Newly proposed legislation would allow military families to not only split their PCSes (which many already do), but not have to spend extra cash to do it.
Right now military families stateside can PCS themselves two shifts if they want to. Sometimes they decide to do that because kids or a spouse are still in school or because a spouse needs to hold onto her job for just a little while longer (or wants to go early to find one). But they can't get their household goods moved in a split shipment (unless they are doing a DITY), they are going to be paying out of pocket for at least one set of lodging, and if they live on base they might get the boot if their stay overlaps their spouse's orders elsewhere. If they are arriving to a new duty station early, they probably can't get housing until their orders date.
Splitting an overseas move is even more complicated. The military might give you permission to move in two shifts, but they are only going to pay dislocation allowance once. That means, again, someone is going to be footing the bill and it isn't going to be Uncle Sam.
New legislation that lawmakers hope will be included in the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (yes, I know that's a really long time from now) would change that. Instead of making it a total pain to move in two shifts, qualifying families could apply to have their household goods split and for the military to put the service member up for as long as six months.
Want to know more or whether or not you would qualify? Read the news story here.
Many military spouses who have commented on the proposal on social media have either said they already do a split PCS without any additional financial help or that this won't help them at all -- what they really need, they said, is to not be moved every two to three years.
So I'm wondering - if this legislation passes will it help you? Take our poll and then check out what other readers have said.
[wufoo username="military" formhash="z1j87y1v1k4zpim" autoresize="true" height="357" header="show" ssl="true"]
// var host = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://" : "http://");document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + host + "military.wufoo.com/scripts/widget/embed.js?w=sToWudtk1zO5vnef1WexviNhsFrpEOa70TepMBaeQA8=' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
// ]]>
