The current system relates bonus pay to a variety of measures. This new one introduces the game theory incentive of performing in this reverse auction. Under these new rules, what happens if every warrant officer enters the exact same number?
My understanding is: each WO bids in confidence and the budget is secret. The winning bid is the largest X such that X * (number of warrant officers signing up for another six years) = budget. Everyone bidding X and lower wins X. Everyone higher loses out. 0 and lower would only be permitted by an evil admin.
Warrant officers are incredibly resourceful, well connected, and competent. They also talk to each other, I wouldn’t be surprised if there already weren’t multiple closed forums/groups/chatrooms. Given the possibility of collusion, and potential they find out what the budget is, the process could be abused.
