HEIDELBERG, Germany — Starting later this month, soldiers and their families will have a chance to give themselves and their friends a raise — or a pay cut.
A Living Pattern Survey, in which married soldiers and their spouses report what they bought and where they bought it — from groceries, to tires, to haircuts, to dinners, to daycare — will be conducted from May 16 to June 17 throughout Europe. What gets reported is compared with the same items in the United States and is a basis for determining the cost-of-living allowance.
Unlike monetary exchange rates and cost of goods and services, which also affect the COLA, the survey is the primary aspect of the process that military families influence.
“What we owe you in COLA is enough money so you’re just as well off as you are [in the States],” said Stephen Westbrook, director of the Per Diem Travel and Transportation Allowance Committee. “Part of what goes into that overseas process is how much spending do you do in dollars and how much in foreign currency.”
Westbrook is part of a group that traveled from Washington to train local finance commands in how to set up computer programs to make the survey accessible to as many people as possible.
The survey should take about 20 minutes to complete, Westbrook said, and it should be completed by the family shopper, not a soldier corralled into the dayroom by a commander trying to post high participation rates.
“We’re after as accurate a picture as we can get of the shopping behavior,” Westbrook said.
Living Pattern Surveys are generally done every three years.
One was done for U.S. Army Europe two years ago, but it was on a much smaller scale and has since been determined to be inaccurate because of its size limitations.
Getting a sample from numerous areas — in which prices can vary considerably — provides the most accurate picture of what people actually spend, Westbrook said. The new survey will sample 13 Germany locations with varying degrees of services.
But, “for various and sundry reasons,” he said, the number of survey sites had dwindled over the years. For the past decade, he said, just two “full-service areas” — those within at least 90 minutes of a commissary and post exchange — were surveyed instead of the recommended five or six. Those two were Heidelberg and Ramstein.
That did not sit well with Gen. B.B. Bell, USAREUR commander, who is known for his family-friendly focus.
The old data “did not accurately reflect our changing environment,” Bell wrote in his most recent “Bell Sends” newsletter encouraging commanders and soldiers with families to participate. “This is your chance to help the system properly reflect your true monetary costs. ... Maximum participation will help ensure our soldiers get the COLA they need and deserve.”
Although single soldiers aren’t surveyed, their COLA is based on that of married soldiers.
If the per diem committee had not agreed to the new survey, Westbrook said, soldiers would have seen a decline in their COLA. That’s because U.S. prices have increased, and when those numbers were compared with last year’s Retail Price Schedule Survey — the annual survey of the prices of the goods soldiers say they bought — it appeared living in Germany was actually “marginally less expensive” than living in the States, Westbrook said.
“We agreed with USAREUR that we needed to stop the process,” Westbrook said. “We’ll resurvey. So we’ll get a better picture of Germany as a whole.”
After survey results come in, local commands will send out “price collection teams” to record how much the typical items — 120 in all — cost, for the retail price schedule survey. “Typical” means, in this case, what an E-6 or 0-3 with 10 years of service and three children might buy.
“You’re thinking in terms of that budget,” said Susan Brumbaugh, chief of the COLA section of the per diem committee. “You’re going to have some judgments calls there. The price collection is not an exact science.”
Those prices are then compared with the same stateside items. All that, and the analysis that succeeds it, should be completed by the beginning of September, with newly crunched COLA amounts landing in paychecks soon after, Westbrook said.
No one knows, however, whether the new surveys will determine a COLA increase, decrease, or no change at all, he said.
Westbrook said soldiers and family members should not “underestimate the value of participation” in the survey. And for participants, he agreed, it was also a good idea not to underestimate what they bought.
The survey can be completed beginning May 16 athttps://www.perdiem.osd.mil/oscola/lps/germany/
