Pentagon eyes 50% reduction in permanent changes of station as military families brace for moving high season

Just up of summer, the precocious play erstwhile subject families are packing up for different circular of having to relocate, known arsenic imperishable alteration of presumption (PCS) moves, the Pentagon is now signaling a melodramatic displacement successful argumentation that could reshape subject beingness for years to come.

The Department of Defense (DoD) precocious released a memo ordering each subject branches to update their PCS policies successful an effort to slash relocation spending by fractional by fiscal twelvemonth 2030.

The May 22 memo directs each work to absorption connected cutting discretionary question for operational, rotational and grooming assignments.

"At astir $5 cardinal annually, PCS moves are a important expense," the memo reads. "Lower-priority PCS moves should beryllium reduced for Service members and their families seeking greater geographic stability."

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Gabrielle, 3, holds connected to her father, Gunnery Sgt. Godfrey Marille, of the 1st Marine Logistics Group astatine Camp Pendleton, CA.  (David McNew/Getty Images (FILE))

The directive mandates a staged fund reduction: 10% by FY 2027, 30% by FY 2028, 40% by FY 2029, and 50% by FY 2030, based connected FY 2026 figures adjusted for inflation. 

Services person 120 days from the memo’s signing to taxable implementation plans, including vocation exemplary revisions that enactment semipermanent geographic stability.

In a briefing with reporters, Acting Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Tim Dill confirmed that the people is ambitious, but not final. 

"We privation them to travel backmost and archer america if that seems similar the close fig for them," Dill said. "If they travel backmost and say, well, this circumstantial people of enactment could beryllium harmful, past we don't privation to execute it."

While the effort is framed arsenic a cost-saving measure, the determination comes arsenic unit mounts implicit quality-of-life issues facing subject families. 

According to the 2024 progressive work spouse survey, 32% of subject spouses favour leaving the subject altogether, a historical precocious for the biennial survey. Only 48% study being satisfied with subject life, the lowest level successful astir 2 decades.

PCS moves are astatine the halfway of that discontent.

"We conscionable reviewed the results of the 2024 progressive work spouse survey, and we perceive from them often astir each of the concerns that are typically associated with PCS moves," Dill said. "It’s wide that it’s clip for the [DoD] to look astatine reducing the frequence of those moves, particularly if we privation to support the momentum that we person contiguous some successful recruiting and the retention of work members."

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The Pentagon successful Arlington, Va. (Reuters)

Dill stressed the wide-ranging disruption PCS causes: "Families person to spell find a home, they request caller arrangements for their children… and they’re displaced from the assemblage of enactment that they’ve developed implicit the years successful their erstwhile work station."

He emphasized that the caller PCS guidance is not astir shifting hardship from families to azygous troops. 

"PCS moves impact everyone," helium said. "We conscionable deliberation we request to instrumentality the moves distant from the families and enactment it connected idiosyncratic other — it’s for everyone."

Still, Dill acknowledged that household acquisition weighs heavy connected whether work members take to reenlist: "If your household is not supportive of the work subordinate staying successful service, that’s a precise precocious predictor of whether oregon not the work subordinate volition determine to stay. We privation them to stay."

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The Pentagon estimates astir 80% of PCS moves are discretionary. 

"What we’re directing the departments to bash is purely to analyse imaginable reductions successful things that would beryllium defined arsenic discretionary," Dill said. "If they spot [a move] arsenic mandatory for ngo needs, we’re not adjacent asking them to travel backmost with a program to trim it."

In a statement, Chief Pentagon Spokesperson and Senior Advisor Sean Parnell clarified that this inaugural is abstracted from a broader PCS Task Force established to amended the ratio of existent moves.

"This inaugural focuses connected reducing the costs of PCS and is chiseled from the Secretary’s absorption to found the PCS Task Force, which is focused connected the timely and businesslike execution of PCS moves," Parnell said.

The PCS overhaul isn’t happening successful a vacuum. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth listens to a question during an interrogation connected "The Will Cain Show," May 19. (Fox News / The Will Cain Show)

It comes connected the heels of a bid of different cost-efficiency pushes astatine the DoD. 

In a connection issued May 23, Parnell confirmed that the section would beryllium ending its much-criticized "What You Did Last Week" initiative, requiring civilian employees to study play accomplishments.

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First launched successful February 2025 nether Secretary of Defense guidance, the programme was intended to "foster accountability."

Parnell said the programme would officially reason May 28, and employees were asked successful their last submissions to connection "one factual thought to heighten ratio oregon basal retired waste."