PERSTEMPO Threshold Management

Your Authority and Your Obligation

You do not approve a PERSTEMPO threshold crossing. The Deputy Commandant for Manpower and Reserve Affairs does, under authority delegated by CMC letter 1050 dated 4 April 2025. Your signature carries the request, not the approval.

Per MARADMIN 436/26MARADMIN 436/26 paragraph 7.a, three obligations sit on you.

1. Every PERSTEMPO event is reported accurately and promptly into MCTFS.
2. You manage schedules prospectively to limit the effects on readiness, quality of life, and retention.
3. You use the automated MCTFS 112 remarks page reports to monitor levels, and you identify a projected crossing 120 days before the planned event.

The third one is the obligation commands miss. Discovering a crossing after it happens is a reporting failure, not a scheduling accident.

The Threshold

400 deployment days away out of the preceding 730 days.

Only deployment-type events count. Operations, exercises, unit training away from the permanent duty location, mission support TDY, home station training or the local operating area of a ship, and hospitalization away from the PDS or homeport. Individual training, garrison duty, disciplinary events, Reserve inactive duty training, muster duty, and funeral honors duty are reported and excluded from the sum.

The day away rule governs the count. A creditable event spans more than one calendar day. The departure day counts. The return day does not.

Running the Look-Back

Run it on every forecast deployment event, before you commit the Marine.

1. Fix the projected end date of the upcoming event.
2. Count back 730 days from that end date. That is your window.
3. Sum every creditable deployment day away inside the window, including the forecast event.
4. Exceeding 400 days means a waiver.

Build the window backward from the projected end date. Building it forward from today gives you the wrong window.

The Decision You Own

When the look-back projects a crossing, you pick one of two paths. Both are defensible. Neither happens by default.

Path 1. Request the waiver

You carry the burden of showing the Marine is essential and no alternative exists. Per paragraph 6.d, the request explicitly justifies why this specific Marine is essential to the mission and how you will limit the negative effects on that Marine. A request asserting essentiality without evidence of the manpower constraint is incomplete.

Path 2. Resource the mission differently

Send a different Marine, shorten the commitment, or restructure the tasking. Paragraph 7.a.2 makes prospective schedule management your obligation, not a courtesy. A command routinely waiving the same Marines is managing schedules poorly, and the waiver record shows it.

Waiver Package

• Format. Standard naval correspondence.
• Routing. Your chain of command, through the first Marine Corps General Court-Martial Convening Authority, to DC M&RA via the Manpower Military Policy Branch SharePoint site. The MPO email address accepts packages by exception only.
• Lead time. At least 120 days before the projected crossing.
• Reserve Component Marines. The gaining command submits, not the parent command.

Content you sign for

1. The Marine's full name, pay grade, primary MOS, unit name, monitored command code, reporting unit code, EDIPI, and the requested coverage dates.
2. Evidence the waiver is the only alternative given manpower constraints and operational requirements during the period.
3. The specific actions your unit will take to limit the time the Marine spends above the threshold.
4. The actions mitigating effects on the Marine's readiness, quality of life, and retention potential.
5. The GCMCA primary point of contact and email address. The point of contact is never the Marine who is the subject of the request.

Items 3 and 4 are where weak packages fail. Naming the mitigation and then not executing it is worse than not naming it.

Special Leave Accrual Runs in the Same Window

Per paragraphs 7.a.3 and 7.b, the 120-day monitoring window exists so two things process in parallel. The waiver request, and Special Leave Accrual consideration under DOWI 1327.06DOWI 1327.06.

A Marine crossing the PERSTEMPO threshold is a Marine at risk of losing leave above the ceiling. Start both reviews together. Running the waiver and leaving SLA until the fiscal year closes costs your Marine leave they earned.

Contested Day Counts

When a Marine disputes their count, the resolution path runs through support first.

• The Manpower Information Systems Support Offices, the Admin Assist Unit, and the Marine Corps Administrative Analysis Teams verify the day count, educate the unit on reporting, and document adjustments.
• When the count stays contested, you request adjudication from DC M&RA (MPO).
• Those decisions are final, and they apply to deployment events only.

Reporting the Approved Waiver

MPO forwards the approved waiver to your chain of command. Your S-1 reports it into MCTFS per MCTFSPRIUMMCTFSPRIUM section 91001. An approved waiver sitting unreported leaves the Marine's record showing an unmanaged crossing.

Cancelled Guidance

MARADMIN 436/26 cancels ALMAR 026/01, ALMAR 052/01, MARADMIN 481/03, and MARADMIN 484/04 as of 22 September 2026. A unit SOP or turnover binder citing any of the four needs rebuilding against the current message.

Where to Go Next

• The S-1 procedural page carries the reporting mechanics, the MCTFS 112 workflow, and the full worked calculation.
• The Marine-facing page covers the MOL self-service report your Marines are expected to review.