The Air Force has approved 78 jobs to receive special duty assignment pay for 2025, an increase from the 70 for 2024, but also coming in a year when the service is planning to cut funding to the program.
While the service announced the 78 jobs figure, Air Force officials have refused to disclose details of its bonus program, including declining to share the eligible jobs and outline how the cuts to funding would affect the bonuses, claiming it's a security risk to disclose how it uses those taxpayer funds.
Air Force budget documents show that the service requested $4.1 million less for the program next year, down from the estimated $95.2 million allocation for the program in fiscal 2024.
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The bonuses, ranging from $75 to $450 a month, are designed "to compensate enlisted service members who serve in duties which are extremely difficult" or "involve an unusual degree of responsibility in a military skill," according to the service's budget documents. Historically, they have been given to service members who take on assignments from pararescueman to nuclear missile worker.
When Military.com obtained the list of career fields eligible for the bonus through a source, an Air Force official confirmed it was authentic and accurate. But the service declined to provide any details on which jobs lost money, gained money or were cut, citing "security concerns."
The total number of eligible jobs has bounced up and down in recent years, from 103 in 2023, to 70 specialties this year, and now 78 for 2025. Air Force officials did not explain how they plan to expand the bonus to more jobs in October, when the new fiscal year starts, while also planning on cutting the program by millions of dollars.
Ciara Travis, an Air Force spokesperson, told Military.com the figures in the budget documents were just estimates and that the "actual numbers of eligibles in each career field will fluctuate during the year of execution."
Air Force officials in a June press release, without naming the 78 approved specialties, wrote that "10 were initial requests that were certified for the first time, 61 were recertified at their current rate, four increased rate and three decreased rate," adding that one career field was eliminated from the list of jobs that qualified.
That lack of transparency, and citing "security concerns" for something such as how taxpayer funds are being utilized to pay service members, is alarming to government watchdogs.
"You're paying American citizens with American taxpayer dollars," said Dan Grazier, a senior fellow for the National Security Reform Program at the nonprofit Stimson Center in Washington, D.C. "So, the American people have a right to know how that money is being spent."
He said denying that simple information to the public raises red flags.
"This just sounds like basic information," Grazier said. "That just fits within a larger pattern that we've seen over the last four or five, six years, of the Pentagon trying to hide as much information from the public as they possibly can."
A document obtained by Military.com, and confirmed as authentic and accurate by an Air Force official, lists the following jobs as being eligible for the bonus starting this October:
Air Force Careers Eligible for Special Duty Assignment Pay in FY25
1. MTI
2. Human Intelligence
3. Combat Controller
4. 724th Special Tactics Group Ops
5. Project 05
6.150th Special Ops Squadron
7. Air Force Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape (SERE) Specialists
8. Academy Military Training NCO
9. Military Training Leader
10. Air Force Special Operations Command Air Ops Flight
11. Pararescue
12. Enlisted Professional Military Education Instructor
13. Joint Special Ops Command
14. Tactical Air Control Party
15. Aircraft Battle Damage Repair Expeditionary Depot
16. Project 02
17. Project 01
18. Subsurface Analyst
19. Defense Theater Reduction Agency
20. White House Communications Agency
21. Parachuting Instructor
22. ROTC Instructor
23. Cyber Warfare
24. Recruiter
25. Mission Generation Vehicular Equipment Maintenance
26. Special Warfare Battlefield Airmen Units
27. Flying Crew Chiefs
28. Battle Management Operations
29. USAFE NC3 Cyber Defense Operations
30. Guardian Angel Operational Test
31. Fuels Specialist
32. Test Parachute Program
33. Phoenix Raven Program
34. Defense Attache
35. Special Reconnaissance
36. Air Force Office of Special Investigations
37. AFSOC Deployed Aircraft Ground Response Element
38. Air Traffic Controller
39. Project 03
40. First Sergeant
41. SEAC/CMSAF/CCM
42. 33rd Cyberspace Operations Squadron, Operating Location Alpha
43. National Airborne Ops Support
44. White House Shelter Complex
45. Cyber Intelligence Analysis
46. Presidential Logistics Squadron
47. Explosive Ordnance Disposal
48. ISR Instructor
49. 844th Communications Squadron-Executive Communications Flight
50. Command and Control Operations
51. Nuclear Aircraft Maintenance
52. Security Forces Nuclear Support
53. Missile Maintenance for ICBM/ALC Ops
54. Missile Facility Manager
55. Aircraft Armament System
56. Nuclear Weapons
57. Missile Field Chief
58. Munition Systems
59. Project 04
60. Independent Duty Technician
61. Cyberspace Mission Forces
62. RPA Cyber
63. Special Ops Surgical Team
64. International Enlisted Engagements Manager
65. 33rd Network Warfare Cyber Security Squadron
66. Air Advisers
67. Common Mission Control Center
68. Agile Software Development Designer, Product Manager, Developer
69. Enlisted Pilots
70. Rescue Guardian Angel, Special Tactic, Special Warfare Training or TACP
71. Joint Communications Support Element
72. 437th Operations Squadron, Special Operations, Low Level
73. Respiratory Care Practitioner
74. USAF Honor Guard
75. Fire Protection
76. Academic Faculty Instructor -- Air Force Academy
77. Special Mission Unit
78. 388th Operations Support Squadron
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