Naval Air Station Whidbey Island sailors are expected to see a substantial increase in their pay this coming year, including a boost to their housing subsidy.
Service members will get the biggest pay raise in 20 years after President Joe Biden signed a defense policy bill that will boost paychecks by 5.2%. According to Military.com, the president’s signature means junior service members and senior officers could make, respectively, $1,100 and $10,000 more per year.
Additionally, the U.S. Department of Defense released the Basic Allowance for Housing rates for 2024, which are set to increase by an average of 5.4% starting Jan. 4, according to a statement released by the department on Dec. 14. In 2023, it increased by 12.1%.
The Basic Allowance for Housing — or BAH — is an allowance that gives service members housing compensation in addition to base pay and is supposed to cover an area’s median cost of rent and the average cost of utilities in an area before a 5% out-of-pocket cost. The area comprises Whidbey Island, Fidalgo Island, Mount Vernon, Burlington and Sedro Woolley, places that are within an hour drive from the base, according to a 2021 market analysis released by the base.
The 2024 BAH for petty officer second class — or E-5 — assigned to Whidbey Island is $1,896 if they have dependents and $1,662 if they’re unaccompanied. Normally, Navy policy requires single sailors E-1 to E-4 with less than four years of service to live in the barracks, so they’re not used as examples.
This information is available at travel.dod.mil, where users can use the BAH rate lookup tool to find out what their BAH is based on their pay grade.
But despite the BAH being updated each year, NAS Whidbey military members have been dealing with the rising cost of rent outside of the base, according to NAS Whidbey Island Housing Director Jeff Green, causing limited availability of affordable units.
According to information provided by Green that was collected between February and July 2023, the median cost of rent for a one-bedroom apartment in 2023 is $1,395; $1,688 for a 2-bedroom apartment; $1,800 for a 2-bedroom duplex, townhouse or a 3-bedroom apartment; $2,375 for a 3-bedroom duplex or townhouse; $2,600 for a 3-bedroom single-family house; and $2,750 for a 4 or 5-bedroom single-family house.
An unaccompanied E-5 service member in need of a one-bedroom apartment in 2023 would be allotted a BAH of $1,491.
In a previous story published by the Whidbey News Times, Green said property managers adjust their rent based on the new BAH rates, causing the subsidy to struggle to keep up.
When asked if BAH calculations could account for future rent increases, a Navy spokesperson wrote in an email that the current formula to calculate the BAH doesn’t attempt to predict future changes in housing costs.
