New position-vacancy promotion policy in place

Citizen Airman, April, 2006

Air Force Reserve Command has changed the way it determines the number of early officer promotions, known as position-vacancy promotions.

The command is now linking position-vacancy promotion quotas to mandatory promotion board quotas, said Col. Shaun Kelleher, chief of the Directorate of Personnel's Force Management Policy Division in the Office of Air Force Reserve, Washington, D.C. This change in policy went into effect with the February 2006 Air Force Reserve Major Promotion Selection Board.

To obtain the number of position-vacancy promotions, the Air Force Reserve now takes a percentage of its mandatory board quotas. For lieutenant colonel it will be 20 percent of the mandatory board quota. For major, the number will be 30 percent.

Colonel Kelleher said the new policy allows the Reserve to know how many position-vacancy promotions are available before a promotion board convenes and enables officials to predict the number of PV promotions in the future.

In the past, the Reserve applied a percentage to the number of position-vacancy nominations submitted to determine how many people were promoted. There was no way to predict the number of officers submitted for PV consideration, so there was no way to predict the number of resulting PV promotions until the board actually convened.

An analysis showed the number of officers submitted for position-vacancy promotion consideration increased almost 70 percent in the past five years. For promotion to major, the number grew from 107 nominated to almost 180. For promotion to lieutenant colonel, the number climbed from 273 to more than 450.

As a result, the number of officers promoted early to major and lieutenant colonel increased, with no means to accurately predict the number of position-vacancy promotions in the future. This created a major obstacle in the promotion-planning process.

Under the new policy, the number of position-vacancy promotions will decrease and become more predictable.

In 2005, the Reserve selected 107 officers for PV promotion to major. If the new formula had been applied, the number selected would have been 30 percent of 290 or 87.

Last year 182 were picked for PV promotion to lieutenant colonel. The new formula would have yielded 20 percent of 486 or 98 selectees.

"Position-vacancy promotions are to be used for 'exceptionally well-qualified' individuals," Colonel Kelleher said. "With this change, commanders will have to look closer at those being nominated and only forward their truly best-qualified officers."

Although there are no position-vacancy promotions to colonel, the early promotions to major and lieutenant colonel created larger year groups eligible for promotion to colonel. These larger year groups increased the number of officers promoted, which resulted in more colonel selectees than colonel positions available. (AFRC News Service)