A total of 219 chiefs, senior chiefs and master chiefs will be forced to retire by Dec. 1 of the thousands whose records were reviewed in December for recent problems.

The retirements were handed out by the fiscal 2016 Senior Enlisted Continuation Board, which met in December to review the service records of 6,683 active duty, full-time support, and Reserve senior enlisted sailors.

Only those already retirement eligible are considered by the board. The 1,516 chiefs, 2,034 senior chiefs, and 2,912 master chiefs reviewed had to have at least 19 years of service and three years time in grade when the board convened .

No one is exempt except for those who have already declared their retirements and those who’ve been selected to their current paygrade in the past three years. Even the master chief petty officer of the Navy got a look.

The 219 forced retirements constitute a selection rate of 3.3 percent, roughly a percentage point higher than last year when 161 were finally selected from a larger pool of chiefs.

The majority of the increases came in the selected Reserve . The active-duty count was 141 . In the Reserve full-time support community, the force-outs rose from five to nine.

The results were available to command leaders for notification on Feb. 3; those screened will be able to check their status on BUPERS Online starting Wednesday. On that site, "S" signifies "selected for continued service"; "N" means "not selected for continued service"; and "H" means "not selected for continuation — in a hold status."

Unlike advancement lists, there won’t be any public release of the names .

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"This is a performance-based board and there are never any quotas," said Fleet Master Chief (AW/SW) April Beldo, senior enlisted adviser to the chief of naval personnel, in a Feb. 5 phone interview . "These chief petty officers have served honorably, they will retire, they are not being separated — sometimes this comes as a shock because of majority of CPO s love their job and having a positive influence on the sailors they serve."

Active duty and full-time support sailors being retired must transfer to the Fleet Reserve or full retirement by Aug. 31, though an operational waiver approved by Navy Personnel Command can keep them in the fleet until Dec. 1.

Drilling reservists must transfer to the Retired Reserve by Sept. 1, however these sailors too can get an operational waiver to drill until Dec. 1 .

The deadline for force-retired sailors to apply for transfer to the Fleet Reserve, the Retired Reserve, or to request operational waivers and readiness appeals is now March 15 .

The board has met every year except for fiscal 2014, when a scheduling conflict caused officials to scrap the bard. During those six years , the boards have chosen a total of 1,761 to retire .

Of those, 1,086 were active-duty, and 69 from the FTS community. A total of 606 selected reservists have been retired as well.

This year, the board was originally set to start deliberations on Aug. 3, but an "inadvertent email release" of the board's planned membership, which typically isn't made public until the board is in session, delayed the proceedings.

The rescheduled board convened Dec. 7 and adjourned on Dec. 16.

The continuation board was devised in 2009, when overmanning in the E-7 and above ranks among sailors with 20 or more years of service was causing a significant slowdown in advancement opportunity.

At the time, the Navy’s senior leadership strongly considered mandatory quotas for the board, but then-Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Rick West opposed quotas and argued that the panel should make a pure "quality cut" of the senior enlisted ranks .

The board culls the records looking for any incidences of misconduct and declining performance. If found, the board then examines that sailor's full record and makes a determination as to whether that person’s continuation on active-duty "is in the best interests of the U.S. Navy."

Sources tell Navy Times that many sailors with less than perfect records have been continued from each board and is a sign of the fairness of the board process. Those sources were unable to reveal any specifics, however, because the board uses the same rules as advancement boards and all the records of deliberations are sealed.

"Sure this is a tough process for our chief's mess, but it shows the entire Navy that we are willing to take a hard look at ourselves and if we find shipmates who aren't abiding by our Navy's standards, we hold each other accountable," Beldo said.

Beldo stressed that a great majority — 97 percent this year — are doing the right things on a daily basis and are being allowed to continue in an active status.

"We must be visibly accountable to those we lead and serve and that the standards are applied the same to all, regardless of rank," she said. "Just having this board sends a message to even our most junior sailors that we are accountable and that we are willing to be open kimono about our conduct with our sailors."