CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE

A

The Warrant

Officer Ranks:

Adding Flexibility

to Military

Personnel

Management

P A P E R

CBO

FEBRUARY 2002

The Warrant Officer Ranks:

Adding Flexibility to Military

Personnel Management

The Congress of the United States

Congressional Budget Office
NOTES

Numbers in the text and tables may not add up to totals because of rounding.

All years referred to in this paper are fiscal years unless otherwise indicated.

Cover photos appear courtesy of the Department of Defense. (From top to bottom,

right-hand column) Photo by Specialist Gary A. Bryant, U.S. Army; photo by Petty

Officer 1st class Tina M. Ackerman, U.S. Navy; and photo by Specialist Tracey

L. Hall-Leahy, U.S. Army.
PREFACE

Recently, some policymakers and analysts have suggested that the Department of

Defense might consider making greater use of the warrant officer ranks as a tool for

attracting and retaining high-quality, skilled individuals, particularly in occupations

with attractive civilian alternatives. Warrant officers, who account for only about 1.1

percent of active-duty military personnel, currently serve as senior technical experts

and managers in a wide variety of occupational specialties and, in the Army, as pilots

of helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. In rank, they fall between enlisted personnel

and commissioned officers (second lieutenant or ensign through general or admiral).

Because the number of warrant officers is small, few people outside the individual

services' communities of warrant officers know very much about their roles and

management. That lack of knowledge hampers any discussion of possible new roles

for warrant officers.

This Congressional Budget Office (CBO) paper describes current management

practices for warrant officers and for a related group, called limited duty officers, in the

Navy and the Marine Corps. It also examines the potential for increasing the number

of warrant officers as a way to attract well-qualified individuals to serve in technical

occupations, retain personnel in whom the services have invested substantial training

resources, and retain exceptional performers regardless of occupation. The paper was

prepared at the request of the Subcommittee on Personnel of the Senate Committee on

Armed Services. In keeping with CBO's mandate to provide objective and nonpartisan

analysis, the paper contains no recommendations.

Richard L. Fernandez of CBO's National Security Division prepared this paper

under the general supervision of Deborah Clay-Mendez and Christopher Jehn. The

author wishes to thank CBO colleagues Dawn Regan, Mark Musell, David Moore, and

Barbara Edwards for their thoughtful comments on an earlier draft of the paper.

Christine Bogusz edited the manuscript, Leah Mazade proofread it, and Cindy

Cleveland prepared it for publication. Kathryn Winstead produced the cover, Lenny

Skutnik produced the printed copies, and Annette Kalicki prepared the electronic

versions for CBO's Web site (www.cbo.gov).

Dan L. Crippen

Director

February 2002

CONTENTS

I INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 1

Why Is There Interest in Warrant Officers? 3

An Overview of Warrant Officer and LDO Programs 4

II THE ROLES AND OCCUPATIONS OF WARRANT

OFFICERS AND LIMITED DUTY OFFICERS 7

Roles 7

Occupations 11

III MANAGEMENT OF WARRANT OFFICERS

AND LIMITED DUTY OFFICERS 17

Management Models 17

Accession 19

Promotion 23

Separation 29

IV WHO BECOMES A WARRANT OFFICER

OR LIMITED DUTY OFFICER? 31

Compensation of Warrant Officers 31

The "Quality" of New Warrant Officers 38

Opportunities to Become a Warrant Officer or LDO 40

V ADAPTING THE WARRANT OFFICER

SYSTEM TO MEET NEW GOALS 43

An Early-Select Model to Aid Recruiting 44

A Midcareer Approach to Improve Retention 45

A Midcareer Approach to Improve the

Quality of Career Personnel 46

Combining Approaches 47

Cost-Effectiveness Considerations 49

Conclusion 51
vi WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

APPENDIXES

A AN OVERVIEW OF MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FOR

ENLISTED PERSONNEL AND COMMISSIONED OFFICERS 53

Enlisted Personnel 53

Commissioned Officers 55

B MILITARY BASIC PAY AND REGULAR

MILITARY COMPENSATION 57

TABLES

1. Existing Models of Warrant Officer Management 5

2. Distribution of Active-Duty Personnel by Group and Service,

Fiscal Year 1999 8

3. Distribution of Warrant Officers and Limited Duty Officers

and of Commissioned Officers in Pay Grade O-4,

by Officer Occupational Category, Fiscal Year 1999 12

4. Distribution of Warrant Officers and Limited Duty Officers

and of Enlisted Personnel in Grades E-6 and Above, by

Enlisted Occupational Category, Fiscal Year 1999 14

5. Distribution of Warrant Officers and Limited Duty Officers

by Pay Grade Within Each Service, Fiscal Year 1999 18

6. Distribution of Warrant Officer and Limited Duty Officer

Accessions by Last Pay Grade, Fiscal Years 1998-1999 21

7. Median Months in Pay Grade at Promotion and Implied

Years of Warrant Officer Service, Fiscal Year 1999 25

8. Recent Promotion Opportunities for Warrant Officers 27

9. Comparison of the Quality of Warrant Officer and Limited

Duty Officer Accessions with That of Peers in Their Enlisted

Occupational Specialties, Fiscal Years 1998-1999 40
CONTENTS vii

10. Measures of the Opportunity for Enlisted Personnel to Serve

as Nonaviator Warrant Officers or Limited Duty Officers 41

B-1. Annual Basic Pay and Regular Military Compensation for

Selected Years of Service, by Pay Grade, as of July 1, 2000 58

FIGURES

1. Distribution of Warrant Officer Accessions by Years of

Service at Accession, Fiscal Years 1998-1999 20

2. Distribution of Limited Duty Officer Accessions by Years

of Service at Accession, Fiscal Years 1998-1999 23

3. Distribution of Warrant Officer Promotions, Within Pay

Grade, by Years of Service Completed, Fiscal Years 1998-1999 28

4. Survival Rates for Warrant Officers Eligible to Retire 30

5. Typical Pay Profiles for Direct-Select and Early-Select

Warrant Officers and Other Personnel, by Age, Based on

Army Selection and Promotion Practices 33

6. Typical Pay Profiles for Midcareer Warrant Officers and Other

Personnel, by Age, Based on Army Selection and Promotion

Practices 35

7. Typical Pay Profiles for Limited Duty Officers, Late-Career

Warrant Officers, and Other Personnel, by Age, Based on

Navy Selection and Promotion Practices 36

BOXES

1. The Services’ Definitions of Warrant Officers and Limited

Duty Officers 9

2. The Navy’s Description of Differences Among Its Senior

Noncommissioned Officers, Warrant Officers, and

Limited Duty Officers 10

1. Throughout this paper, the term "commissioned" is reserved for officers in the grade of O-1 (second

lieutenant or Navy ensign) and above. In fact, however, all warrant officers except those in the lowest

grade also receive commissions; only appointments in the grade of W-1 are made by "warrant" by the

secretary of the service concerned. See section 571, title 10 of the U.S. Code.

2. Assuming the 5 percent pay raise for grades E-6 and above was effective on January 1, 2002, it would

add about $590 million to defense costs in 2002 and $820 million in 2003, the first full fiscal year

under the higher pay rates. Those figures reflect the personnel strength numbers reported in

Department of Defense, Selected Military Compensation Tables, 1 January 2001.

The estimate for the number of enlisted positions that could be converted to positions for warrant

officers was derived by comparing average rates of compensation for personnel in grades E-6 through

E-9 with rates for personnel in grades W-1 through W-5, excluding Army aviators. Thus, the estimate

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY

Warrant officers are undoubtedly the least studied and least understood of the three

main groups of military personnel. That status reflects their small numbers; at the

end of 1999, only about 15,100 warrant officers were serving on active duty in the

Army, Navy, and Marine Corps (none serve in the Air Force). In contrast, more than

1.1 million enlisted personnel—the group from which warrant officers are drawn—

and 200,000 commissioned officers were serving.1

 Although probably best known

for their role as helicopter pilots in the Army, warrant officers serve in virtually every

military occupational area; most warrant officers, even in the Army, are not pilots.

Recently, some policymakers and analysts have suggested that the

Department of Defense (DoD) might consider making greater use of the warrant

officer ranks as a tool for attracting and retaining high-quality, skilled individuals,

particularly in occupations with attractive civilian alternatives. Offering both higher

pay and greater status than enlisted service, the warrant ranks might provide a more

competitive career path for potential recruits who aspire to more than just a high

school education, for experienced service members with skills that are valuable to the

military, and for very capable people whose superior abilities may not be adequately

recognized in the enlisted ranks. Like enlistment and reenlistment bonuses, expanded opportunities for warrant officers could be focused on specific occupational

areas, an important advantage over a general pay raise whose effects, and costs, are

across the board. Expanded use of warrant officers might also be considered as an

alternative to raising the pay of midcareer and senior enlisted personnel, which some

analysts argue is needed to bring the pay of those personnel into line with the pay of

similarly educated workers in the private sector. For the cost of a 5 percent raise for

personnel in the top four enlisted pay grades, roughly one in five of their positions

could be converted into positions for warrant officers.2

 On average, warrant officers
2 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

reflects a steady state rather than the transition period in which the new warrant officers would be in

the lower pay grades. The elements of compensation were basic pay, the allowances for food and

housing, the employer’s share of Social Security taxes, and the amount that the Department of Defense

sets aside to fund the future retirement benefits of current military personnel. The pay rates were those

in effect on July 1, 2001.

3. The actual raise in basic pay that enlisted personnel receive when they become warrant officers is less

than 30 percent because that figure reflects an average for all enlisted personnel in grades E-6 and

above, including many who do not advance beyond pay grade E-6 and so would be unlikely to qualify

for warrant service under current policies.

(excluding the Army’s aviators) receive 30 percent more in basic pay than personnel

in the top four enlisted pay grades receive.3

This paper provides information that policymakers need in considering

alternative personnel structures that would make greater use of the warrant officer

ranks. It describes the current policies and procedures governing warrant officers—

how they fit into the personnel structure, where they come from, how they are

managed, and who becomes one—as well as management practices for a closely

related group in the Navy and the Marine Corps called limited duty officers (LDOs).

Although some of that information is available in various published sources, most of

the data presented here derive from the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO's)

analysis of the career paths of individual service members and are not readily available elsewhere.

The paper finds that current law permits considerable flexibility in the management of warrant officers, flexibility that has allowed the services to use the

warrant officer system in markedly different ways. It concludes both that warrant

officer programs designed to alleviate problems with personnel quality or experience

in the enlisted ranks are feasible within current law and that those programs could be

based on management practices already in use by one or more of the services.

Although the paper does not attempt to compare the costs and benefits of an

expanded warrant officer system with those of alternative approaches to improving

recruiting and retention, it does identify some of the questions that such an analysis

would have to address. Among those questions are what value people place on

current compensation in comparison with deferred compensation and what value

potential warrant officers place on the status of warrant service in comparison with

enlisted service. Because those questions are difficult to answer with existing data,

the services might decide to test the concept of an expanded warrant officer system

in some small occupational area.
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 3

4. Beth J. Asch, M. Rebecca Kilburn, and Jacob A. Klerman, Attracting College-Bound Youth into the

Military: Toward the Development of New Recruiting Policy Options, MR-984-OSD (Santa Monica,

Calif.: RAND, 1999).

5. Quoted in Vince Crawley, “Big Changes on the Way for Career Enlisted Pay?” Navy Times (January

8, 2001), p. 9.

The paper's discussion assumes the reader has a general understanding of

management practices for enlisted personnel and commissioned officers. For readers

with little knowledge of those management practices, Appendix A provides an

overview.

WHY IS THERE INTEREST IN WARRANT OFFICERS?

Reports of problems in recruiting and retention during the late 1990s spurred a search

for new approaches to meeting the services' personnel needs, but the specific idea of

expanding opportunities for warrant officers can be traced more to concerns about

the long-term needs of the military. (Indeed, in 2000, all of the services met their

recruiting goals, and although both the Air Force and the Navy fell short of their

goals for retention, the latter service reported sharp improvement.) For example, a

1999 study by RAND, a California-based think tank, documented the growing

tendency for high school graduates to proceed directly to college and discussed a

rising gap between the earnings of workers with only a high school education and

those with some college training or a college degree.4

 The study suggested the

possibility of attracting graduates of two- or four-year college programs into the

military but questioned whether enlisted rates of pay would be adequate inducement.

Among the more prominent advocates of an expanded role for warrant

officers is Bernard Rostker, who served as Undersecretary of the Army and

Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. In late 2000, for example,

Rostker cited a growing need for computer-network administrators to support the

“digitized” forces of the future in calling for opening the warrant ranks to more hightech specialists. “Today, we train them and they leave us at $30,000 [a year in pay],”

he said to reporters. “Then they show up the next day working for the contractor at

$60,000.”5

In addition to providing a possible solution to specific recruitment or

retention problems, expanded use of the warrant ranks could simply be a better way

to manage the personnel of a modern military. Under the enlisted personnel

structure, the services have only limited flexibility to pay people according to their

occupations and even less flexibility to manage careers in ways that are consistent

with the training and experience requirements of different jobs. Many studies,

including one completed as part of the review of DoD programs ordered by Secretary
4 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

6. Admiral David Jeremiah, U.S. Navy (Retired), “Special DoD News Briefing on Morale and Quality

of Life” (Department of Defense, June 13, 2001). For an example of a study recommending different

career lengths in different occupational areas, see Robert L. Goldich, Military Retirement and

Personnel Management: Should Active Duty Military Careers Be Lengthened? CRS Report for

Congress 95-1118 F (Congressional Research Service, November 14, 1995).

7. Following the services' practice, this paper uses the term "technician" to refer to all warrant officers

other than aviators and a small group in the Marine Corps called infantry weapons officers.

of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, have criticized that one-size-fits-all approach to

military personnel management.6 Redefining the roles of warrant officers, and

increasing their numbers, could be one of the less radical ways to introduce greater

flexibility into the personnel management system.

Although this paper focuses on the relationship between the careers of

enlisted personnel and warrant officers, DoD might also consider whether the warrant

officer career path, and the closely related career path of limited duty officers, would

be a cost-effective alternative for positions that are now being filled by conventional

commissioned officers. Both warrant officers and LDOs tend to have long careers—

in some cases exceeding 30 years of total service—in which they gain expertise in

particular fields. In contrast, typical career paths for commissioned officers move

them quickly through a variety of assignments to prepare some fraction of them for

senior leadership positions.

AN OVERVIEW OF WARRANT OFFICER AND LDO PROGRAMS

The services view warrant officers, apart from the Army's warrant officer aviators,

as senior technical experts and managers. Warrant officers serve repeatedly in

similar positions, without the succession of broadening assignments typical of the

careers of commissioned officers. In comparison with commissioned officers, they

are heavily concentrated in engineering and maintenance occupations and, in some

of the services, in intelligence and administrative positions.

The system for managing warrant officers is so flexible that several different

management models coexist within the services (see Table 1). The Army manages

its warrant officer aviators under an early-select model, choosing most aviators from

among enlisted personnel in their first or second enlistment terms and the rest directly

from civilian life. Although promotions are slow for that group, their early selection

places their pay squarely between that of enlisted personnel and commissioned

officers of the same age, and the program attracts some of the best people in the

junior enlisted ranks.

Both the Army and the Marine Corps manage their technician warrant officers

under a midcareer model.7

 They select enlisted personnel with moderate experience
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY 5

in an enlisted occupation that is relevant to their future duties as warrant officers,

give them additional technical training, and then promote them more rapidly than

under the early-select model. Midcareer selection offers more modest financial

rewards than early selection does, however, particularly for people who would have

advanced rapidly through the enlisted ranks.

The Navy selects its warrant officers from among enlisted personnel late in

their careers and generally does not give them additional training before they assume

their new duties. Most of those selected are in grade E-7 (chief petty officer); the rest

have advanced even farther. Although the Navy bypasses the lowest warrant officer

pay grade, appointing most selectees in grade W-2, a late-career transfer to the

warrant ranks yields only a small initial pay advantage over enlisted service for

TABLE 1. EXISTING MODELS OF WARRANT OFFICER MANAGEMENT

Army

Aviator

Army

Technician

Marine Corps

Technician

Navy

Technician

Selection Point Early career

(0-8 years

of service)

Midcareer

(9-12 years

of service)a

Midcareer

(10-15 years

of service)

Late career

(14-20 years

of service)

Enlisted Specialty Any Limited,

based on

warrant

specialty

(many excluded)

Limited,

based on

warrant

specialty

Limited,

based on

warrant

specialty

"Quality" of

Selectees

Compared with

Enlisted Peers

Well above

average

Above

average

Above

average

Average

Pay Advantage

over Enlisted

Peers

Large Modest Modest Small

Speed of

Promotion

Slow Moderate Moderate

to rapid

Rapid

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.

a. The years shown were typical in 1998 and 1999. Current Army policy calls for selecting as technician warrant officers

personnel with four to six years of experience in their enlisted occupation.
6 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

someone with good prospects for promotion. The Navy's LDO program, which

selects enlisted personnel somewhat earlier and places them in the ranks of

commissioned officers—most begin as an ensign (O-1)—offers much faster pay

growth and appears to attract more-capable people.

A person's chances of becoming a warrant officer or limited duty officer

depend on his or her service and occupational specialty. Overall chances are greatest

in the Marine Corps and smallest in the Army (excluding aviators). The Army also

limits opportunities most severely by occupational specialty; nearly half of Army

personnel in grade E-6 (the most common grade among people selected for warrant

service) work in specialties that do not directly feed into any warrant officer

specialty. By contrast, only about 7 percent of Navy personnel have no direct route

to warrant officer or LDO service.

The legislation governing the warrant officer system gives the services

considerable flexibility in how they manage personnel. That flexibility and the

diversity of management models in use suggest that if the services chose to expand

their warrant officer ranks to help meet goals in enlisted recruiting and retention, they

would not have to explore uncharted territory. The early-select model that the Army

uses in managing its aviators, for example, could be adapted to aid recruiting in

highly technical occupations. A service could offer immediate warrant status to some

recruits who had obtained valuable technical training in civilian institutions and

select others after they had demonstrated their competence in service schooling and

completed an initial enlisted apprenticeship. The midcareer model could be used in

a program designed to improve retention, either in selected occupations requiring

lengthy training and offering high pay in the private sector or among top performers

in various occupations.

If the services were to expand their warrant officer systems to help meet

recruiting and retention goals, they would probably find that some adjustments were

desirable. Management adaptations would naturally depend on which goal was being

addressed but might include allowing top performers to advance much more rapidly

than people with average skills or providing for more rapid advancement in some

occupations than in others. If a greater role for warrant officers was found to be costeffective, legislative changes might be pursued to create a new warrant officer pay

grade above the existing grades, ease the rules governing mandatory separation of

warrant officers, and possibly increase pay for warrant officers generally.
1. This paper does not examine the Coast Guard, which is under the jurisdiction of the Department of

Transportation. About 4.1 percent of Coast Guard personnel are warrant officers.

CHAPTER II

THE ROLES AND OCCUPATIONS OF WARRANT OFFICERS

AND LIMITED DUTY OFFICERS

Warrant officers and limited duty officers make up only about 1.4 percent of activeduty personnel (see Table 2). Even in the Army, the service with the heaviest

concentration of warrant officers, technician warrant officers account for only about

1.3 percent of personnel; another 1.1 percent are aviators. The Navy has the longest

tradition of warrant officer service, yet barely 0.5 percent of Navy personnel are

warrant officers. Limited duty officers, however, account for another 1.0 percent of

Navy personnel.1

This chapter looks at what the small number of warrant officers and limited

duty officers do in the services that employ them. In general, the services view

personnel in both groups as senior technical experts, although Army warrant officer

aviators do not appear to fit that definition well. Excluding those aviators, warrant

officers tend to be concentrated in engineering and maintenance specialties,

particularly in the Navy.

ROLES

The three services that employ warrant officers define their roles in essentially

identical terms (see Box 1). Warrant officers are technical specialists serving in

positions that require the authority of an officer. Their assignments are repetitive in

nature rather than offering the broadening experiences required as preparation for

higher command. Except for Army aviators and a few others, warrant officers' jobs

are closely related to the occupational specialties they held as enlisted personnel;

each warrant specialty is "fed" by a limited number of enlisted specialties. Compared

with the occupational specialties of commissioned officers, those of warrant officers

are more narrowly defined (and more numerous).

Limited duty officers in the Navy and the Marine Corps fill roles that, to an

outsider, can seem strikingly similar to those of warrant officers. The differences in

the formal definitions of warrant officers and LDOs are subtle, focusing on the

degree of authority and responsibility as well as the breadth of expertise required (see

Box 1). The occupational specialties of warrant officers and LDOs show considerable overlap; almost every Navy warrant officer specialty has a corresponding LDO
8 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

specialty and vice versa, and most Marine Corps LDO specialties can also be held by

warrant officers. Marine Corps LDOs must first serve as warrant officers, but the

Navy—although it accepts warrant officer applicants—draws most of its limited duty

officers directly from the enlisted ranks.

When the Navy reexamined its senior noncommissioned officer (NCO),

warrant officer, and LDO programs in 1990, it produced what is probably the clearest

statement of the differences among the groups (see Box 2). (Depending on the

service, the term “noncommissioned officer” can refer to personnel in grades E-4 and

above or E-5 and above.) The Navy's statement emphasizes the supervisory,

leadership, and training roles of senior NCOs within an enlisted rating (occupational

specialty). At the highest grade, the NCO's role may extend to matters stretching

across “the full Navy rating spectrum.” The warrant officer is a technical leader and

TABLE 2. DISTRIBUTION OF ACTIVE-DUTY PERSONNEL BY GROUP AND

SERVICE, FISCAL YEAR 1999

Service Enlisted

Commissioned

Officer

Warrant

Officer Total

Limited Duty

Officera

Number

Army 396,155 66,104 11,491 473,750 *

Navy 314,286 52,136 1,757 368,179 3,687

Marine Corps 154,830 16,055 1,839 172,724 438

Air Force 286,170 70,321 0 356,491 *

All Services 1,151,441 204,616 15,087 1,371,144 4,125

Percentage of Total

Army 83.6 14.0 2.4 100.0 *

Navy 85.4 14.2 0.5 100.0 1.0

Marine Corps 89.6 9.3 1.1 100.0 0.3

Air Force 80.3 19.7 0 100.0 *

All Services 84.0 14.9 1.1 100.0 0.3

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office from data supplied by the Defense Manpower Data Center.

NOTE: * = not applicable.

a. Limited duty officers are included under commissioned officers. Numbers of LDOs reflect commissioned officers with

a primary designator (Navy) or military occupational specialty (Marine Corps) that is assigned to LDOs.
CHAPTER II ROLES AND OCCUPATIONS 9

BOX 1.

THE SERVICES' DEFINITIONS OF WARRANT

OFFICERS AND LIMITED DUTY OFFICERS

Warrant Officer

Army. "An officer appointed by warrant by the Secretary of the Army, based on a sound

level of technical and tactical competence. The Warrant Officer is a highly specialized

expert and trainer who, by gaining progressive levels of expertise and leadership, operates,

maintains, administers, and manages the Army's equipment, support activities, or technical

systems for an entire career." (Department of the Army, Warrant Officer Professional

Development, Pamphlet 600-11, December 30, 1996, p. 3)

Navy. "The CWO [chief warrant officer1

] Program provides technically oriented

commissioned officers to perform duties requiring technical competence in specific enlisted

occupational fields and the authority and responsibility greater than that required of chief

petty officers." (Department of the Navy, Secretary of the Navy Instruction 1130.3C, July

30, 1992)

Marine Corps. "[A] technical specialist who performs duties that require extensive

knowledge, training, and experience with systems or equipment which are beyond the duties

of staff non-commissioned and unrestricted officers." (United States Marine Corps, "USMC

Restricted Officer Program," briefing for the Congressional Budget Office by Major

Michael R. Pfister, September 25, 2000)

Limited Duty Officer

Navy. "The LDO Program provides technically oriented commissioned officers to perform

duties requiring the authority, responsibility and managerial skills of commissioned officers,

but limited to broad enlisted occupational fields outside the normal development pattern of

the unrestricted line, the restricted line or staff corps competitive categories." (Department

of the Navy, Secretary of the Navy Instruction 1130.3C, July 30, 1992)

Marine Corps. "Technical specialist who performs duties that require extensive knowledge,

training, and experience with systems or equipment which are beyond the duties of a warrant

officer and senior unrestricted officer." (United States Marine Corps, "USMC Restricted

Officer Program," briefing for the Congressional Budget Office by Major Michael R.

Pfister, September 25, 2000)

______________________

1. All three services refer to warrant officers in pay grade W-2 and above as chief warrant

officers. The Navy does not use pay grade W-1 and so refers to its chief warrant officer

(CWO) program.
10 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

BOX 2.

THE NAVY'S DESCRIPTION OF DIFFERENCES AMONG

ITS SENIOR NONCOMMISSIONED OFFICERS, WARRANT

OFFICERS, AND LIMITED DUTY OFFICERS

Senior Noncommissioned Officer

“E-7: Technical authority and expert within a rating. Directly leads, supervises, instructs

and trains lower rated personnel.

“E-8: Senior technical supervisor within a rating or career field. Primarily responsible for

leadership, supervision and training oriented to system and subsystem maintenance,

repair and operation. If warranted by manning, could act in the role of MCPO

[master chief petty officer—E-9] in terms of leadership, administrative and

managerial responsibilities.

“E-9: Senior enlisted leader responsible for matters pertaining to leadership, administrative

and managerial functions involving enlisted ratings. The MCPO is expected to

contribute in matters of policy formulation as well as implementation within his/her

occupational field or across the full Navy rating spectrum.”

Warrant Officer

“A technical leader and specialist who directs technical operations in a given occupational

specialty and serves successive tours in that specialty. Remains the technical expert.”

Limited Duty Officer

“Technical leader filling leadership and management positions in a broad technical field

requiring a background outside the normal pattern for unrestricted and restricted line

officers. With seniority becomes more the ‘officer’ and less the ‘technician.’” 

__________________

SOURCE: Navy Occupational Development and Analysis Center, A Review of Navy E-7, E-8, E-9,

Warrant, and Limited Duty Officer Occupational Classification Structures" (October

1990), p. 2.

specialist who “directs technical operations.” LDOs fill “leadership and management” positions and, as they reach the higher ranks, become “more the ‘officer’ and

less the ‘technician.’” Army descriptions of occupational duties tend to convey

distinctions similar to the Navy's, with senior NCOs as supervisors and warrant

officers as technical managers.

Notwithstanding the Navy's seemingly clear distinctions, a telling indication

of how subtle the difference is between a warrant officer and a senior noncommissioned officer comes from the services' differing responses to the introduction of

the two most senior enlisted pay grades—E-8 and E-9—in 1958. The Air Force

elected to discontinue its warrant officer program, recently noting that the decision
CHAPTER II ROLES AND OCCUPATIONS 11

2. Air Force response to a Congressional Budget Office request for information provided by the Office

of Budget & Appropriations Liaison on November 9, 2000.

“cut out an additional management layer and a separate personnel management

system, and created increased promotion opportunity for the senior enlisted.”2 The

Navy initially decided to eliminate warrant officers as well, and to expand its LDO

program. Four years later, however, the Navy reinstated the warrant officer program,

a decision that may have reflected, in part, the Navy's long tradition of warrant officer

service, which dates from that service's earliest years. The Army had completed a

review of its warrant officer program in 1957 and apparently did not consider

eliminating that program in response to the introduction of the new pay grades.

The most obvious difference among senior enlisted personnel, warrant officers,

LDOs, and commissioned officers other than LDOs lies in their pay. Although the

pay scales overlap considerably, warrant officers’ pay generally falls between that of

senior noncommissioned officers and commissioned officers—usually closer to the

former. Limited duty officers receive the same benefits as other commissioned

officers, but because they previously served at least four years in the enlisted ranks,

their basic pay through grade O-3 is somewhat higher than that of other officers in

those grades. (The pay grades O-1E through O-3E apply to such personnel.) New

warrant officers typically earn about 17 percent to 20 percent more in basic pay than

they did as enlisted personnel, and new LDOs in the Navy—serving in the lowest

officer grade (ensign)—earn another 2 to 7 percentage points more. Those raises,

however, leave the pay of both groups about 40 percent below that of commissioned

officers with the same amount of military service who entered directly from civilian

life. (Chapter IV discusses warrant officer and LDO selection practices and pay

profiles more fully.)

OCCUPATIONS

Warrant officers and limited duty officers are drawn most heavily from equipment

repair specialties in the enlisted ranks; thus, in comparison with commissioned

officers, they tend to be heavily concentrated in engineering and maintenance

occupations (see Table 3). More than half of all warrant officers and LDOs,

excluding the Army's aviators, are found in such occupations, whereas less than 20

percent of commissioned officers serve in engineering and maintenance specialties

in any of the three services. The Marine Corps also relies heavily on warrant officers

in administrative positions; its largest single warrant officer occupation is personnel

officer. In the Army, intelligence is another area in which warrant officers are

heavily represented. Notably underrepresented in the warrant officer ranks are

tactical operations officers—ground, air, and naval arms—except, of course, for the
12 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

TABLE 3. DISTRIBUTION OF WARRANT OFFICERS AND LIMITED DUTY OFFICERS

AND OF COMMISSIONED OFFICERS IN PAY GRADE O-4, BY OFFICER

OCCUPATIONAL CATEGORY, FISCAL YEAR 1999 (In percent)

Army Navy Marine Corps

Three Services

Combined

Warrant

and

Limited

Duty

Commissioned

Warrant

and

Limited

Duty

Commissioned

Warrant

and

Limited

Duty

CommisWarrant sionedCommissioned

Engineering

and Maintenance

Officers 45 11 69 17 42 10 54 13

Administrators 12 11 13 14 23 8 14 12

Supply,

Procurement,

and Allied

Officers

 

18 15 4 7 16 16 12 12

Intelligence

Officers 17 8 5 6 5 5 10 7

Tactical

Operations

Officers 7 39 8 40 11 53 8 41

Scientists and

Professionals 1 17 1 11 2 7 1 13

General

Officers and

Executives,

N.E.C. 0 0 0 4 0 0 0 2

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office from data supplied by the Defense Manpower Data Center.

NOTES: N.E.C. = not elsewhere classified.

Figures for commissioned officers reflect duty occupations for officers in pay grade O-4 (major or lieutenant

commander) excluding limited duty officers; figures for warrant officers reflect primary occupations for all warrant

pay grades. Totals exclude nonoccupational personnel (principally students), personnel whose occupation is

unknown, health care officers, and Army warrant officer aviators.
CHAPTER II ROLES AND OCCUPATIONS 13

3. Direct comparisons of enlisted and officer (including warrant officer) occupations are not possible

because the Department of Defense groups those occupations differently. The comparisons here group

the occupations of warrant officers and limited duty officers according to the occupational categories

of the enlisted specialties that feed into them.

Army's aviators. That underrepresentation is consistent with the role of technical

expert that all three services define for warrant officers.

The enlisted occupational specialties that contribute disproportionate numbers

of personnel to the technician warrant officer ranks are generally in the areas of

electrical/mechanical equipment repair, electronic equipment repair, and, except in

the Marine Corps, communications and intelligence (see Table 4).3 Personnel in the

basic war-fighting specialties—infantry, gun crews, and seamanship—generally do

not qualify directly for warrant officer or LDO service. The Army draws a few

warrant officers from among personnel in health care specialties, but the eligible

specialties are medical equipment repairer and veterinary food inspection specialist.
14 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

TABLE 4. DISTRIBUTION OF WARRANT OFFICERS AND LIMITED DUTY OFFICERS

AND OF ENLISTED PERSONNEL IN GRADES E-6 AND ABOVE, BY

ENLISTED OCCUPATIONAL CATEGORY, FISCAL YEAR 1999 (In percent)

Armya Navy

Warrant

Officers Enlisted

Warrant Officers

and Limited

Duty Officers Enlisted

Electrical/Mechanical

Equipment Repairers 27 12 36 26

Functional Support and

Administration 20 20 12 16

Electronic Equipment

Repairers 8 6 24 17

Communications and

Intelligence Specialists 16 11 17 11

Infantry, Gun Crews, and 

Seamanship Specialists 13 28 4 9

Service and Supply

Handlers 10 10 4 5

Other Technical and 

Allied Specialists 2 5 1 4

Craftsworkers 1 1 2 7

Health Care Specialists 3 8 0 6

(Continued)
CHAPTER II ROLES AND OCCUPATIONS 15

TABLE 4. CONTINUED

Marine Corps Three Services Combined

Warrant Officers

and Limited

Duty Officers Enlisted

Warrant Officers

and Limited

Duty Officers Enlisted

Electrical/Mechanical

Equipment Repairers 23 19 30 18

Functional Support and

Administration 32 27 19 19

Electronic Equipment

Repairers

 

16 9 16 10

Communications and

Intelligence Specialists 6 11 15 11

Infantry, Gun Crews, and 

Seamanship Specialists 5 17 8 19

Service and Supply

Handlers 10 12 7 8

Other Technical and 

Allied Specialists 6 4 2 4

Craftsworkers 3 2 2 4

Health Care Specialists 0 0 1 6

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office from data supplied by the Defense Manpower Data Center.

NOTE: Warrant officers and LDOs are distributed on the basis of the occupational groups of the enlisted specialties that feed

into each warrant officer specialty.

a. Army figures exclude aviators.

1. The services may convene boards to selectively "continue"—that is, allow to remain on active duty— commissioned and warrant officers who have been twice passed over for promotion.

2. The Marine Corps may appoint enlisted personnel as LDOs, but it does not do so.

CHAPTER III

MANAGEMENT OF WARRANT OFFICERS

AND LIMITED DUTY OFFICERS

The services face few restrictions on how they manage their warrant officers, a fact

reflected in management practices that differ substantially. The Warrant Officer

Management Act, which was passed as part of the National Defense Authorization

Act for Fiscal Years 1992 and 1993, established only two main constraints. First, in

creating the new pay grade of W-5, the act required each service to place no more

than 5 percent of its warrant officers in that grade. At present, that constraint is not

binding; the Navy does not use the grade at all, and only the Marine Corps comes

close to the limit (see Table 5). Second, the act established uniform procedures for

the operation of warrant officer promotion boards and required the separation of

warrant officers who were twice passed over for promotion to the next grade. Both

of those constraints mirror procedures that apply to commissioned officers.1

Limited duty officers are distinguished in law from other commissioned

officers in three significant respects. First, LDOs are authorized only in the Navy and

the Marine Corps. Second, initial appointments as LDOs can only be made from

among warrant officers or (in the Navy) enlisted personnel in grades E-6 through

E-8.2

 Third, personnel must have completed at least 10 years of active service in the

Navy or the Marine Corps before being appointed as LDOs. The services establish

two further distinctions: LDOs occupy separate sets of occupational specialties, and

they need not have a college degree.

MANAGEMENT MODELS

Although five distinct groups of warrant officers exist—aviators and technicians in

the Army, technicians and infantry weapons officers in the Marine Corps, and

technicians in the Navy—under current practices the five groups fall into one of three

general management models: early select, midcareer select, and late-career select.

Those models are distinguished primarily by the point in their careers at which

enlisted personnel are selected for warrant service; other aspects of management flow

from the selection timings.
18 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

o Early select. The Army selects most of its warrant officer aviators—

primarily helicopter pilots but some fixed-wing pilots as well—from

among enlisted personnel in their first or second term of enlistment.

The remainder enter directly from civilian life; in recent years, those

direct accessions have accounted for about one-quarter of new pilots.

As noted earlier, aviator selectees can come from any enlisted

occupation, although the Army prefers individuals with civilian flying

experience. The Army promotes aviators more slowly than its

technician warrant officers, and fewer of them complete the 20 or

more years of service needed to qualify for military retirement

benefits.

o Midcareer select. The Army and the Marine Corps choose their

technician warrant officers primarily from among personnel in grade

E-6 (staff sergeant). Most have completed 10 to 15 years of service

when they are selected, and they must have served in one of a limited

number of enlisted feeder specialties established for each warrant

TABLE 5. DISTRIBUTION OF WARRANT OFFICERS AND LIMITED DUTY OFFICERS

BY PAY GRADE WITHIN EACH SERVICE, FISCAL YEAR 1999 (In percent)

Pay Grade Army Navy Marine Corps

Warrant Officers

W-1 16.7 0 13.1

W-2 42.1 43.8 42.9

W-3 25.5 29.5 26.0

W-4 12.7 26.7 13.3

W-5 3.0 0 4.7

Limited Duty Officers

O-1E * 18.2 0

O-2E * 13.1 0

O-3E * 44.6 49.5

O-4 * 18.3 38.6

O-5 * 5.2 11.9

O-6 * 0.7 0

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office from data supplied by the Defense Manpower Data Center.

NOTE: * = not applicable.
CHAPTER III MANAGEMENT OF WARRANT OFFICERS AND LIMITED DUTY OFFICERS 19

officer specialty. The selectees generally receive formal training in

their warrant officer specialty. Most complete 20 years of service,

after which they leave the military at rates similar to those of

commissioned officers.

o Late-career select. The Navy selects personnel for warrant service

late in their enlisted careers, requiring them to reach the grade of E-7

(chief petty officer) before they become warrant officers. The Marine

Corps does the same for its 40 or so marine gunners (formally,

infantry weapons officers), the smallest group of warrant officers.

New marine gunners attend a training course; most Navy warrant

officers do not. Both groups begin their warrant service in grade W-2

and generally receive the fastest promotions. The groups selected late

tend to have longer careers—including their enlisted service—than

the other groups of warrant officers.

The Army recently announced plans to select its technician warrant officers

earlier, when they have completed five to eight years of service. If implemented, that

plan would create a fourth model of warrant officer management—an early-career

select model. It would differ from the early-select model used for Army aviators in

that it would not allow direct accessions from civilian life and would require that

applicants first achieve basic qualification in their enlisted specialty. Presumably, the

model might be expected to yield longer average careers for warrant officers,

particularly in light of the Army's policy of imposing six-year service commitments

on its new warrant officers. Apparently, however, some of the organizations within

the Army that are responsible for setting personnel requirements in career fields and

individual specialties consider second-term personnel to be unprepared for service

as warrant officers.

Two models describe the management of limited duty officers in the Navy

and the Marine Corps. As noted earlier, the Marine Corps requires prospective LDOs

to first serve as warrant officers, whereas the Navy draws most of its LDOs directly

from the enlisted ranks. Those LDOs who move up from the enlisted ranks begin

their LDO service in grade O-1E (ensign). Marine Corps LDOs, most of whom are

in grade W-3 when they move up, start in grade O-3E (captain); Navy regulations call

for appointing LDOs who advance from the warrant ranks to grade O-2E (lieutenant

junior grade).

ACCESSION

The three basic models of warrant officer management are evident in the distribution

of accessions by the year of service that individuals had completed when they became

warrant officers (see Figure 1). More than half of new Army aviators in 1998 and
20 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

<1 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24

Years of Service

0

5

10

15

20

25

Percentage of Accessions

Army Aviator

Army Technician Marine Corps Technician

Navy

1999 had completed fewer than four years of service when they achieved the rank of

warrant officer; only about 10 percent had completed more than eight years of

service. In sharp contrast, almost all new Navy warrant officers had completed at

least 14 years of service, and 15 percent had completed at least 20 years of service

and were eligible to retire. The Army's and the Marine Corps' technician warrant

officers fell between those two groups, with most having completed roughly 10 to 14

years of service at accession.

The services' formal rules governing warrant officer appointments underlie

most of the differences among groups that appear in Figure 1. Potential Army

aviators must be under 29 years of age to be selected, and, as noted earlier, some

apply before they enter the Army. In the Marine Corps, technician applicants must

have completed at least eight years of service; the Army requires a minimum of four

to six years' experience in the occupational field for which the person is applying.

FIGURE 1. DISTRIBUTION OF WARRANT OFFICER ACCESSIONS BY YEARS OF

SERVICE AT ACCESSION, FISCAL YEARS 1998-1999

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office from data supplied by the Defense Manpower Data Center.

NOTES: Army data exclude approximately 13 percent of accessions for which an occupational specialty could not be

identified. Most probably represent personnel in training as aviators.

Data for the marine gunner group are not shown because there were too few accessions to provide a meaningful

distribution.
CHAPTER III MANAGEMENT OF WARRANT OFFICERS AND LIMITED DUTY OFFICERS 21

The Navy requires warrant officer applicants to have completed between 12 and 24

years of service.

The three management models are also apparent in the enlisted pay grades

that new warrant officers last held (see Table 6). Roughly 20 percent of Army

TABLE 6. DISTRIBUTION OF WARRANT OFFICER AND LIMITED DUTY OFFICER 

ACCESSIONS BY LAST PAY GRADE, FISCAL YEARS 1998-1999 (In percent)

Warrant Officers

Limited Duty

Officers

Last Pay Grade

Army

Aviator

Army

Technicianb

Marine Corps

Technicianb Navyc Navyd

Marine

Corpse

Nonea 20.0 * * * * *

E-1 0.6 * * * * *

E-2 0.4 * * * * *

E-3 4.3 * * * * *

E-4 22.0 * * * * *

E-5 37.2 13.3 3.7 * * *

E-6 15.5 68.6 75.6 0.2 13.4 *

E-7 0.2 18.1 20.6 70.1 65.7 *

E-8 0 0 0 24.3 7.7 *

E-9 0 0 0 5.4 0 *

W-2 * * * * 2.2 6.7

W-3 * * * * 9.8 92.0

W-4 * * * * 1.2 1.3

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office from data supplied by the Defense Manpower Data Center.

NOTES: * = not applicable.

Army data exclude approximately 13 percent of accessions for which an occupational specialty could not be

identified. Most probably represent personnel in training as aviators. Last pay grade refers to the grade that

individuals held at the beginning of the fiscal year in which they were appointed as warrant officers or LDOs.

Data for the marine gunner group are not shown because there were too few accessions to provide a meaningful

distribution.

a. Indicates personnel who were not on active duty at the beginning of the year.

b. The minimum pay grade for selection is E-5.

c. The minimum pay grade for selection is E-7, except that personnel in pay grade E-6 who have been selected for promotion

to E-7 may apply.

d. The minimum pay grade for selection is E-6.

e. Only warrant officers are accepted as limited duty officers.
22 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

3. Personnel in grade E-6 must have met all of the requirements for promotion to E-7 except the minimum

time in their rating (occupational specialty).

4. Navy personnel may be appointed in grade W-3 if they have served at least two years in grade E-9

(master chief petty officer).

aviators were not on active duty at the beginning of the year in which they became

warrant officers; almost all of the rest were in grades E-4 through E-6, the typical

grades for Army enlisted personnel in their second enlistment term or at the end of

their first. Technician warrant officers in the Army and the Marine Corps were all

in grades E-5 through E-7 when they advanced, with the lowest of those grades more

common for the Army. Finally, almost all Navy warrant officers last served in grades

E-7 and E-8. 

The Navy's and the Marine Corps' distinct approaches to management of

limited duty officers are reflected in both the grade and year-of-service distribution

of new LDOs. The Navy accepts enlisted personnel for LDO service beginning at

grade E-6 (petty officer first class) and with as few as eight years of service

completed.3

 In 1998 and 1999, most successful applicants were in grade E-7, and

only one in eight came from the warrant officer ranks. A typical LDO selectee had

completed 14 years of enlisted service (see Figure 2). Marine Corps LDOs, who first

serve as warrant officers, tended to be approaching retirement eligibility when they

were selected. A typical Marine Corps LDO selectee in 1998 and 1999 was in grade

W-3 and had completed 18 years of service.

The differing patterns of warrant officer management among the services

appear to reflect differences in their views of what best prepares an individual to

serve as a warrant officer. The Navy apparently feels that on-the-job training in the

enlisted ranks is the only suitable preparation; it gives formal schoolhouse training

to new warrant officers in only two of its roughly 30 warrant officer specialties. The

Army and the Marine Corps, in contrast, combine earlier selection of technician

warrant officers with extensive formal training of those officers in their occupations.

In addition, they place new warrants in grade W-1 (warrant officer) rather than in

W-2 (chief warrant officer) as the Navy does.4 As noted earlier, overall Army policy

considers four to six years' work experience to be adequate preparation for technician

warrant officers, although successful applicants tend to have considerably more.

Finally, the early-select model of warrant officer management that the Army uses for

its aviators is the most extreme example of the view that in-service experience is not

important.
CHAPTER III MANAGEMENT OF WARRANT OFFICERS AND LIMITED DUTY OFFICERS 23

8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26

Years of Service

0

5

10

15

20

25

Percentage of Accessions

Navy, from Enlisted

Marine Corps, from Warrant

Navy,

from Warrant

PROMOTION

The services face few external constraints on how they manage warrant officer

promotions. Perhaps as a result, the outcomes of the promotion process differ among

the services in every major respect. Some of those differences appear to reflect the

point in their careers at which enlisted personnel become warrant officers, but others

do not.

Under the Warrant Officer Management Act, the services model their

promotion practices for warrant officers on those for commissioned officers, as noted

earlier. The services establish promotion zones defined by officers’ time in their

current pay grade to determine eligibility for promotion. Competitive categories—

groups of occupational specialties—determine which officers compete together for

available promotions. Promotion boards examine candidates' records and recommend promotions. Warrant officers who twice fail to be promoted to the next higher

grade when considered by a promotion board must be separated unless they are

selected for continuation by another board established for that purpose.

FIGURE 2. DISTRIBUTION OF LIMITED DUTY OFFICER ACCESSIONS BY YEARS OF

SERVICE AT ACCESSION, FISCAL YEARS 1998-1999

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office from data supplied by the Defense Manpower Data Center.
24 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

For purposes of promotion, the Navy and the Marine Corps treat limited duty

officers like other commissioned officers, so this paper does not discuss the LDO

promotion process in detail. One aspect of the process, however, is important for the

comparison of pay levels that appears in Chapter IV. Navy LDOs who enter from the

enlisted ranks, and thus begin at grade O-1E (ensign), can expect nearly automatic

promotion to grades O-2E and O-3E at two-year intervals.

The flexibility in the promotion process for warrant officers allows the

services to take different approaches to determining the timing of promotion and

officers' chances for promotion. Although the Marine Corps attempts to give people

in different occupational specialties an equal chance at promotion, it allows

occupational vacancies to drive differences in the timing of promotions among

occupations. The Navy, by contrast, promotes the best people without regard to

occupational vacancies, and on a set schedule. The Army also promotes on set

schedules—one schedule for aviators and another for technicians—and although it

generally allows occupational vacancies to drive differences in promotion chances,

it holds those differences within certain bounds.

The timing of warrant officer promotions in the three services generally

reflects the timing of accessions. The Navy, selecting its warrant officers rather late

in their military careers, promotes them fairly rapidly (see Table 7). Army aviators,

some of whom begin their careers as warrant officers without first serving in the

enlisted ranks, face the slowest rate of promotion. If the Army promoted its aviators

as rapidly as the Navy did its warrant officers, most would reach their final pay grade

before completing 20 years of total service (enlisted and warrant). Conversely,

slower promotions for Navy warrant officers would give some of them only one

promotion to look forward to before they completed 30 years.

The two groups selected under the midcareer model—Army and Marine

Corps technicians—are not promoted at similar paces, as might be expected. Army

policy recently changed from promoting technician warrant officers at six-year

intervals after the first promotion to five-year intervals; the data for 1998 and 1999

show the effects of that transition. The Marine Corps, in contrast, promotes its

technicians at closer to four-year intervals, with promotion to W-2 coming after only

18 months compared with 24 months for Army technicians. The Army's slower pace

may reflect the longer careers that it apparently envisions for warrant officers. As

noted above, it would like to select its technician warrant officers even earlier than

it currently does. In addition, the Army takes advantage of a provision in federal law

that allows Army personnel in grade W-5 to remain in the service until they complete

30 years of warrant service—other warrant officers must generally retire when they

complete 30 years of total service.
CHAPTER III MANAGEMENT OF WARRANT OFFICERS AND LIMITED DUTY OFFICERS 25

Warrant officers' chances for promotion through at least grade W-3 are fairly

high, particularly in the Navy and the Marine Corps. As mentioned earlier, promotion to W-2 in the Army and the Marine Corps is virtually automatic, with promotion

TABLE 7. MEDIAN MONTHS IN PAY GRADE AT PROMOTION AND IMPLIED YEARS

OF WARRANT OFFICER SERVICE, FISCAL YEAR 1999

Pay Grade

Service/Group W-2 W-3 W-4 W-5

Median Months in Pay Grade at Promotion

Army

Aviator 24 73 71 70

Techniciana 24 68b 70 66

Navy * 48 48 *

Marine Corps

Marine gunnerc * 46 36 38

Technician 18 40b 50b 45b

Implied Years of Warrant Officer Service at Promotion

Army

Aviator 2.0 8.1 14.0 19.8

Technician 2.0 7.7 13.5 19.0

Navy * 4.0 8.0 *

Marine Corps

Marine gunner * 3.8 6.8 10.0

Technician 1.5 4.8 9.0 12.8

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office from data supplied by the Defense Manpower Data Center.

NOTE: * = not applicable.

a. During 1999, the timing of promotions for Army technicians was in transition from the old pattern of six years in grade

(after W-2) to the new pattern of five years in grade.

b. Substantial variation among personnel promoted. 

c. Figures for marine gunners are based on very few observations.
26 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

5. The promotion opportunity to a given grade is, roughly, the probability that a randomly chosen

individual in the next lower grade will be promoted. The stated opportunity for a given year, however,

does not directly measure individuals' chances of promotion. Before a promotion board meets, which

typically occurs once a year, service officials establish a primary zone of consideration for promotion

based on officers' dates of rank—that is, the date that they assumed their current grade. For example,

in 2001, the primary zone for technician warrant officers in the Army for promotion to W-3 included

officers with dates of rank in grade W-2 from October 1, 1996, to September 30, 1997. The earliest

date of rank in the zone is the latest date excluded from the primary zone for the previous year's board.

In addition to considering all the personnel in the primary zone, the board considers for promotion all

personnel "above the zone"—that is, those still in the service who were passed over for promotion by

the previous board—and may consider personnel below the zone. The promotion opportunity is

defined as the number of people selected for promotion, whether above, below, or in the zone, divided

by the number of personnel considered who were in the primary zone. Typically, each service

establishes the opportunity by telling its promotion board how many officers the board may select for

promotion. 

rates—measured by a statistic called promotion opportunity—near 100 percent.5

Promotion rates to W-3 ranged in recent years from about 80 percent in the Army to

95 percent in the Navy (see Table 8). Beyond that point, promotion rates are

generally lower, although the Navy announced a promotion opportunity to W-4 of 90

percent for 2002.

The lower opportunity for promotion to W-3 in the Army than in the Navy is

consistent with those services' different management models. Selecting its warrant

officers early, the Army cannot be sure that they will all succeed, so it erects a

significant hurdle to promotion to the W-3 level. It also promotes slowly, providing

continual performance incentives throughout a career despite the constraint of having

only five pay grades for warrant officers. The Navy, by contrast, chooses people who

have already proven their worth, and it makes warrant officer service attractive by

promoting rapidly and with high probability. The rationale for the practices of the

Marine Corps seems less clear; although it selects its technician warrant officers in

a fashion similar to that of the Army, it promotes them in a manner more like the

Navy. The Marine Corps’ rapid pace of promotion may reflect its close ties with the

Navy; alternatively, the Marine Corps may have more confidence in its selection

process than the Army has in its process.

The services reward superior performers by promoting them ahead of their

peers, but few warrant officers receive early promotions. (The same is true for

commissioned officers.) The Warrant Officer Management Act caps those so-called

below-the-zone promotions at 10 percent of the total for a particular pay grade—15

percent with the approval of the Secretary of Defense. Recent promotion results,

however, showed below-the-zone promotions well under the limit. The Marine

Corps promoted no warrant officers early in 2000, and early promotions among Army

aviators and Navy warrant officers have generally accounted for less than 5 percent.

Only among Army technicians was the below-the-zone promotion rate as high as

about 7 percent, and that high rate was limited to grades W-3 and W-4. Moreover,
CHAPTER III MANAGEMENT OF WARRANT OFFICERS AND LIMITED DUTY OFFICERS 27

all the services generally consider warrant officers for promotion no more than one

year earlier than the normal time.

The timing of warrant officers' promotions is not closely tied to their total

time in the military, in contrast with promotions for commissioned officers and, to

a lesser extent, enlisted personnel (see Figure 3). The variation in timing occurs even

within a single management model, a result of warrant officers beginning their

warrant service with widely varying amounts of enlisted service behind them.

Among Army aviators, for example, the most common time for promotion to grade

W-4 in 1998 and 1999 was after they completed 15 years of total service, but for

those who became aviators after first serving in the enlisted ranks, the promotion to

W-4 could occur much later. Promotions of Marine Corps technicians to W-4

spanned the 20-year point at which those officers became eligible to retire, as did

promotions of Navy warrant officers to W-3. Variation in the timing of promotions

as a function of years of military service, both across the management models and

within them, has implications for whether individual warrant officers decide to

remain in the military and whether enlisted personnel decide to seek warrant officer

status. The former is discussed below and the latter is addressed in Chapter IV.

TABLE 8. RECENT PROMOTION OPPORTUNITIES FOR WARRANT OFFICERS

(In percent)

Opportunity to Pay Grade

Service/Group W-3 W-4 W-5

Army

Aviator 83.5 84.0 59.0

Technician 78.2 80.3 53.4

Navy 95.0 75.0 *

Marine Corpsa 90.4 81.3 65.4

SOURCE: Department of Defense.

NOTES: * = not applicable.

The promotion opportunity measures, roughly, the probability that a randomly chosen warrant officer who remains

in the service will be promoted to the grade indicated.

Army and Marine Corps figures are actual results for fiscal year 2000, as reported by those services. Navy figures

are the opportunities announced for fiscal year 2001.

a. Includes marine gunners.
28 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34

Years of Service

0

5

10

15

20

25

ARMY AVIATORS

Percentage of Promotions

W-2 W-3 W-4

W-5

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34

Years of Service

0

5

10

15

20

25

NAVY

Percentage of Promotions

W-3 W-4

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34

Years of Service

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

MARINE CORPS TECHNICIANS

Percentage of Promotions

W-2

W-3

W-4 W-5

2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34

Years of Service

0

5

10

15

20

25

ARMY TECHNICIANS

Percentage of Promotions

W-2

W-3 W-4

W-5

FIGURE 3. DISTRIBUTION OF WARRANT OFFICER PROMOTIONS, WITHIN PAY

GRADE, BY YEARS OF SERVICE COMPLETED, FISCAL YEARS 1998-1999

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office from data supplied by the Defense Manpower Data Center.
CHAPTER III MANAGEMENT OF WARRANT OFFICERS AND LIMITED DUTY OFFICERS 29

6. Although it would be possible to compare continuation patterns for warrant officers with those for

either enlisted personnel or commissioned officers, such a comparison would have limited value. The

groups differ not only in how they are managed—including when they face mandatory separation—but

also in their military pay, in personal characteristics (such as education) that affect their earnings

prospects as civilians, and in when they chose their status (enlisted, warrant, or commissioned officer).

Attributing differences in continuation patterns to any specific differences among the groups would

be difficult at best.

SEPARATION

A broad connection between management models and retention patterns is evident

in the distribution of warrant officer separations by the year of service in which those

personnel leave.6 In 1998 and 1999, preretirement losses among Navy warrant

officers—selected for warrant service very late—were exceedingly rare, even though

the Navy does not impose lengthy service obligations on new warrant officers. Most

Army and Marine Corps technician warrant officers also waited to leave until they

could collect retirement benefits; they had probably already decided to complete a

military career when they applied for warrant status. By contrast, nearly half of all

Army aviators who left the service were not yet eligible for retirement.

Once warrant officers are eligible to retire after completing 20 years of total

service (enlisted and warrant), they tend to leave quickly (see Figure 4). Of every

100 Army aviators, Army technicians, and Marine Corps technicians who complete

20 years of total service, only about 35 can be expected to remain in the service for

another four years—that is, the "survival rate" to year-of-service 24 is about 35

percent. For Navy warrant officers, the survival rate to that point is about 50 percent.

Warrant officers in the Army and the Marine Corps typically serve for an additional

three years once they become eligible to retire; in the Navy, they serve about four

years more.

The provision in federal law that allows Army warrant officers in grade W-5

to remain in the service until they complete 30 years of warrant service, rather than

30 years of total service, appears to lengthen Army careers. In 1999, about 35

percent of Army W-5s had completed more than 30 years of total service, the point

at which military pensions stop increasing as a fraction of basic pay. The option to

stay longer may also explain why Army technician warrant officers who stay even a

few years beyond 20 are substantially more likely to complete 30 years of service

than their counterparts in the Navy and the Marine Corps.

Survival rates such as those depicted in Figure 4, as well as the loss patterns

discussed above, must be interpreted cautiously because they combine individuals'

voluntary decisions to stay or leave with the effects of mandatory separation policies.

For example, most of the preretirement losses among Army aviators reflect those

officers’ voluntary decisions, but some of the losses occur when aviators are forced

out because they are not promoted to grade W-3. Among Army technicians
30 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

20 22 24 26 28 30

Years of Service

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100 Percentage Remaining

Navy

Marine Corps 

Technicians

Army Technicians

Army Aviators

completing 20 years of service, those who began their warrant service late, and thus

can look forward to the possibility of at least one more promotion, may have a

stronger incentive to remain in the service than officers who began early and have

already received their last promotion. Finally, the high survival rate for Navy warrant

officers may reflect, in part, a policy requiring enlisted personnel to separate after 24

years of service if they do not advance beyond grade E-7. As the next chapter

discusses, there are reasons to suspect that some Navy personnel may seek warrant

service because they believe their chances of being promoted to E-8 and E-9 are poor.

For such people, becoming a warrant officer would allow a longer career.

FIGURE 4. SURVIVAL RATES FOR WARRANT OFFICERS ELIGIBLE TO RETIRE

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office from data supplied by the Defense Manpower Data Center.

NOTES: The survival rate for a particular year of service is the percentage of personnel who complete at least that many years

among those personnel who complete at least 20 years of service.

Data for the marine gunner group are not shown because there were too few to provide meaningful survival rates.
CHAPTER IV

WHO BECOMES A WARRANT OFFICER OR

LIMITED DUTY OFFICER?

In 1999, there were nearly 30,000 Navy personnel in grade E-7 (chief petty officer)

or higher who had served for between 12 and 24 years—the basic qualifications for

warrant officer applicants. That year's selection board for warrant officers considered

1,008 applicants and selected 197 of them. Another 256 personnel out of 2,731

applicants from an even larger potential pool were selected to be limited duty

officers.

Why do people apply for warrant officer and LDO service, and what

distinguishes successful applicants in each of the services from their enlisted peers?

This chapter, which explores those two questions, offers three main findings.

o Although compensation is undoubtedly a factor in a person’s decision

to become a warrant officer, the monetary advantages of warrant

service are not large, particularly for someone on a fast promotion

track through the enlisted ranks.

o Those personnel selected for warrant officer and LDO service

generally surpass their enlisted peers on two measures of personnel

quality, but only by modest amounts.

o Whether people become warrant officers or limited duty officers

depends in large part on their enlisted occupational specialty.

Personnel in some enlisted specialties have no direct path to warrant

service except through programs open to all, such as the Army's

aviator program. Others serve in occupational areas that have very

large warrant or LDO communities and correspondingly good

opportunities for enlisted personnel to become warrant officers or

LDOs.

COMPENSATION OF WARRANT OFFICERS

In a briefing for prospective warrant officers, the Army’s recruiting command shows

that an E-6 who became a warrant officer after eight years of service would receive

a raise in basic pay of about 18 percent. Although true, that comparison is

incomplete. Basic pay constitutes only a portion of service members' total pay; they

also receive a housing allowance (or government housing at no cost), a subsistence
32 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

1. As an officer, a new W-1 receives a subsistence allowance of $160 a month compared with $233 for

enlisted personnel. The housing allowances of an E-6 and a W-1 (both with dependents) are virtually

identical.

The equality of housing allowances for an E-6 and a W-1 is not apparent in published figures on the

average basic allowance for housing (BAH). Those figures show a W-1 receiving substantially less

than an E-6—$737 a month versus $846—but that comparison is deceptive. The BAH for each pay

grade varies among areas of the country according to local housing prices and is greater for service

members with dependents than for those without. In any given area, the allowance for an E-6 and a

W-1, both with dependents, is generally almost identical (rates for personnel without dependents differ

between the two grades). The average payments differ because people in grade W-1 tend to be

assigned to locales where housing is inexpensive, probably a result of the large number of Army

aviators among W-1s and the location of their training and assignments. The lower average allowance

of W-1s does not imply that they are worse off in that respect than people in grade E-6; the BAH is

designed to ensure that people in a given grade are equally well off with respect to housing regardless

of where they are assigned. Thus, it is appropriate to say that the BAH for an E-6 and a W-1 at the

with-dependents rate is the same, notwithstanding the published figures.

To derive the RMC amounts for warrant officers presented in this paper, the Congressional Budget

Office adjusted the published BAH amounts to reflect the geographic distribution of personnel in

corresponding officer and enlisted pay grades. The upward percentage adjustments, by pay grade, were

as follows: W-1, 16.4; W-2, 4.2; W-3, 7.5; W-4, 5.9; and W-5, 5.7. A second adjustment corrected

the published estimates of the tax advantage to account for the adjusted BAH.

For the published figures on average BAH payments, see Department of Defense, Selected Military

Compensation Tables, 1 January 2001. To understand the calculation of the BAH, see Congressional

Budget Office, Housing Prices, Housing Choices, and Military Housing Allowances, CBO Paper

(October 1998).

allowance, and an implicit payment—referred to as the tax advantage—that reflects

the federal income taxes they do not have to pay because the allowances are

nontaxable. Accounting for the allowances and the tax advantage, the raise in total

pay—or regular military compensation (RMC)—for the new warrant officer is less

than 9 percent.1

 (Appendix B gives annual basic pay and RMC for selected years of

service, by pay grade.)

In addition to considering military compensation in total, pay comparisons

between enlisted personnel and warrant officers or LDOs must account for two

sources of variation in pay. One source is the management model applied to a

warrant officer. Warrant officers selected early, for example, enjoy the largest pay

advantage over enlisted personnel, even allowing for the relatively slow pace of

promotion under the Army's early-select model. The second source of variation is

the pace and extent of promotions that a warrant officer might have expected if he

or she had remained in the enlisted ranks. The Navy's late-select model, for example,

yields a substantial pay advantage over enlisted service for someone who would not

have advanced beyond grade E-7 but little advantage for a fast-track individual who

could have expected rapid promotion to E-8 and E-9.
CHAPTER IV WHO BECOMES A WARRANT OFFICER OR LIMITED DUTY OFFICER? 33

O-3

O-4

O-5

W-3

W-4

W-5

E-7

E-8

E-9

19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53

Age

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Commissioned Officer Direct-Select Warrant

Early-Select Warrant

Enlisted Fast

Enlisted Average

Annual RMC in Thousands of Dollars

The Early-Select Model

People selected early for warrant service earn substantially more than they would

have in the enlisted ranks, regardless of whether they could have expected to progress

through those ranks at a rapid pace or only a normal pace (see Figure 5). For an

FIGURE 5. TYPICAL PAY PROFILES FOR DIRECT-SELECT AND EARLY-SELECT

WARRANT OFFICERS AND OTHER PERSONNEL, BY AGE, BASED ON

ARMY SELECTION AND PROMOTION PRACTICES

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office from data supplied by the Defense Manpower Data Center.

NOTES: RMC (regular military compensation) consists of basic pay, basic allowance for housing, basic allowance for

subsistence, and the tax advantage that accrues to service members because the allowances are not subject to federal

income tax. The figures shown assume that the allowances are paid in cash rather than in kind and that the housing

allowance is paid at the rates for members with dependents.

The ages shown assume that enlisted personnel enter the military at age 19, direct-select warrant officers enter at

age 21, and commissioned officers enter at age 23. The early-select warrant officer is assumed to be selected after

completing five years of service.

The pay profile denoted "enlisted average" assumes that the service member is promoted at a typical pace and does

not progress beyond pay grade E-7. The profile "enlisted fast" assumes promotion at a fast pace and eventual

promotion to the highest enlisted pay grade (E-9).

Profiles end at the typical mandatory separation point for the final pay grade.
34 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

2. Reenlistment bonuses and other special pays could narrow the gap for personnel in eligible enlisted

specialties, although large bonuses are not common in the Army. A later section discusses how

reenlistment bonuses could affect the timing of individuals' decisions to apply for warrant officer

status. Appendix A briefly discusses reenlistment bonuses.

3. CBO’s estimates of typical promotion timings may show smaller differences between normal and fast

promotions than estimates used in other studies. Within a service, people may be promoted at different

speeds for two reasons—some people perform better than others, and some specialties tend to offer

faster promotions than others. CBO attempted to focus on performance differences by looking only

at within-specialty variations in the timing of promotions.

Army aviator who becomes a warrant officer after five years of enlisted service, the

pay advantage in terms of RMC averages about 23 percent each year through the 20th

year of service in comparison with the pay of someone progressing at a normal pace

through the enlisted ranks.2 Compared with someone who progresses rapidly through

the enlisted ranks, reaching grade E-8 in his or her 17th year of service, the warrant

officer's pay advantage averages about 16 percent.3 Both comparisons assume that

the warrant officer passes every promotion hurdle at the usual time for Army

aviators, including promotion to W-4 after 19 years of service. The ages shown in

the figure assume an initial entry to the Army at 19 years of age for someone selected

from the enlisted ranks and 21 years of age for someone selected directly from

civilian life.

The Midcareer Model

For enlisted personnel in midcareer, the monetary appeal of warrant service is much

less than it would have been earlier in their career and more heavily dependent on

their prospects for advancement in the enlisted ranks (see Figure 6). At 11 years of

service in the Army, most enlisted personnel are in grade E-6, and the best among

them are already E-7s or about to be promoted to that grade. Those whose promotion

prospects in the enlisted ranks are only average and who cannot expect to advance

beyond E-7 would receive an increase in RMC through 20 years of service of about

14 percent if they became warrant officers. For those who expect rapid advancement,

the gain is only half as large. Such people may see retirement benefits as a stronger

lure; the pension for a W-3 is about 16 percent larger than that for an E-8 if both

leave after 20 years of service. Indeed, retirement benefits would be an important

consideration for anyone who was unsure about his or her prospects for promotion.

Retiring as a W-2 would be much better than retiring as an E-7, and even slightly

better than retiring as an E-8.
CHAPTER IV WHO BECOMES A WARRANT OFFICER OR LIMITED DUTY OFFICER? 35

O-3

O-4

O-5

W-3

W-4

W-5

19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49 51 53

Age

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Commissioned Officer

Midcareer Warrant

Enlisted Fast

Enlisted Average

Annual RMC in Thousands of Dollars

The Late-Career Model

Despite the Navy's policy of appointing new warrant officers in grade W-2, the shortterm financial incentives for Navy personnel to apply for warrant service are weak,

FIGURE 6. TYPICAL PAY PROFILES FOR MIDCAREER WARRANT OFFICERS

AND OTHER PERSONNEL, BY AGE, BASED ON ARMY SELECTION

AND PROMOTION PRACTICES

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office from data supplied by the Defense Manpower Data Center.

NOTES: RMC (regular military compensation) consists of basic pay, basic allowance for housing, basic allowance for

subsistence, and the tax advantage that accrues to service members because the allowances are not subject to federal

income tax. The figures shown assume that the allowances are paid in cash rather than in kind and that the housing

allowance is paid at the rates for members with dependents.

The ages shown assume that enlisted personnel enter the military at age 19, and commissioned officers enter at age

23. The midcareer warrant officer is assumed to be selected after completing 10.5 years of service.

The pay profile denoted "enlisted average" assumes that the service member is promoted at a typical pace and does

not progress beyond pay grade E-7. The profile "enlisted fast" assumes promotion at a fast pace and eventual

promotion to the highest enlisted pay grade (E-9).

Profiles end at the typical mandatory separation point for the final pay grade.
36 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

W-3

W-4

O-1E

O-2E

O-3E

O-4

O-3

O-4

O-5

19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39 41 43 45 47 49

Age

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Commissioned Officer

Late-Career Warrant

Enlisted Fast

Enlisted Average

Annual RMC in Thousands of Dollars

Limited Duty Officer

suggesting that retirement considerations may play a particularly important role in

individuals' decisions to apply for warrant service under a late-career model of

management (see Figure 7). People who become warrant officers after 15 years of

service do not enjoy a substantial pay advantage over their enlisted counterparts who

FIGURE 7. TYPICAL PAY PROFILES FOR LIMITED DUTY OFFICERS, LATE-CAREER

WARRANT OFFICERS, AND OTHER PERSONNEL, BY AGE, BASED ON

NAVY SELECTION AND PROMOTION PRACTICES

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office from data supplied by the Defense Manpower Data Center.

NOTES: RMC (regular military compensation) consists of basic pay, basic allowance for housing, basic allowance for

subsistence, and the tax advantage that accrues to service members because the allowances are not subject to federal

income tax. The figures shown assume that the allowances are paid in cash rather than in kind and that the housing

allowance is paid at the rates for members with dependents.

The ages shown assume that enlisted personnel enter the military at age 19, and commissioned officers enter at age

23. The limited duty officer is assumed to be selected after completing 14 years of service and the late-career

warrant officer after completing 15 years of service.

The pay profile denoted "enlisted average" assumes that the service member is promoted at a typical pace and does

not progress beyond pay grade E-7. The profile "enlisted fast" assumes promotion at a fast pace and eventual

promotion to the highest enlisted pay grade (E-9).

Profiles end at the typical mandatory separation point for the final pay grade.
CHAPTER IV WHO BECOMES A WARRANT OFFICER OR LIMITED DUTY OFFICER? 37

advance to grade E-9 until they have served eight years as warrant officers and are

promoted to W-4 (at age 42 in the figure). At that point, their RMC is about 11

percent greater than that of an E-9; if they retire in that grade they earn about 13

percent to 15 percent more in retirement benefits.

People who do not expect to advance beyond grade E-7 if they remain in the

enlisted ranks could have two reasons to apply for warrant service. First, the pay

advantage, although initially only about 10 percent, would rise to more than 23

percent if they were promoted to W-3. Second, as E-7s they would be forced to

retire—under current Navy rules—after completing 24 years of service. Reaching

grade W-4, which they might think more likely than promotion to E-8, would allow

them a longer career as well as offer substantially higher pay and retirement benefits.

As noted earlier, the Navy announced a promotion opportunity to W-4 of 90 percent

for 2002. By contrast, less than 20 percent of Navy E-7s can expect to be promoted

to E-8.

Selection as a limited duty officer, which typically occurs earlier than

selection as a warrant officer, places people on a much more attractive pay path.

After the promotion to O-3E, which is almost certain after four years of LDO service

(all "fully qualified" personnel are promoted), the pay of LDOs is almost 40 percent

greater than they could have expected at that point as an enlisted person, even with

an early promotion to E-8. A promotion to O-4, which 70 percent to 80 percent of

LDOs receive, would allow an LDO to retire with benefits about 23 percent greater

than those of an E-9 and 9 percent greater than those of a W-4. Promotion to O-5

could add another 15 percent to 20 percent to the difference in retirement benefits.

The LDO's pay even approaches that of someone of the same age who began as an

officer, both because of the special pay rates for officers who served at least four

years as enlisted personnel (O-1E through O-3E) and because an officer who entered

from civilian life or through the Naval Academy would typically have been older

when he or she entered the Navy.

Reenlistment Bonuses and Other Special and Incentive Pays

Depending on their individual circumstances, service personnel are eligible for a

number of additional types of pay beyond their basic pay and allowances. Some of

those could affect individuals' decisions to apply for warrant service. Selective

reenlistment bonuses (SRBs), for example, are paid only to enlisted personnel when

they reenlist for the first, second, and even third times—formally, at up to six years

of service, six to 10 years of service, and 10 to 14 years of service, respectively.

Although nominally targeted at "critical skills" with severe staffing problems, SRBs

have recently been offered very widely. The largest of those bonuses have the

potential to affect the timing of warrant applications under a midcareer or early-
38 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

4. The reported selection rate for the Army may be inflated somewhat by that service's practice of

prescreening individuals' application packages before submitting them to the selection boards as

"applicants."

career management model because potential warrant officers could find it financially

advantageous to delay their warrant applications until after their next reenlistment.

Other types of pay can widen or narrow the gap in total pay between warrant

officers and enlisted personnel. Submarine duty incentive pay, for example, is

greater for warrant officers than for all enlisted personnel except E-9s. In contrast,

career sea pay is generally greater for senior enlisted personnel than it is for warrant

officers who have served on sea duty for the same number of years.

THE "QUALITY" OF NEW WARRANT OFFICERS

Does the opportunity to serve as a warrant officer or limited duty officer attract the

best people from the enlisted ranks? Personnel quality is a difficult concept to

measure, but based on two measures of quality—scores on the Armed Forces

Qualification Test (AFQT) and speed of promotion—the answer is a qualified yes.

People selected for warrant officer and LDO service are generally superior to their

enlisted peers, but not markedly so.

The two measures provide only a limited assessment of personnel quality,

certainly less of one than the boards who select warrant officers and LDOs can draw

from the applicants' personnel records. The services use the AFQT as a measure of

general trainability. Some studies have shown that AFQT scores can predict

performance during the first enlistment term. Beyond that point, however, the

relationship between individual performance and AFQT scores is harder to assess,

and the speed with which individuals are promoted would seem a better measure of

their quality.

Arguably the best indication that new warrant officers and LDOs are superior

to their enlisted peers is that most who apply are not selected, particularly in the Navy

and the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps reported that 22 percent of applicants were

selected to become warrant officers in 2000. Navy results for 2000 show 26 percent

of warrant officer applicants and 13 percent of LDO applicants were selected. In the

Army, selection rates for some warrant officer specialties are equally low, but for

others the Army struggles to find enough qualified applicants. Examples of the latter

include criminal investigation agent, some intelligence specialties, and special forces,

all areas in which the number of warrant officer positions is large relative to the

number of enlisted positions. Overall, about 40 percent of Army applicants for

technician warrant officer specialties were selected in recent years.4
CHAPTER IV WHO BECOMES A WARRANT OFFICER OR LIMITED DUTY OFFICER? 39

5. AFQT scores represent percentiles of the distribution of scores among the general youth population.

Although competition may be keen among those who apply for selection as

warrant officers, many eligible people apparently do not apply. In the Army, for

example, the number of applicants for technician warrant officer positions in 2000

represented less than one-quarter of the nominally qualified people in a one-year

cohort of enlisted personnel. Correcting for the large number of Army specialties

that do not feed into any warrant officer specialty still leaves more than one-half of

potential warrant officers who chose not to apply. Whether those people were more

or less qualified than the applicants, however, is difficult to assess. Navy application

rates for warrant officer positions appear to be slightly higher, despite the small pay

advantage warrant service offers in the Navy. Only in the Marine Corps do a large

fraction of the potentially qualified personnel apparently apply for warrant officer

service.

Scores on the Armed Forces Qualification Test suggest that the quality of new

warrant officers and Navy LDOs is modestly better than that of their enlisted peers.

Army aviators were the most exceptional group; with an average AFQT score of 78,

they scored 18 points above their peers in 1998 and 1999 (see Table 9).5

 People who

became Army technician warrant officers in those years, by contrast, scored only

about seven points higher on the AFQT, on average, than E-6 personnel in their

enlisted specialties. About two-thirds of the new technician warrant officers had

higher scores than the average for their enlisted specialties. The corresponding

differences for Marine Corps warrant officers and Navy LDOs were smaller; for

Navy warrant officers the difference was negative—more scored below average than

above average for their specialties.

Speed of promotion provides a more consistent indication that new warrant

officers outperformed their enlisted peers. In the Army, for example, new warrant

officer technicians whose last enlisted pay grade was E-6—the most common among

accessions—reached that grade an average of nearly 15 months earlier than was

typical among E-6s in their enlisted specialties. That placed them ahead of 73

percent of their peers. (The comparison is with personnel in the same enlisted

specialty as the new warrant officer or LDO because promotion speeds vary among

specialties.) Army aviators appear to have been promoted less rapidly than

technicians, but that appearance derives from the pay grade underlying the

comparison—there is less variation in the time it takes to reach grade E-5 than to

reach grade E-6. Warrant officer technicians in the Marine Corps reached grade E-6

only a few months earlier than their peers, but that service allows less variation in

promotion speeds than the other services allow.
40 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

OPPORTUNITIES TO BECOME A WARRANT OFFICER OR LDO

People in the enlisted ranks may be top performers, and they may be attracted to

warrant or LDO service by higher pay. But if they are serving in the wrong enlisted

specialties, they will have little or no opportunity to become a warrant officer or

LDO. Except in the case of Army aviators, the services do not train their warrant

officers from scratch; they expect candidates to have gained experience in a relevant

enlisted specialty. And they do not create warrant officer positions to provide

advancement opportunities, at least according to their official policies. As a result,

the opportunities for enlisted personnel to become warrant officers or limited duty

officers vary widely among occupational areas. People in some specialties have

TABLE 9. COMPARISON OF THE QUALITY OF WARRANT OFFICER AND

LIMITED DUTY OFFICER ACCESSIONS WITH THAT OF PEERS IN THEIR

ENLISTED OCCUPATIONAL SPECIALTIES, FISCAL YEARS 1998-1999

Army

Marine

Corps Navy

Aviator Technician Technician Warrant LDO

AFQT Score

Average Points Higher than 

Specialty Mean 17.7 6.9 5.6 -1.3 2.6 a

Percentage with Scores Above

Specialty Mean 85 64 65 47 57

Months of Service at Last Promotion

Average Months Earlier than

Specialty Median 9.2 14.9 4.3 6.7 16.9

Percentage Promoted Earlier than

Specialty Median 70 73 63 63 80

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office from data supplied by the Defense Manpower Data Center.

NOTES: Comparisons are with values for personnel in the most common enlisted pay grade among accessions in each group,

which are the following: Army aviator, E-5; Army technician, E-6; Marine Corps technician, E-6; Navy warrant

and LDO, E-7.

Scores on the AFQT (Armed Forces Qualification Test) represent percentiles of the distribution of scores among

the general youth population.

a. Measured against servicewide averages, the differences were generally slightly greater; except in the Navy, warrant

officers tend to be drawn from enlisted specialties in which people have above-average AFQT scores.
CHAPTER IV WHO BECOMES A WARRANT OFFICER OR LIMITED DUTY OFFICER? 41

almost no chance at all, others have a limited chance, and still others may be actively

recruited to serve as warrant officers.

The Marine Corps offers people the greatest overall opportunity to serve as

a warrant officer or LDO; the Army, excluding its aviators, offers the smallest (see

Table 10). In 1998 and 1999, the Marine Corps selected about 8.4 warrant officers

for every 100 enlisted personnel in their 10th year of service—the Army selected

about half as many. (The 10th year was chosen for uniformity among the services,

but as noted previously, the Army chooses some warrant officers earlier.)

Opportunities for enlisted personnel to serve as warrant officers in the Navy are

limited, but that service also selects most of its LDOs from among enlisted personnel.

The Army excludes personnel in many enlisted specialties from warrant

service. Nearly half of Army personnel who reach the grade at which they might

apply for warrant service are in occupational specialties that do not directly feed into

any warrant officer occupation. Of those personnel, more than 40 percent are in the

combat arms—infantry, armor, and artillery. Other large groups without warrant

officer opportunities include the medical specialties and truck drivers (motor

transport operators).

TABLE 10. MEASURES OF THE OPPORTUNITY FOR ENLISTED PERSONNEL TO

SERVE AS NONAVIATOR WARRANT OFFICERS OR LIMITED DUTY

OFFICERS (In percent)

Navy

Opportunity Army

Warrant

Officer

Limited Duty

Officer Total Marine Corps

Average Opportunity

Among All Personnela 4.2 2.4 3.5 5.8 8.4

Personnel with No Opportunityb 48.0 9.8 11.1 7.3 14.9

SOURCE: Congressional Budget Office.

a. Average number of accessions of warrant officers or LDOs in 1998 and 1999 divided by the number of enlisted personnel

in their 10th year of service.

b. The fraction of enlisted personnel in the most common pay grade for accession as a warrant officer or LDO (E-6 in the

Army and the Marine Corps; E-7 in the Navy) serving in occupational specialties that do not directly feed into any warrant

officer or LDO occupation.
42 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

The Navy and the Marine Corps offer warrant officer and LDO opportunities

to a much larger fraction of enlisted personnel than the Army does. In the Marine

Corps, the largest excluded group is again the combat arms, except for the infantry.

Infantry personnel can become marine gunners, but that group of warrant officers is

very small; treating infantry personnel as ineligible pushes the total excluded

personnel to 26 percent. In the Navy, about 10 percent of personnel are in enlisted

specialties that do not directly feed into any warrant officer occupation, and about 7

percent are in specialties that feed into neither a warrant officer nor an LDO

occupation. (Of those specialties, hospital corpsman and dental technician account

for almost all of the excluded group.)

At the other extreme from the group of specialties with no direct path to

warrant officer positions are a few specialties in which becoming a warrant officer

or LDO amounts to almost a normal career progression. The criminal investigations

(CID) field in the Army falls into that category—for every E-6 CID agent there are

two warrant officer agents, and there are nearly as many CID warrant officers as

enlisted CID personnel of all ranks. Counterintelligence is another field in which the

opportunity to become a warrant officer is very high in the Army, as well as in the

Marine Corps. In the Navy, nuclear power offers very good opportunities. There are

roughly 900 nuclear-qualified E-7s compared with about 400 warrant officers and

LDOs who specialize in nuclear power; in addition, those E-7s have other

opportunities based on their broader specialty. Nuclear power is also the area in

which the Navy offers enlisted personnel the largest reenlistment bonuses of any of

the services, as much as $45,000 for a first reenlistment and $60,000 for a second.

Between the extremes, differences in opportunities tend to mirror the

occupational mix for warrant officers and limited duty officers (see Table 4 on pages

14 and 15).
CHAPTER V

ADAPTING THE WARRANT OFFICER SYSTEM

TO MEET NEW GOALS

Some analysts and policymakers, concerned about the services' ability to compete

with private firms for people who have the technical skills needed by the modern

military, have discussed expanding the warrant officer ranks. Offering both higher

pay and greater status than enlisted service, warrant service might provide a more

competitive career path for potential recruits who aspire to more than just a high

school education, for experienced service members with skills that are valuable to the

military, and for very capable people whose superior abilities may not be adequately

recognized in the enlisted ranks. The first part of this paper sought to inform the

debate over possible roles for the warrant officer ranks by describing the services'

current management practices. This chapter illustrates how the services might

expand their warrant officer programs to help satisfy their personnel needs.

The chapter describes three illustrative approaches to using the warrant

officer ranks to improve recruiting or retention in occupational areas traditionally

assigned to enlisted personnel. Because the services' current programs for warrant

officers are very diverse, none of the approaches would require entirely new

management practices. The first approach, which focuses on attracting some of the

growing number of high school graduates who proceed directly to college, could

draw on the Army's experience with its early-select model for managing warrant

officer aviators. The second approach aims to improve retention among personnel

whom the services have trained in technical occupations that offer high pay in the

private sector, and the third seeks to retain top performers regardless of their

occupation. Both approaches could adapt the midcareer model that the Army and the

Marine Corps use to manage their technician warrant officers.

The chapter does not formally compare the cost-effectiveness of alternative

approaches to improving recruiting and retention, but it does identify some of the

considerations that would enter into such comparisons. Like enlistment and

reenlistment bonuses, an expanded warrant officer program could focus on specific

occupational areas, providing an important advantage over a general pay raise. The

advantage of an expanded program in comparison with bonuses, however, is less

clear. Some of the factors affecting that comparison include the value that people

place on current compensation in comparison with deferred compensation and what

worth potential warrant officers place on the status conferred by that position.

Although the services could adapt current management practices for warrant

officers to serve new goals in the areas of recruiting and retention, doing so would

require them to fundamentally change their views about appropriate roles for those
44 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

personnel. Opponents of expanding the use of warrant officers could argue that the

decision to classify a position as enlisted, warrant, or officer should depend only on

the job requirements—the nature of the work and the level of authority required—

and not on concerns about recruiting or retention. In response, supporters of a

broader role for the warrant officer ranks might point out that decisions about

requirements for personnel in different ranks are already influenced by the realities

of recruiting and retention. For example, some officer positions do not require an

officer’s authority but merely the college education that is generally a prerequisite for

officer status. Similarly, positions for junior enlisted personnel in many occupational

areas exist largely to supply a flow of trained personnel into more senior positions.

AN EARLY-SELECT MODEL TO AID RECRUITING

Analysts looking for ways to expand the pool of potential recruits in the face of high

college attendance rates have noted the services' limited ability to offer higher pay to

already-trained recruits within the existing system for enlisted personnel, and some

have suggested that the warrant officer ranks might offer a solution. A warrant

officer program designed to make military service more attractive to people with high

aptitudes in technical areas could build on the Army's experience with its early-select

model for aviators. The approach examined here would allow people with relevant

skills acquired in two-year colleges or technical schools to enter directly as warrant

officers; others could begin as enlisted personnel with the expectation of advancing

to the warrant officer ranks once they demonstrated their abilities in military training

schools and on the job. Under such a program, selected occupations might be largely

transferred from the enlisted ranks to the warrant officer ranks.

What types of occupations might be transferred? Likely candidates would

probably have some or all of the following characteristics: a need for people with

strong technical skills or aptitudes, close counterparts in the civilian world, relevant

training available in civilian institutions, and lengthy training required for full

competence. Perhaps the most obvious candidates are the Navy's nuclear propulsion

specialties, which require high aptitude and lengthy training, and in which the Navy

has consistently offered high reenlistment bonuses. Other candidates are specialties

involved with data and communications networks, electronics repair, and possibly

air traffic control. The intelligence area generally, and linguists in particular, might

also be considered.

Expanding the warrant officer ranks as a tool to attract individuals with some

college into technical military occupations could require fundamental changes in how

the services perceive warrant officers. Each of the services currently views warrant

officers—to one degree or another—as senior technical experts. But under an earlyselect program, the levels of technical expertise of junior and senior warrant officers
CHAPTER V ADAPTING THE WARRANT OFFICER SYSTEM TO MEET NEW GOALS 45

could differ greatly. In some cases, junior warrant officers might be expected to

work under the supervision of their senior counterparts.

If the services adopted an early-select model for some occupations, they

might find that introducing new warrant officer pay grades—one below the current

grade of W-1 and one above the grade of W-5—would help to accommodate the

greater variation in technical expertise and seniority that would be seen. At current

rates of pay, a W-1 with no military experience receives nearly as much in regular

military compensation as a starting commissioned officer. A new warrant officer

grade below W-1 would put the pay of direct-accession warrant officers more clearly

between that of officers and enlisted personnel but might still be attractive to

graduates of two-year college programs. The introduction of a grade above W-5

would give top performers a greater incentive to remain in the military for an

extended career.

The services might also find that changing their promotion policies would

help to accommodate an early-select plan to aid recruiting. Allowing more variation

in the timing of promotions within warrant officer occupations would mirror

practices in the enlisted ranks, where technical competence is more important than

completing a specific pattern of assignments. That change would make a warrant

officer career more attractive to very capable recruits. In addition, the services might

choose to manage promotions separately for each occupational specialty, which could

allow pay to vary among warrant officer occupations without requiring the creation

of a new system of specialty pays or bonuses.

A MIDCAREER APPROACH TO IMPROVE RETENTION

A program designed to improve retention in occupational areas in which training is

lengthy and experience particularly valuable might draw on the Army’s and the

Marine Corps’ experience with a midcareer management model. Expanded

opportunities for warrant service could be offered to enlisted personnel in selected

specialties starting at about their eighth year of service, when many are deciding

whether to complete a military career. Depending on the degree of improvement in

retention that was sought, warrant officer positions might completely replace senior

enlisted positions in the selected occupations (as with the recruiting-based approach)

or the replacement could be only partial.

Many of the occupational areas that would be chosen for an early-select plan

to aid recruiting might also be considered for a midcareer program oriented toward

retaining valuable skills, but some of the selection criteria could differ. For example,

candidates might include specialties that required repeated attendance at training

schools or in which many specialized occupations currently collapse into a single

specialty when personnel reach grade E-6 or E-7. Occupations in which the required
46 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

1. Indeed, the Army may find that its current plan to select as warrant officers people with between five

and eight years of service is hampered by the reluctance of qualified candidates to trade a secure

enlisted career for a somewhat risky one as a warrant officer.

skills are specific to the military, such as some mechanical maintenance specialties,

might also be candidates.

To better support a midcareer plan designed to improve retention, some of the

services might alter their policies dealing with promotion to grade W-3 and possibly

seek a change in the law governing mandatory separation of warrant officers.

Depending on how early enlisted personnel were selected for warrant service,

consideration for W-3 could come at a very awkward time for them—some would

be forced to leave only a few years short of qualifying for retirement benefits.1

Among the services, the Army currently has the lowest opportunity for promotion to

W-3; if it adopted an expanded midcareer program, it might want to raise that

promotion opportunity or ask the Congress to modify the law mandating separation

of warrant officers who have been passed over for promotion. That would make it

easier for the services to keep such officers on active duty.

As part of a program aimed at improving retention in specific occupational

areas, the services might consider managing promotions separately for each specialty,

using differences in promotion timing and opportunity to create differences in pay

among occupations. Warrant officers in occupations offering high pay in the private

sector would rise more rapidly through the ranks, and with greater certainty, than

those in occupations with less attractive civilian alternatives.

A MIDCAREER APPROACH TO IMPROVE THE QUALITY

OF CAREER PERSONNEL

Expanded opportunities for top performers in the enlisted ranks to serve as warrant

officers might also be managed under a midcareer model, although the program

probably would spread warrant positions more widely across occupational areas and

not completely replace enlisted personnel with warrant officers in any specialty.

Under such a program, selection as a warrant officer would recognize a person's

ability to readily master a broader range of tasks than is required in individual

enlisted specialties. The program could be expected to appeal both to people who

otherwise would rise through the enlisted ranks so rapidly that a long military career

would have nothing further to offer, and to people without strong leadership ability

whose technical skills would nonetheless earn them high salaries in the private

sector. Selecting warrant officers at the end of their second enlistment term, or

perhaps even earlier, would make the possibility of warrant service more apparent to

people considering a military career.
CHAPTER V ADAPTING THE WARRANT OFFICER SYSTEM TO MEET NEW GOALS 47

To make the plan attractive to the most-capable personnel, the services might

want to permit more variation in the timing of promotions, allowing top performers

to rise as rapidly as they can demonstrate the necessary technical competence.

Current promotion systems for warrant officers—modeled after the system for

commissioned officers—sharply limit both the number of people who are promoted

early to each grade and how early they can be promoted. Such systems are consistent

with a perceived need for officers to serve in positions of successively higher

responsibility to prepare them for leadership roles. For technical experts, that slow

preparation might not be necessary; top performers could qualify very quickly for the

highest positions (and expect correspondingly high pay if they left for the private

sector).

Although the services have the discretion to promote some warrant officers

much more rapidly than they currently do, two changes in law could make a system

that varied the timing of promotions more effective. First, much faster promotions

for some personnel would create the need for an additional warrant officer pay grade

above the existing grades, to encourage people who are promoted rapidly to remain

in the military. Second, relief from the provision that caps the percentage of early

(below-the-zone) promotions would allow the services to differentiate among

individuals over a wider range of performance and make early promotion a realistic

possibility for more people. Top enlisted personnel are not likely to be attracted by

a system that says no more than 10 percent of them can expect to break out of the

promotion lockstep.

Current rates of pay for warrant officers may not be adequate to induce top

performers who now leave the enlisted ranks for civilian employment to remain in

the military. As discussed earlier, service as a warrant officer offers only a modest

increase in pay for people with good promotion prospects in the enlisted ranks.

Raising the pay of warrant officers across the board would be the most obvious

means of improving the appeal of warrant service. Top performers, however, might

find warrant service more attractive if that pay raise was combined with a promotion

system that better recognized their individual talents, as discussed above.

COMBINING APPROACHES

The previous discussion implicitly assumes that service officials will identify only

one of three problems requiring attention in the management of enlisted personnel.

Multiple problems could arise, however, requiring different solutions, or broad

problems could be attacked in multiple ways. The first two approaches, for example,

focus on specific occupations, offering alternative ways to improve staffing for occupational areas in which skilled workers are in high demand in the private sector. One

aims to improve recruiting, the other to hold on to trained personnel, which would

indirectly ease pressures on recruiting.
48 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

Combining the two occupation-oriented approaches could prove desirable.

The early-select approach might be appropriate for occupations in which technical

training that is commonly available in civilian institutions could substitute for much

of the services' in-house training. In other occupational areas, the skills taught by the

services might be unique to the military or could require extensive hands-on

experience to master; such areas would be better suited to a midcareer approach. No

technical obstacle would prevent the two plans from coexisting within a service,

although the service would have to decide on starting pay grades and promotion

timings under each program.

The third approach, which seeks to retain top performers in all occupational

areas, might prove to be incompatible with either of the approaches that focus on

selected occupations. The difficulty would be conceptual rather than technical. The

occupation-based approaches would retain the services' current view of warrant

officer positions as existing to serve occupational staffing needs, although they would

expand the definition of what generated those needs. The performance-based

approach, by contrast, would use the warrant officer ranks to recognize superior

talents. Although there would probably be considerable overlap between the groups

of people who would be selected for warrant service under the two types of

approaches, some exceptional performers would be found in occupations with no

shortages of personnel. The question of how to define appropriate warrant officer

roles for such people might be resolved by allowing them to retrain in another area.

Related to the issue of how different approaches could be combined is the

question of whether any plan that expanded warrant officer opportunities to deal with

enlisted staffing problems could coexist with the services' current warrant officer

programs. The Navy, in particular, might be reluctant to consider a program that

selected warrant officers early because of its long warrant officer tradition, but there

are at least two reasons to think it might consider change. First, the Navy has been

the most aggressive of the services in the use of selective reenlistment bonuses for

enlisted personnel. Warrant service might offer sufficiently attractive career earnings

to replace the large SRBs offered in some specialties. Second, the Navy does not

have very many warrant officers—they make up only about 0.5 percent of all Navy

personnel and are outnumbered more than two-to-one by the service's limited duty

officers. If the Navy wished to retain the positions of senior technical experts in

broad fields that are now occupied by warrant officers, it might consider transferring

those positions to the LDO ranks. Alternatively, it could retain something like its

current warrant officer program in those occupational areas not covered by the earlyselect plan. As noted above, no technical obstacle would prevent an early-select plan

for some occupations from coexisting with a midcareer or even a late-career model

for others within a single service.
CHAPTER V ADAPTING THE WARRANT OFFICER SYSTEM TO MEET NEW GOALS 49

2. Assuming the pay raise was effective on January 1, 2002, it would add about $450 million to defense

costs in 2002 and $620 million in 2003. Those figures reflect the personnel strength numbers reported

in Department of Defense, Selected Military Compensation Tables: 1 January 2001.

3. The estimate for the number of enlisted positions that could be converted to positions for warrant

officers was derived by comparing average rates of compensation for personnel in grades E-6 through

E-9 and personnel in grades W-1 through W-5, excluding Army aviators. Thus, the estimate reflects

a steady state rather than the transition period in which the new warrant officers would be in the lower

pay grades. Aviators are excluded because they begin their warrant service much earlier in their

military careers than other warrant officers do and so tend to receive less in basic pay at a given pay

grade. The elements of compensation were basic pay, the allowances for food and housing, the

employer’s share of Social Security taxes, and the amount that the Department of Defense sets aside

to fund the future retirement benefits of current military personnel. The pay rates were those in effect

on July 1, 2001. 

COST-EFFECTIVENESS CONSIDERATIONS

The finding that warrant officer programs could be expanded as a tool to improve

recruiting and retention does not imply that expansion would be less costly than

traditional tools such as enlistment and reenlistment bonuses. Several general

considerations would be involved in comparing the costs of warrant officer and

traditional approaches to improving recruiting and retention.

An expanded warrant officer program could be a cost-effective alternative to

a raise in military pay as a tool to improve recruitment or retention. In general,

programs designed to improve military staffing tend to be more cost-effective the

more narrowly focused they are on the people and decisions that they are intended to

affect. An expanded warrant officer program could be limited to specific occupational areas, an important advantage in comparison with the across-the-board effects

(and costs) of a general pay raise; every 1 percent increase in military basic pay adds

more than $600 million to defense costs after the first year of the raise (pay raises

typically take effect in the fourth month of the fiscal year).2 That capacity to focus

on specific occupations, or even on specific people such as top performers, gives an

expanded warrant system a cost advantage even over pay raises limited to certain pay

grades. Some analysts have pointed out that growing numbers of midcareer and

senior enlisted personnel have substantial college training, which current military pay

scales may not adequately recognize. Instead of raising the pay of all midcareer and

senior enlisted personnel, however, DoD could focus the raise by offering warrant

officer positions—with their higher pay—to those people it most wanted to retain or

to those who were serving in military occupations with the best-paying civilian

alternatives. A 5 percent raise in basic pay for personnel in grades E-6 and above

could fund the conversion of roughly 60,000 enlisted positions in the top four grades

to warrant officer positions.3

Although a warrant officer approach would tend to have clear cost advantages

over either general raises in pay or raises limited to certain pay grades, enlistment and
50 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

4. The services might also prefer the bonus approach because it gives them the flexibility to adjust pay

differences among occupations in response to changes in retention rates. That flexibility, however,

comes at the expense of making service members more uncertain about their future pay. The warrant

officer approach that selected personnel early in their enlisted careers would reduce pay uncertainty

in the selected occupations while also reducing the services' ability to manage staffing patterns.

5. Among the issues that David S. C. Chu, the current Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and

Readiness, recently discussed with members of the press was the effect of the military's up-or-out

promotion system in limiting the careers of personnel who are unwilling to accept leadership

responsibilities. See Department of Defense News Briefing (August 8, 2001).

reenlistment bonuses can be focused more easily than a warrant officer approach on

the specific points at which people decide whether to complete a military career.

Because individuals discount future payments—typically at rates much higher than

the government does in evaluating future costs—service members might tend to favor

an enlisted career that offered up-front reenlistment bonuses over a warrant officer

career in which much of the financial reward came in the form of higher pay late in

the career and in retirement, even if the two alternatives were equally costly from the

government's perspective.4

 A common criticism of the military compensation system

is that, in comparison with private-sector systems, it overemphasizes deferred

compensation. Compared with bonuses, the warrant-officer approach would continue that emphasis.

Nonmonetary factors associated with warrant service might offset the appeal

of up-front bonuses. Some people might be attracted by the greater status of warrant

officers, particularly in comparison with the junior and even midlevel enlisted ranks.

Graduates of two-year colleges, for example, might appreciate being recognized

immediately as professionals instead of having to serve a long enlisted

apprenticeship. Depending on how it was structured, an expanded warrant officer

system might also appeal to people who would rather remain technical specialists

than assume leadership responsibilities. As discussed earlier, the warrant system

could base promotions primarily on technical competence, rather than expect people

to assume leadership positions as a condition of advancement and, thus, of continuing in the military.5

A warrant officer approach to improve recruiting or retention might be

considered, even if it proved more costly than traditional approaches, if institutional

rigidities limited the services' ability or willingness to exploit the traditional tools to

the degree indicated by an analysis of costs and benefits. For example, enlistment

and reenlistment bonuses, and the differences they create in pay among occupations,

have been a part of the military compensation system for many years, yet some

service officials have always felt uneasy about bonuses. In recent testimony before

the Congress, personnel officials of the Marine Corps expressed that unease: "The

disparity of pay among Marines who enter the Corps together is becoming more

apparent and the cultural outcome of major pay differences can only be divisive
CHAPTER V ADAPTING THE WARRANT OFFICER SYSTEM TO MEET NEW GOALS 51

6. Joint statement of Lieutenant General Jack W. Klimp, United States Marine Corps, Deputy Chief of

Staff for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, and Major General Gary L. Parks, Commanding General,

Marine Corps Recruiting Command, before the Military Personnel Subcommittee, House Committee

on Armed Services, March 8, 2000.

7. During the Vietnam era, the Army maintained parallel specialist and leadership ("hard-stripe"— corporal, sergeant, and so forth) ranks for enlisted personnel. The rank of specialist (E-4) is the only

vestige of that long-abandoned system.

within our Corps."6 At current rates of pay, for the armed services to offer personnel

the same financial incentive to remain in the military as the pay a warrant officer

receives would require larger bonuses than any of them now offer for second and

third reenlistments. Redefining some occupations as belonging in the warrant ranks

would allow the services to offer those large pay incentives without further expanding their reenlistment bonus programs.

As an alternative to enlarging reenlistment bonuses, the services could

consider offering more promotions in selected enlisted occupations, but that option

could also encounter institutional resistance. It would amount to creating positions

for senior noncommissioned officers that did not require the responsibility or

leadership normally associated with an NCO. Creating a separate set of ranks for

technicians, as the warrant officer options discussed here would essentially do, might

be easier to accomplish than trying to create those ranks for selected occupations

within the system for enlisted personnel.7

Because predicting the effects of an expanded program for warrant officers

could prove difficult, the impetus for trying such an approach is likely to come from

small-scale but well-identified problems in enlisted staffing. As discussed at the

beginning of this paper, for example, Undersecretary Rostker complained of

computer-network administrators leaving the military only to return as higher-paid

contractors. Concerns about retaining people in the information-technology area

might lead a service to test the concept of converting positions in that area from the

enlisted to the warrant officer ranks. Such a test could eventually reveal both how

effective the approach could be in encouraging retention and to what extent a more

experienced workforce could reduce personnel requirements.

CONCLUSION

This chapter has illustrated some of the ways in which the services could use the

warrant officer ranks to assist in meeting their personnel needs. Because current

management practices are so diverse, the approaches discussed here could all draw

on a management system that already exists within one or more of the services. And

because the legislation governing warrant officer programs gives the services

considerable discretion in how they manage personnel, many of the adaptations that
52 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

might be needed if the warrant officer ranks were to serve an expanded role would

require only policy changes. Nonetheless, expanding the role of warrant officers as

a means of helping to meet personnel goals could require the services to alter

fundamentally their views of what a warrant officer is.
APPENDIX A

AN OVERVIEW OF MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

FOR ENLISTED PERSONNEL AND COMMISSIONED OFFICERS

This appendix provides an overview of management practices for commissioned

officers and enlisted personnel in the active-duty military. It is intended to make the

paper's discussion of warrant officers and limited duty officers more accessible to

readers who have little or no knowledge of those practices. The appendix necessarily

glosses over some of the differences among the four services (the Army, Navy, Air

Force, and Marine Corps) and omits entirely certain special classes of personnel, such

as physicians and lawyers. Any numbers given refer to fiscal year 2000 unless

otherwise noted.

In broad terms, junior enlisted personnel are analogous to the workers in a

private company and officers to the executives. Between those two groups lie the

noncommissioned officers (NCOs), or petty officers in the Navy, who operate as

direct supervisors and middle managers. NCOs generally direct the same tasks that

they had previously performed; the military allows no lateral entry of civilians, and

lateral moves within the enlisted ranks are generally limited to those needed to

correct occupational imbalances. Certain groups within the officer ranks—doctors

and lawyers, for example—owe their status to the professional nature of their

occupations. Any officer, however, even those not in the normal leadership tracks,

has the authority to command the obedience of more junior officers and enlisted

personnel.

ENLISTED PERSONNEL

The services draw most of their enlisted recruits from among recent high school

graduates—most are under 20 years of age and almost all have either a high school

diploma or some form of high school equivalency certificate. Recruits are generally

promised training in a specific military occupation or occupational area, and they

agree to serve for fixed periods ranging from two years for some recruits in particular

occupations (primarily in the Army) to six years for others, with four-year terms

being by far the most common. The services use enlistment bonuses to attract wellqualified recruits, channel them into specific occupations, and induce them to agree

to longer enlistment terms. Some of the services also offer enhancements to the basic

program of postservice education benefits (G.I. Bill) to attract and channel recruits.

Individual occupational specialties range in number from about 75 in the

Navy to more than 200 in the Marine Corps. The Navy calls its basic enlisted
54 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

occupations ratings; personnel also qualify in subspecialties called navy enlisted

classifications. In the Air Force, occupations are identified by Air Force specialty

codes. The Army and the Marine Corps refer to military occupational specialties.

Through at least their first 10 years of service, enlisted personnel continue to

serve on fixed-length enlistment contracts, choosing a new term length of two to six

years each time they reenlist. (After their 10th year, they may reenlist either for a

fixed period or for an unspecified period.) Depending on their occupational

specialty, they may be eligible for a reenlistment bonus the first few times they

reenlist (through their 14th year of service). The services regularly adjust the

bonuses they offer to encourage retention in occupations with current or projected

personnel shortages and may, as a condition of reenlisting, require people in

occupations with too many personnel to retrain for occupations with too few

personnel. The largest reenlistment bonuses can add as much as one-third to a

person's pay over a four-year reenlistment, but bonuses adding 10 percent or less are

far more common.

As their careers progress, enlisted personnel may rise through a series of nine

pay grades—designated E-1 through E-9—each of which a service associates with

one, or in some cases two, titles of rank. An E-7 in the Navy, for example, is called

a chief petty officer; in the Army, he or she may be designated either a platoon

sergeant or a sergeant first class. The first few promotions tend to occur on a fairly

fixed schedule, but by the grade of E-4, more variation among individuals begins to

appear. In the middle grades, promotions are generally based on a point system;

individuals receive points on the basis of such factors as time in the service, time in

grade, special qualifications (including college coursework), and commanders'

evaluations. When positions in the next grade open up, those personnel with the

most points are promoted. Promotions become increasingly competitive at each

successive grade, and most personnel cannot expect to advance beyond grade E-6 or

E-7. Some services provide more rapid promotions in some occupations than in

others to balance retention patterns and occupation-specific personnel requirements;

other services attempt to maintain roughly similar promotion timings for all occupations.

For each pay grade, the services establish a high year of tenure, limiting the

careers of personnel who do not continue to advance. The Air Force, for example,

forces most enlisted personnel who have not advanced beyond grade E-4 to leave

after 10 years of service and those in grades E-5 and E-6 to leave after 20 years. All

the services generally limit E-7s to no more than 24 years of service and allow only

E-9s to complete 30 years. Like other service members, enlisted personnel may retire

after 20 years of service with an immediate annuity equal to 50 percent of their

monthly basic pay; if they leave earlier, they receive no retirement benefits. The

amount of the annuity rises steadily if they stay in the military beyond 20 years,

reaching a maximum of 75 percent of basic pay after 30 years of service.
APPENDIX A AN OVERVIEW OF MANAGEMENT PRACTICES 55

COMMISSIONED OFFICERS

A college degree is the basic prerequisite for service as a commissioned officer.

Most officers also receive their initial military training while in college, either at one

of the service academies or in a reserve officer training corps (ROTC) program at one

of numerous participating colleges and universities. Others attend one of the

services' officer candidate schools after graduating from college. In addition, the

services offer programs designed to assist enlisted personnel who wish to become

officers to complete their college education. Academy and ROTC graduates are

generally under 25 years of age when they become officers; those who enter through

officer candidate school tend to be older, some of them because they served first in

the enlisted ranks.

Officers' initial service obligations range from 3 years to 10 years, depending

on the program through which they became officers and the occupational areas in

which they are trained. Once they complete those initial obligations, officers may

generally request separation at any time unless they are under a specific obligation

incurred as a result of service-supported schooling, a promotion, or the acceptance

of certain assignments.

Officers' occupational specialties are more broadly defined than those of

enlisted personnel and thus are much fewer in number. Moreover, the services

generally group those occupations even more broadly when considering officers for

promotion. In every service but the Navy, all officers compete together for available

promotions (excluding the occupations with special requirements, such as physician

and lawyer). In the Navy, unrestricted line officers—those in the surface, submarine,

or aviation warfare specialties—compete in one group. Those in other specialties,

including engineering duty, cryptography, oceanography, and supply, compete for

promotions only within their own specialties. Many of those specialties draw their

personnel from among officers who first served in the unrestricted line.

Officers begin in pay grade O-1, with the rank of ensign in the Navy and

second lieutenant in the other services, and may advance as high as O-10 (admiral or

general). Most officers who complete at least 20 years of service end their careers

as an O-5 (commander or lieutenant colonel) or O-6 (captain or colonel).

Officer promotions—and much of officer management—are constrained by

provisions of the Defense Officer Personnel Management Act (DOPMA), which was

enacted in 1980. DOPMA sets out the procedures for promotions and gives guidelines for the timing of promotions and the fraction of eligible officers who will be

promoted to successive grades. For example, it says that promotion to O-5 should

occur at between 15 and 17 years of service and that approximately 70 percent of

eligible officers should be promoted.
56 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

Under DOPMA, the services must convene boards of officers to select from

among those eligible the best qualified for promotion for each grade starting with

O-3. Before convening a board, a service determines how many officers the board

will select and establishes three zones of consideration based on the date of officers'

promotion to their current grade. Most selections come from among officers in the

primary zone, which includes the senior-most officers who were not in the primary

zone for the previous board. In the Army and the Air Force, the primary zone

typically encompasses exactly one year's worth of officers—the Army board for

major (O-4) in 2001, for example, considered in the primary zone those officers who

had been promoted to captain between October 2, 1994, and October 1, 1995. The

other services vary the length of the primary zone from one board to the next.

Smaller numbers of officers are selected from below the zone—those promoted to

their current grade during a specified later period than the primary zone—and from

among officers above the zone, who were not selected (“passed over”) when they

were considered in the primary zone by a previous board.

Officer separations are governed by an up-or-out system, also part of

DOPMA, that is designed to ensure a steady flow of personnel through the ranks.

Those who are passed over twice for a particular grade—once in the primary zone

and again above the zone—must leave shortly after the second rejection unless they

are specifically selected for continuation. The services typically allow those passed

over twice for O-5 to stay until they become eligible for retirement benefits.
1. The full table of military basic pay can be found in Department of Defense, Selected Military

Compensation Tables (various years) or on the World Wide Web at www.dfas.mil/money/milpay.

APPENDIX B

MILITARY BASIC PAY AND REGULAR MILITARY COMPENSATION

Service members' basic pay depends on their pay grade and how long they have

served in the military. In general, raises for longevity (length of service) come every

two years, with the last occurring after 26 years. The full table of basic pay gives pay

levels for 15 longevity points—Table B-1 shows four representative points and omits

the pay rates for generals and admirals (pay grades O-7 through O-10).1

Regular military compensation (RMC) provides a basis for comparing

military pay with pay in civilian employment. In addition to basic pay, all service

members receive either cash allowances for housing and subsistence costs or

government-supplied housing and food. RMC consists of basic pay, the two

allowances, and the so-called federal tax advantage—the extra amount that members

would have to be paid, in order to have the same after-tax income, if the allowances

were subject to federal income tax. (Calculations of the tax advantage necessarily

require some rough assumptions about service members' tax situation.) In general,

RMC does not vary among members in percentage terms as much as does basic pay;

subsistence allowances differ only between enlisted personnel and officers (including

warrant officers), and housing allowances differ less among pay grades than does

basic pay and do not depend on length of service.
58 WARRANT OFFICERS AND MILITARY PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT February 2002

TABLE B-1. ANNUAL BASIC PAY AND REGULAR MILITARY COMPENSATION FOR

SELECTED YEARS OF SERVICE, BY PAY GRADE, AS OF JULY 1, 2000

Basic Pay Regular Military Compensationa

Pay Grade

2

Years

8

Years

16

Years

24

Years

2

Years

8

Years

16

Years

24

Years

Commissioned Officers

O-6 53,539 59,720 69,494 80,629 78,182 84,363 94,137 105,272

O-5 45,767 51,502 63,432 69,023 68,738 74,473 86,403 91,994

O-4 40,007 47,765 57,107 57,704 58,944 66,702 76,044 76,641

O-3 34,610 44,431 49,669 49,669 49,294 59,115 64,353 64,353

O-2 30,326 36,853 36,853 36,853 42,668 49,195 49,195 49,195

O-1 24,059 29,077 29,077 29,077 35,441 40,460 40,460 40,460

Commissioned Officers with Over Four Years' Active Service as Enlisted Members

O-3E 0 44,431 51,502 53,003 0 61,315 68,385 69,887

O-2E 0 38,023 42,674 42,674 0 52,714 57,365 57,365

O-1E 0 32,206 36,108 36,108 0 45,799 49,702 49,702

Warrant Officers

W-5 0 0 0 57,395 0 0 0 76,789

W-4 33,462 38,606 45,043 51,476 49,929 55,074 61,511 67,944

W-3 30,665 33,779 39,578 45,360 45,384 48,498 54,297 60,079

W-2 26,791 30,665 35,388 40,540 40,373 44,246 48,970 54,121

W-1 23,652 27,994 32,818 34,931 36,287 40,629 45,453 47,566

Enlisted Personnel

E-9 0 0 39,258 44,928 0 0 55,769 61,439

E-8 0 30,341 34,081 39,546 0 45,370 49,110 54,575

E-7 23,134 26,651 30,168 35,114 37,393 40,911 44,428 49,374

E-6 20,138 23,677 26,935 27,428 33,775 37,313 40,571 41,065

E-5 17,928 21,474 23,234 23,234 30,328 33,874 35,634 35,634

E-4 16,477 19,127 19,127 19,127 27,921 30,571 30,571 30,571

E-3 15,127 16,031 16,031 16,031 26,027 26,931 26,931 26,931

E-2 13,529 13,529 13,529 13,529 24,419 24,419 24,419 24,419

E-1 12,067 12,067 12,067 12,067 22,575 22,575 22,575 22,575

SOURCES: Congressional Budget Office from Department of Defense, Selected Military Compensation Tables: 1 July

2000, and other DoD sources.

a. Regular military compensation consists of basic pay, basic allowance for subsistence, basic allowance for housing, and

the tax advantage that accrues to military personnel because the allowances are not subject to federal income tax. The

basic allowance for housing differs between service members with and without dependents and varies regionally. The

figures shown are for members with dependents. For all but the warrant officer pay grades, the figures for the housing

allowance and the tax advantage are DoD's estimates of nationwide averages. CBO adjusted the figures for the warrant

officer pay grades to eliminate the effects of unusual regional distributions of personnel in those grades.



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