Navy personnel officials are overhauling transfer and re-enlistment rules in an effort to eliminate mismatching sailor end-of-service and transfer dates, which can often be months \u2014 if not years \u2014 apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To do so, though, the Navy needs help from its sailors, as correcting these discrepancies will require volunteers willing to extend their enlistments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere are currently over 61,000 sailors whose enlistment contract ends prior to their projected rotation date,\u201d said Vice Adm. Robert P. Burke in a Navy release today. \u201cThis misalignment causes unexpected gaps in manning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aligning duty station tour lengths with end-of-service dates is critical for the Navy\u2019s efforts to keep commands properly manned. When sailors don\u2019t have enough time on the books to complete the full length of the tour, manning gaps are created which then hurt overall readiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Until now, the Navy has allowed sailors to transfer at one point in time and re-enlist later, a practice that may soon be shut down for good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While bonus money isn\u2019t on the table for the aforementioned volunteers, officials are offering other perks, such as the chance to bypass the Navy\u2019s re-up approval system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Additionally, individual commands are being given more leeway to approve sailor extensions without requiring a sign-off from big Navy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Navy repeatedly called for first-term sailors to agree to at-sea extensions this year, and because of the initial success of that temporary policy, the service has decided to make the option permanent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs of Nov. 30, our approvals reached 1,795, and our average extension length has remained consistent at 15 months for 2,259 additional sea years,\u201d said Lt. Cmdr. Jessica Anderson, spokeswoman for the chief of naval personnel. \u201cWe have 669 sailors crossing the FY17 boundary into FY18 and 995 crossing the FY18 boundary into FY19.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In making the policy permanent, there are some guidelines that become effective immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, all permanent change-of-station orders will require sailors to serve the full tour length. Involved commands are responsible for verifying a sailor\u2019s end-of-enlistment contract matches or exceeds the tour length for their next duty station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Refusals to extend enlistments to accommodate transfers will be documented in sailor service records. It will then be up to Navy Personnel Command to decide if they\u2019ll transfer or not, based on their new command\u2019s needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
New sailors whose remaining enlistment time doesn\u2019t align with a complete tour at their first duty station will be asked to extend before transferring. If these sailors decline, they\u2019ll still transfer, but their new command will be required to sell them on the various benefits to extending sooner rather than later.
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The second modification will be the institution of new enlistment extension rules that allow all sailors, with the exception of those in the nuclear-power program, to extend their current enlistments for up to 48 months to either match their duty station tour length or reach the time required to transfer to a new duty station. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This nearly doubles the previous maximum extension option of 23 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nuclear-trained sailors, meanwhile, are still limited to the 23-month policy unless permission is obtained from the chief of naval personnel. As always, their extensions and reenlistments are controlled directly by the chief of naval personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, sea duty commanding officers are now authorized to extend any first-term sailor enlistments to meet tour lengths at sea, allowing them to bypass the Career Waypoints, or C-Way, re-enlistment system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n