

Just weeks before the cuts were scheduled to take place, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall made a speech in September 2022 at the Air & Space Forces Association's annual conference, where he announced the cuts would be reversed.

Last year, hundreds of airmen were scheduled to see cuts to their fiscal 2023 Special Duty Assignment Pay, according to budget documents. The press release does disclose that 70 jobs were approved to receive Special Duty Assignment Pay and that, of those, "four were initial requests that were certified for the first time, 48 were recertified at their current rate, 11 increased rate and seven decreased rate to maintain parity with specialties of similar duties, responsibilities and training."īut there's no mention of what specific jobs are seeing increases, decreases or losing the bonus altogether. The June 23 press release from the Department of the Air Force said the new board "focused on identifying personnel in extremely demanding positions with unusually challenging responsibilities based on a defendable scoring methodology, and decisions were made agnostic of budgetary funding." The Department of the Air Force did not respond when asked why the list was not being released publicly, telling only that it "released the FY24 Special Duty Assignment Pay through command channels, reaching those who are directly impacted, and can be found on myFSS." taxpayers have a right to know how much they are paying members of the military." "The Air Force public affairs office is once again showing a reflexive secrecy, withholding unclassified information from the public without justification," Paladino said. The Department of the Air Force's choice not to publicly disclose what jobs are being cut from Special Duty Assignment Pay is concerning to government watchdogs like Jason Paladino, a researcher at the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight.
