Defense Department Announces Latest Efforts to Improve Quality of Life for Service Members | Article

WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense today announced a new series of initiatives aimed at improving the well-being of service members and their families.

In a memorandum released today, titled “Our Enduring Duty to America’s Service Members and Their Families,” Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III announced a new series of initiatives that are part of his ongoing priority of “Caring for Our People” that began three years ago.

Recent initiatives include:

• Establishing Flexible Spending Accounts for Military Health Care
• Providing better access to free wireless internet in unaccompanied housing
• Reduce the financial burden associated with permanent station changes
• Reduce the cost of purchasing uniforms for enlisted military personnel
• Expanding Spousal Employment and Career Development Opportunities Through the My Career Advancement Account, or MyCAA Program
• Improving access to affordable, quality child care and early childhood education services
• Improving living conditions in remote and isolated settlements

The new initiatives, as well as those of the last three years, were developed after evaluating the experiences of the military. Taken together, these measures aim to ensure the well-being and success of the military, allowing them to better focus on their part of the defence mission.

“From the beginning of my tenure as Secretary of Defense, I have made protecting our citizens a top priority,” Austin said in the memo. “Caring for our troops and their families is a critical readiness issue. Caring for our citizens is fundamental to the Department’s ability to recruit and retain the most talented American patriots and to ensuring that the U.S. military remains the most lethal fighting force on the planet – and it is simply the right thing to do.”

As part of the focus on military and military family health, the department plans to offer military members the opportunity to contribute up to $3,200 of pre-tax income to pay for eligible health care expenses through a Health Care Flexible Spending Account, or HCFSA.

Through the HCFSA, service members will be able to contribute up to $3,200 per year in pre-tax dollars to their accounts and spend that money on things like insurance copays and cost-sharing, deductibles, braces and other orthodontic appliances, eyeglasses and contact lenses, prescription drugs, and wellness treatments like acupuncture, massage, and chiropractic care. HCFSAs are expected to be available to service members for the first time in March 2025.

To help enable unaccompanied junior service members to stay connected to the outside world during their free time, the department has directed the military services to conduct a series of pilot projects to provide wireless Internet connectivity to enlisted service members residing in military barracks.

While wireless Internet access will allow these young service members to access their personal email, banking and entertainment options, the department also expects the access can be used to help service members connect to mandatory online training requirements and other health and life-related resources such as telehealth appointments, Military OneSource and military and family life counselors.

According to department documents, the DOD has long-term plans to establish a “Wi-Fi Connected Force.” For service members housed without a chaperone, access to the provided internet services should not incur a fee.

Military members frequently move to a new base permanently throughout their careers. To ease the burden on themselves and their families of moving from one military base to another, the department is working with partners to adjust the number of days associated with the Temporary Housing Expense (TLE) and Temporary Housing Allowance (TLA).

The new measure extends the temporary useful life from 14 to 21 days for moves within the continental United States. For moves that begin outside the continental United States, the temporary useful life will be extended to 60 days on the departing side, to match the 60 days already allowed on the arriving side. The temporary useful life and temporary useful life allow service members and their families to live in temporary accommodations, such as hotels, while they search for housing at their new duty station, or after they leave their home at their current duty station.

To ensure that enlisted members are able to maintain their uniforms as best as possible, the department has requested a review of the quality of uniforms issued to them and available for purchase. In addition, the department has requested another review that will look at the annual clothing replacement allowance to determine not only whether it is adequate, but also whether there are better ways to provide it to members.

New initiatives also include efforts to improve the recruitment, retention, and work environment of DOD child development professionals; expanding eligibility for participation in the My Career Advancement Account career development program to spouses of active-duty military personnel serving in the grades E-7, E-8, E-9, and W-3; and evaluating three remote and isolated installations through the On-Site Installation Evaluation process. These three installations will be identified in the fall, with evaluations occurring in 2025. This particular initiative advances efforts to understand the capabilities and needs regarding military well-being at remote and isolated installations.

This latest round of efforts, the third in the department’s efforts to improve the lives of service members and their families, is part of a nearly three-year ongoing effort that began in 2021.

In November 2021, for example, Austin responded to military economic concerns. The department then provided relief from the high cost of housing and housing shortages by temporarily increasing the basic housing allowance in some areas and extending temporary housing fees where service members were having difficulty finding housing due to the shortage.

At the same time, the secretary also pushed for extending the length of tours for military personnel serving overseas and in the United States to minimize the hardships associated with permanent changes of station.

In September 2022, Austin followed up on this effort by ordering a review of the basic housing allowance to ensure that what was paid to service members accurately reflected fluctuations in the housing market, and also ordered increases to the basic housing allowance for active-duty service members in 28 military housing areas that had seen an average increase of more than 20% in housing rental costs.

The September 2022 effort also included a directive to fully fund DOD commissaries to reduce cash register prices in an effort to provide service members with a 25% savings compared to private sector grocery stores, and also directed the creation of a “basic needs allowance,” which began in January 2023, to supplement the income of eligible service members.

The cost of household moves was also addressed in the September 2022 Austin memorandum, which ordered a permanent increase in the standard TLE. It also included an increase in the moving allowance for service members up to the E-6 level to offset the out-of-pocket expenses associated with a permanent change of station.

In a March 2022 memo, Austin ordered the implementation of universal pre-K in Defense Department schools, as well as the creation of dependent care flexible spending accounts to allow service members with dependents to set aside up to $5,000 of pre-tax income through payroll deductions for eligible dependent care expenses such as child care, preschool, before- or after-school programs, and summer camps.

The March effort also included additional support for individuals with exceptional family members. As part of the effort, the department established a standard process for enrolling and disenrolling families in the program, required support staff to personally contact each enrolled family at least once a year, better coordinated how support staff are assigned to families, and facilitated the transition between support staff.

The Department’s March 2022 effort also addressed the challenges of finding meaningful employment for military spouses. Through the My Career Advancement Account program, for example, eligible military spouses became eligible for up to $4,000 in financial assistance to earn a bachelor’s, certificate, or associate’s degree.

To advance efforts to support military spouse employment, the President signed into law in January 2023 a bill amending the Military Civil Assistance Act, which requires that professional licenses, except for licenses to practice law, be portable for military members and their spouses when they move between states.