During the naval aviation flag panel at Tailhook 2016, a brave junior officer voiced a frustration widely shared within the officer community. Why are mess bills so high, he asked, and is any relief available? An email response from Vice Admiral Mike Shoemaker, then commander, Naval Air Forces, explained correctly that the Navy’s longstanding practice of charging its service members for food while underway was governed by Navy and Department of Defense (DoD) regulations.1 That response, however, did not acknowledge that neither the Air Force nor the Army charges its service members for food while deployed.2 If the Navy matched the other services’ policies, it could provide relief and put money back into its service members’ pockets, improving morale and possibly retention.
Charging all DoD service members for food is the law. Specifically, U.S. Code Title 37 requires that the Secretary of Defense “shall, by regulation, establish rates for meals sold at messes to officers, civilians, and enlisted members.”3 Title 37 states that rates “shall be established . . . to provide reimbursement of operating expenses and food costs” to the associated appropriations.4 In 2016, DoD published a service member meal rate of $10.45 per day. Naval officers pay the full amount while under way, and in port only for the meals they consume.5 For a month at sea, therefore, an officer’s mess bill is approximately $314, to be paid in full, in cash, at the end of each month (a recoupment known as “cash sales” in the ship’s supply department). Enlisted sailors under way get $324 deducted from their monthly pay.
This need not be so. If the Secretary of Defense determines it to be in the best interest of the United States, he is allowed by Title 37 to reduce the meal rate by however much can be attributed to operating expenses.6 Interviews with Air Force and Army officers have confirmed that members of their services retain their basic allowance for subsistence (BAS) and are not charged for messing on board Navy ships, for field rations such as meals-ready-to-eat (MREs), or for food served at deployed eating facilities run by the Dining Facilities Administration Command (DFAC). I benefited from this incongruity while on temporary duty ashore at Al Dhafra Air Base, United Arab Emirates, in 2017. Diners scanned their common access cards when entering the DFAC facility, but DFAC collected no meal money from service members of any rank, officer or enlisted.
The case is clear. The entire cost of food for a ship’s crew while under way should be attributed to operating expenses, and the Navy should discontinue the practice of charging service members for food while under way. Such a policy change would have little impact on the Navy’s operating budget. As things stand, money paid by service members to “reimburse” the Navy for meals is captured as “cash sales” that offset the rations-in-kind (RIK) section of the larger annual appropriated budget for military personnel–Navy.7 According to data obtained in 2017 from the supply officer on board the USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77), Navy service members contributed $28,271,000, just 2.3 percent of the total RIK fiscal year 2016 budget of $1,249,136,000.8 If service member reimbursement were eliminated and no cash sales were collected (officer or enlisted), the RIK account would need to be increased by only 2.3 percent—a figure that pales in significance when for many service members, especially junior ones, food while deployed costs them a great deal more than 2.3 percent of their pay. The benefit to their morale and retention would far outweigh this minor dent to the Navy budget.
In his article, “How Business Analysts Can Identify Quick Wins,” John Parker describes a quick win as “an improvement that is visible, has immediate benefit, and can be delivered quickly . . . something that many stakeholders agree is a good thing.”9 Eliminating supply department cash sales as a way to augment the RIK budget would grant the Navy a quick win to significantly improve the lives of its people. The Navy should match the other services and stop charging deployed service members for their food.
1. VADM Mike Shoemaker, Commander, Naval Air Forces, email to Navy personnel, date unknown.
2. Air Force and Army service members are charged for food when not operationally deployed, just as Navy service members are when on temporary duty training away from home station. In this case, any service member receives the local per diem rate (regular or reduced based on messing availability), which offsets the cost of food. Navy service members receive no per diem while under way, though they do collect sea pay.
3. Cornell Law School, “37 U.S. Code § 1011–Mess operation: reimbursement of expenses.”
4. Cornell Law School, “37 U.S. Code § 1011–Mess operation.”
5. Shoemaker.
6. Cornell Law School, “37 U.S. Code § 1011–Mess operation.”
7. Supply Corps officer on board the USS George H. W. Bush (CVN-77), email to the author, 16 July 2017.
8. Supply Corps officer, email to author.
9. John Parker, “How Business Analysts Can Identify Quick Wins,” 15 February 2013.