reduce costs for the department.
In addition, the military has struggled to keep service members in their ranks, mainly because their families are exhausted. So, reducing PCS challenges can help more families.
The Pentagon knows there is no one-size-fits-all solution here. As Dill said,
“We haven’t directed that any specific course of action must be implemented… We look forward to having that conversation and figuring out how we can do this best.”
In other words, it’s still a work in progress.
What’s Going to Happen Next?
As the new directive progresses, there will be questions and concerns. Will fewer moves mean more stability? Or, will it mean just fewer resources? Is the military going to continue to support families during PCS moves, or will the cuts be less helpful with moving costs?
Discretionary moves are going to be minimized. However, the Pentagon has made it clear that mission readiness remains the top priority for all. Thus, if a move is needed to fulfill the missions, then so be it.
It’s too early to know exactly how the PCS moves are going to play out. Though, they need to have this done thoughtfully, as it could be a turning point in how the military understands what families are struggling with the most.
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