Posted on Nov 19, 2013
Should soldiers be compensated for DoD Errors affecting pay?
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When the DoD over-pays a soldier, the money is drawn back out of their account or taken from the next pay check as quickly as the error is found. Sometimes the error goes the other way, and soldiers are left to file pay inquiries, take out AER Loans, use the Advanced Pay Option, or find other means of making ends meet while the Bureaucratic Paper-Pushing Machine goes through a bunch of ridiculous internal processes to resolve the issue. Some times this takes a while...
Personal Example: I transitioned from enlisted to officer and after 7 months my pay has still not been fixed. I've submitted a 1506 Time in Service Adjustment to the Fort Sam Houston Finance Office, and followed up there several times. The civilian in charge assured me that it was being worked on, and that it would be put in the system "in the next few weeks" then it would take "about 3 weeks from then to hit your account as back pay."
Do you think the DoD should provide some sort of "Sorry we took so long fixing our error" compensation?
Civilians
Military Pay
AER
Finance
Army
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 5
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I'm a big fan of personal responsibility. If the military overpays a Service Member and they blow the money, then when the DoD takes it back they are in a financial bind...that's on them.
However, if the DoD creates a situation by underpaying a Service Member, I can see where the Service Member should be compensated. It would have to be looked at on a case by case basis, and then ensuring equity across the force becomes an issue.
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DoD should compensate a Solider in a case such as under
paying. My family went five months with incorrect pay. For some reason that I
will not go into now, DoD was not able to correct the problem. Of course we
went into debt trying to fix the pay issue. At the very least DoD such
reimburse a solider for the interest incurred on a debt, due to their mistake.
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Good luck on that one. I agree that it shouldn't take as long as it does to implement a non routine pay transaction but I also question the service member doing things that put him/her in a financial bind because they haven't received that pay increase. Lets face it, getting money due to you always takes longer than taking money away, just think of a normal credit card transaction; money immediately comes out of your account but if you make a return or dispute on the charge it takes quite a while for you to see that money back in your account. You were making do before whatever caused the pay increase so continue living in that manner until that increase actually hits your bank account. Sure, make more and more visits to the finance office and use your chain of command to try to help the situation, but don't go out and buy that Ferrari because you just got a pay increase.
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