Biomedical service corps officers and judge advocate general competitive categories no longer will have to go before the reduction-in-force board in September due to sufficient voluntary separations, announced service officials Thursday. The board, slated to convene in mid-September, will consider roughly 9,000 captain and major line officers in the following year groups: captains, 2000 and 2003-05; and majors, 2000, according to a release. The board is expected to keep roughly 95 percent of these airmen. The service announced in April that it had removed chaplains and medical service corps officers from the board, which is one component of the services overall force-management initiative. “While this remains a challenging time for airmen still meeting the RIF board, the percentage [of involuntary separations] will be lower than previously projected,” said Col. Ken Sersun, chief of USAF’s military force policy division.
With key members of Congress wavering on the possibility of a $350 billion defense reconciliation bill, defense experts told Air & Space Forces Magazine that the Pentagon is likely drawing up budget backup plans—but such plans would face hard choices between high-end weapons and low-cost drones and other programs in…