August 23, 2011
From Chief of Naval Personnel Public Affairs Office
WASHINGTON (NNS) — The Navy released an updated selective reenlistment bonus award plan Aug. 22 in Navy administrative message (NAVADMIN) 253/11 which officially opens the application window for Sailors to seek those benefits in fiscal year 2012.
While the Navy has 31 overmanned ratings there are 91 specific critical skills that use SRBs as a special incentive pay to help meet critical skill reenlistment benchmarks. The intent of the SRB is to reward those who attain special training in skills most critical to current needs and mission requirements.
“We continue to provide incentives for our most critical skills and top-performing Sailors. However, constant review and occasional change is required to ensure the program is as efficient and effective as possible,” said Rear Adm. Tony Kurta, director, military personnel plans and policy. “This update will continue to maximize retention behavior in our most critical skills within the constraints of our budget.”
The changes contained in this update include the return of five skills that were removed in a previous update due to reaching their FY11 reenlistment quotas, while four skills were deleted from the Intelligence Specialist (IS) rating. All other SRB award levels remain unchanged from NAVADMIN 166/11, released in May 2011.
The quota management policy established in NAVADMIN 166/11 is still in effect and requires Navy Personnel Command’s (PERS 811) approval of SRB requests based upon the availability of reenlistment quotas. Sailors should be aware that within 30 days of a particular skill reaching the needed quota for reenlistments, a “shutdown date” is posted on the PERS-811 webpage of the Navy Personnel Command (NPC) website.
Sailors desiring a reenlistment bonus are encouraged to work with their chain of command as early as possible within their reenlistment window to maximize potential for SRB.
Command career counselors can use the Force Management System (FORMAN) or the Officer Personnel Information System (OPINS) to submit an SRB request.
For commands with limited internet access, career counselors should contact PERS-811 directly at (901) 874-2526/DSN 882, FAX (901) 874-2623/DSN 882 or e-mail EMCM(SS) Irish at douglas.d.irish@navy.mil, Mr. Frank Palomo at francisco.palomo@navy.mil, or PSC Bellew at jeffrey.bellew@navy.mil.