The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee recently had a hearing on a bipartisan bill that was originally introduced to Congress in October. This bill is known as the Military Family Stability Act of 2015. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. introduced the bill with cosponsors Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C.
The point of the Military Family Stability Act is to ease the burden of a PCS for military spouses and family members.
All of these senators along with high ranking military officials agree that legislation needs to be created to provide a framework to help military families have stability in their lives and that the Military Family Stability Act may help this.
The Military Family Stability Act is intended to give military families flexibility when a PCS takes place.
As we all know, the one constant in military life is that anything can change at any time. Verbal orders for a PCS aren’t set in stone. You get excited, or not, about a move only to have it changed in a blink of the eye. When you finally get orders on paper families can feel a bit more confident that a move is coming up. Still, things happen and the active duty service member might not PCS at the scheduled time.
All of this instability can create an uneasy situation at home.
Chief of Staff of the Army, General Mark Milley, stated that having stability on the homefront is crucial to operational readiness and that the Military Family Stability Act could potentially help reach those goals. Specifically, he said,
If we want our soldiers to be ready to focus on his combat tasks and training; or when deployed, to focus on the enemy; then we owe that soldier to make sure that their family is being taken care of with good schools, good health care, that the spouse has a job.
The Military Family Stability Act is intended to give military families flexibility when a PCS takes place. It would allow them to leave their current location up to 6 months ahead of the service member’s report date to their new assignment or to stay behind up to 6 months after the service member relocates.
This Military Family Stability Act would allow families to continue to get the housing allowance at the current location with dependents while the service member would receive temporary unaccompanied housing or compensation at their current location. The Military Family Stability Act would particularly help families with working spouses or children in school.
Uprooting your life, especially when you’ve found a job you like or your children are in the middle of a school year can be frustrating. The Military Family Stability Act would allow families to continue in the current location to finish a job or school year. In turn, it would give spouses time to look for new employment and to scout out new schools.
There are some exemptions, but to be eligible for this:
- The spouse must be employed or enrolled in a degree, certificate or license-granting program at the beginning of the covered relocation period.
- The service member and spouse have one or more children in school.
- The spouse or children are covered under the Exceptional Family Member Program.
- The service member or spouse is caring for an immediate family member with a chronic or long-term illness.
- The service member is undergoing a PCS as an individual augmentee or other deployment arrangement.
Army Secretary Patrick Murphy spoke up at the meeting stating that life has become harder for military families since 9/11. He argued that,
It’s the families that have borne the cost, and have been really stressed. We’re trying to do everything possible to make sure that they know that we are committed as an Army team and an Army family.
Everyone on the committee agrees that treating families with respect and taking care of their needs are big factors service members take into consideration when deciding to stay in the military. Hopefully, the Military Family Stability Act will be able to make that decision an easier one.
I was a military brat and travelled around the world when my dad was in the Army. I did enjoy my time as a military brat but did find it difficult as well as my other siblings to leave in the middle of the school year.
Now as a military working spouse it seems to have gotten even more difficult. I am very proud of my father and my spouse for what they did/doing for this country. The military does treat us well but when it comes to finding employment at the new location that treatment doesn’t seem to be as easy. Yes there is the PPP and the military spousal preference but that doesn’t work for all the jobs available at the new locations. Seems like the higher the position spouses are not able to use spousal preference. This to me doesn’t sound fair. If a spouse is well qualified for a position then spousal preference should be granted. As a hiring manager I always had to look at spouses first and if they were qualified and had good references then I wouldn’t deny them a position to help support their family. In these times, dual employment is a must unless you can afford it.
I do see that there are programs out there that help spouses learn a new career path, but this is also limited to spouses of certain ranks. What about the spouses in the ranks that are not qualified?? This should be open to all spouse and not by what rank the spouse is. If congress is trying to take care of families, then please include spouses in these talk and found out what we think. If things don’t change for spouses, then some of us my not have a choice but to stay behind at the current locations while the service member moves on. Answer this question…how healthy is that for military families? I understand there are locations where spouses can’t go to, but that is totally different.
Military moves are supposed to be enjoyable for all but if spouses don’t have opportunities at the new locations to work, etc then the enjoyment isn’t there. The stressors of how to make financially goes up!
We were just talking about this. We relocated in oct 6 weeks after school started. He was out for 2 while we traveled and visited family b4 we headed across country. This flexibility would be great!
Any idea when this will be up for a vote on Congress?
Interesting concept. It makes sense. Isn’t there currently an option where military spouses can file unemployment if they have to PCS with their spouse? (I have no idea if that’s true or not.)
The downside is that I would not be covered by this act. I am an in-home personal trainer and own my own (very small) business. (No, I’m not an MLMer.) I hope to one day be able to train clients virtually, but as I was just launching my in-home business -BOOM- PCS. Plan and the military laughs, am I right? So now I’m starting from scratch with networking, joining professional associations, etc. The monetary amount I can write off on my taxes, but one cannot “write off” the time it takes to become a trusted member of the local community. That’s at least 6 months (if not more) of time, so there’s assumed financial loss there.
I know other military spouses like this — many are photographers. I wonder if it’s harder/easier for them to gain clients in a new location than my profession. My client base is civilians (Baby Boomers and up), so that certainly doesn’t help.
What about not pcsing at all. Moving costs the government alot of money and families as well. We moved 2 yrs ago and are still paying back a $4100 over lbs debt. We want to stay where we are as we have a high school and Jr high child. By time our 3 yrs is up here our son will be going into his Jr yr. We don’t want to move at all. My husband has 4 yrs left til he retires.
This sounds great and all (personally I’d hate to have to move my daughter in the middle of the school year), but I have to wonder what this is going to do to the already inflated PCS costs when services are ultimately going to have to pay families for two moves in stead of one.
Mileage, TLE, hotel costs, the member probably taking leave to help his/her family travel, how many bases have the excess facilities to provide unaccompanied housing to married memebers for 6 months at a time? What impact will this have on DFACs when members reviving BAS are residing in quarters? How much will this impact the workload of our already diminished personnel corps who process PCSs (and the member themselves) when they have to process two PCSs? Will families be allowed two (usually costly to the service) partial DITY moves? If the member is residing in quarters and then his/her family arrives, are they then entitled to 2 wks Permissive TDY for house hunting after they’ve already been on station for 6 months?
At the end of 2013, my husband and I realized that he was set to retire in 2015 and my son was starting high school in 2014. My husband and I asked about using his last retirement move early and moving my son and I home so that he would start school in Aug 2014 and attend only one high school. My son has ADD, 504 plan and under EFMP so we explained in many letters and with great detail the importance of getting my son settled and adjusted over the summer. We went through the entire chain of command, I called military one source, mental health professional, EFMP, primary provider, Tricare, transportation etc and followed all instructions. I got a letter from my son’s primary care provider, from the school, from the unit, we filled out all the requested documents – this was months of work. I started in January of 2014 so we would be ok to move by the end of the school year. We received lots of cooperation minus EFMP losing docs, holding docs, and not following through delaying us 60 days. I went through all of that to just get the government to move us – that is it. We were also told if they did not move us they would reimburse us after the move – we just needed a few signatures. 5 months and at memorial day weekend – still waiting and told we need two more and if we didn’t get them by close of business transporation would be weeks out and stall the move. I had already booked a moving truck as back upl – 5 months of work – we packed all of our stuff, we loaded all of our stuff and we had the biggest truck – my husband had to do two trips from Benning to Bragg to move us for my sons needs. (I am also under EFMP and could not load or unload and this was documented too). We made the move and tried for reimbursement for advance last move – we were then told we could not be reimbursed until after my husband retired. Thousands of dollars out of our pocket and nothing. The military has awesome benefits however when we needed them most I felt that we did not get the help we so begged and worked for – all for my son. I would so hope and pray in the future that this Military Family Stability Act is passed so that no other family has to go through what we went through.