Panel Rejects Payroll Cuts for Pentagon : Senators Also Defeat Reagan Bid to Hike Manpower Levels

The Senate Armed Services Committee turned back a proposal Wednesday to trim the Defense Department’s military and civilian payrolls by 175,000 persons but at the same time voted to prohibit the military manpower increases President Reagan has sought, Senate sources said.

The committee voted also to delay until next January a 3% military pay raise that the Reagan Administration is seeking to take effect this July. The committee’s manpower and personnel subcommittee had proposed deferring the raise until June, 1986.

The committee, nearing completion of its work on the 1986 defense budget, granted Reagan’s request for $6.2 billion for 48 B-1B bombers, a purchase that would bring to completion the planned 100-airplane fleet being built by Rockwell International Corp.

Weighed Variety of Plans

Working in a private session, the committee struggled with a variety of proposals to trim the Pentagon spending plan from the $313.7 billion that Reagan is seeking for fiscal 1986, which begins Oct. 1. It missed its self-imposed deadline of completing work on Wednesday and planned to resume deliberations today.

One Senate source predicted that the panel ultimately will cut about $10 billion from Reagan’s request, leaving the Pentagon with a 3% increase on top of an inflation rate that is expected to be 4% to 5% next year. Reagan asked for an after-inflation increase of 5.9%.

The committee has worked on three budget options: a 4% increase, a 3% increase and no increase at all beyond inflation. Committee Chairman Barry Goldwater (R-Ariz.) proposed this approach to dramatize the military impact of budget trims sought by Pentagon critics.

Smaller Increase Likely

Whichever course is accepted, however, the Pentagon appears to be headed for a smaller percentage increase than it has received in recent years. After intense debate and repeated reductions, Reagan was forced to accept Pentagon growth of about 7% beyond inflation for the current fiscal year.

The figure ultimately approved by the Senate committee, generally friendly to Pentagon arms requests, is likely to be whittled down in coming months either by the full Senate, which the Republicans control, or in negotiations with the House, where the Democrats are in the majority. The House Armed Services Committee has not yet begun to write its version of the defense authorization bill.

The Senate committee’s proposed freeze on Defense Department manpower levels represented a rejection of a recommendation last week by one of its subcommittees that the uniformed services be trimmed by 75,000 and the civilian work force by 100,000 over the next two fiscal years. That proposal, which would save $5.25 billion over the next two years, was “very” hotly debated by the full committee, said one source who asked not to be identified.

The Pentagon now has about 2.1 million troops on active duty and would remain at that level under the committee’s plan. The Navy had sought an increase of 10,000, the Air Force 10,000 and the Marine Corps 2,000, while the Army had planned to remain at current levels.

Another 1 million civilians work for the Defense Department, which wants an 18,000 increase. But the Pentagon was told, “in a word, no,” a Senate source said.

Controversial Weapon

Sources said the committee voted $150 million to keep alive the controversial Sgt. York Division Air Defense gun, which has encountered problems passing performance tests.

The weapon, for which the Administration is seeking $531 million, is about to undergo a new series of tests, and Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger is expected to make a decision this summer on its future. Under the committee’s plan, the Army would be blocked from spending previously appropriated funds until the weapon passes the new tests.

While the Armed Services Committee was at work, the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense manpower heard from Lawrence J. Korb, the Pentagon’s manpower chief, who sought to head off the congressional efforts to trim the Defense Department’s personnel roster.

“We have to be careful not to undo the progress we have made” since the Reagan Administration took office and discovered the “terrible condition of our armed forces,” said Korb, the assistant secretary of defense for manpower, reserve affairs and logistics.

“There were serious manpower deficiencies in both quantity and quality of personnel in the active and the reserve forces,” he said.

Korb and members of the subcommittee differed on the best way to reach the personnel reductions. Korb recommended the politically unpopular course of closing or consolidating operations and objected to the congressional preference of reducing the Pentagon’s military and civilian payroll.