Posted on Mar 15, 2015
Ideas on what to do about nonpayment of reenlistment bonus (after doing the normal stuff)
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I am in the USAR and trying to figure out some new angle to get something moving on my unpaid reenlistment bonus. This is not uncommon - best I can tell, every bonus in my company has been paid late and one guy is currently at 2 years.
OK, here are the facts, as relayed to my chain of command, but edited fro privacy issues :
[quote]
1. In October of 2013, I met with SFC XXXX K XXXX, theater career counselor, in Bagram, Afghanistan, to reenlist.
2. The bonus I was offered was $10,000, lump sum, at the start of my new contract. SFC XXXX got bonus control number: CFTF#########.
3. I returned to Camp Phoenix, in Kabul, where CPT John XXXXXX administered the reenlistment oath on October 25, 2013 and SFC XXXX accepted/finalized the reenlistment.
4. My ETS date was immediately extended from August 25, 2014 to August 25, 2020 and I was due to receive the lump sum bonus payment on August 26, 2014.
5. When I did not receive the bonus payment at the start of the new contract term, I contact my chain of command and SFC XXXX, who is now a career counselor at XXXXXXXXX.
6. The result was that SFC XXXX submitted a bonus inquiry and, on October 2, 2014, sent me an email message saying that: "Just got response that the issue is that your contract is not in iPERMS. I would recommend getting in touch with the unit and make sure they get it in there. They will not pay a bonus without the contract being in there and I don't have the ability to add documents."
7. My unit submitted the contract to iPerms, but we had to submit it twice, because the first copy was only the main contract without attachments.
8. The complete contract was accepted and placed in iPerms on January 5, 2015 and on January 7, 2015 I sent a copy of that contract, downloaded from iPerms, to SFC XXXX who said he would submit a follow-up to his chain of command.
9. That was more than a month ago and SFC XXXX has not yet received any further response about whether the bonus would be paid, or why it has not been paid.
10. My U/A sent an email to a contact she had for resolving bonus issues, but has gotten no response after about 6 weeks.
11. My battalion career counselor says that he submitted the issue to his chain of command about 3 weeks ago, but no response. [/quote]
The big issue is that, since we corrected the known deficiency (contract not in iPerms) nobody has even responded to say what other problem there is - that has been about 2 1/2 months.
Does anybody have another idea how to get this moving?
An IG complaint was all I could think of.
OK, here are the facts, as relayed to my chain of command, but edited fro privacy issues :
[quote]
1. In October of 2013, I met with SFC XXXX K XXXX, theater career counselor, in Bagram, Afghanistan, to reenlist.
2. The bonus I was offered was $10,000, lump sum, at the start of my new contract. SFC XXXX got bonus control number: CFTF#########.
3. I returned to Camp Phoenix, in Kabul, where CPT John XXXXXX administered the reenlistment oath on October 25, 2013 and SFC XXXX accepted/finalized the reenlistment.
4. My ETS date was immediately extended from August 25, 2014 to August 25, 2020 and I was due to receive the lump sum bonus payment on August 26, 2014.
5. When I did not receive the bonus payment at the start of the new contract term, I contact my chain of command and SFC XXXX, who is now a career counselor at XXXXXXXXX.
6. The result was that SFC XXXX submitted a bonus inquiry and, on October 2, 2014, sent me an email message saying that: "Just got response that the issue is that your contract is not in iPERMS. I would recommend getting in touch with the unit and make sure they get it in there. They will not pay a bonus without the contract being in there and I don't have the ability to add documents."
7. My unit submitted the contract to iPerms, but we had to submit it twice, because the first copy was only the main contract without attachments.
8. The complete contract was accepted and placed in iPerms on January 5, 2015 and on January 7, 2015 I sent a copy of that contract, downloaded from iPerms, to SFC XXXX who said he would submit a follow-up to his chain of command.
9. That was more than a month ago and SFC XXXX has not yet received any further response about whether the bonus would be paid, or why it has not been paid.
10. My U/A sent an email to a contact she had for resolving bonus issues, but has gotten no response after about 6 weeks.
11. My battalion career counselor says that he submitted the issue to his chain of command about 3 weeks ago, but no response. [/quote]
The big issue is that, since we corrected the known deficiency (contract not in iPerms) nobody has even responded to say what other problem there is - that has been about 2 1/2 months.
Does anybody have another idea how to get this moving?
An IG complaint was all I could think of.
Edited 9 y ago
Posted 9 y ago
Responses: 9
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There are a couple of threads I would pick up here SFC (Join to see).
First, this particular problem is one I have seen several times with downrange contracts. The issue with many parallels yours; the contract was not permed. Perming in and of itself has nothing to do with whether you get paid or not. What it does is it allows personnel whose job is to confirm the validity of the pay inquiry to check the BCN against RCMS.
The correct course of action - your UA might really not know how to do this - is to do a manual pay inquiry to Fort McCoy's Reserve Pay Center. It should include all pertinent documents. This is a tracked item so your UA should be able to monitor progress. It should take no more than a week to process, and your pay should hit your account within two weeks.
One possibility to consider is that the new contract might not have started yet. This has happened to a number of my Soldiers who reenlisted in Africa last year. They had to wait for their current contract to elapse for the new one to kick in, then got paid bonus about a month after the new contract came into force. That required a couple of extra steps in two cases so far in order to sure the bonus was untaxed as it was supposed to be.
An IG can help, but I would bounce the above off your UA and see what response you get. If unsatisfactory, by all means use the channels available to you to get the money you are entitled to.
Good Luck.
First, this particular problem is one I have seen several times with downrange contracts. The issue with many parallels yours; the contract was not permed. Perming in and of itself has nothing to do with whether you get paid or not. What it does is it allows personnel whose job is to confirm the validity of the pay inquiry to check the BCN against RCMS.
The correct course of action - your UA might really not know how to do this - is to do a manual pay inquiry to Fort McCoy's Reserve Pay Center. It should include all pertinent documents. This is a tracked item so your UA should be able to monitor progress. It should take no more than a week to process, and your pay should hit your account within two weeks.
One possibility to consider is that the new contract might not have started yet. This has happened to a number of my Soldiers who reenlisted in Africa last year. They had to wait for their current contract to elapse for the new one to kick in, then got paid bonus about a month after the new contract came into force. That required a couple of extra steps in two cases so far in order to sure the bonus was untaxed as it was supposed to be.
An IG can help, but I would bounce the above off your UA and see what response you get. If unsatisfactory, by all means use the channels available to you to get the money you are entitled to.
Good Luck.
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SFC (Join to see)
I will try the manual pay enquiry. Is that the DA form 2142? I have the form, but didn't know if it would add anything to what has been done.
I knew it would only be paid when the old contract expired. That was August 25, 2014. I am currently serving on the new contract.
I knew it would only be paid when the old contract expired. That was August 25, 2014. I am currently serving on the new contract.
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MSG (Join to see)
Manual pay inquiry is where I would start. They aren't the hard to do and are generally efficient on getting responses in the event there are other deficiencies.
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1SG (Join to see)
SFC (Join to see), the manual pay inquiry has more to do with procedure than forms. When submitted with the supporting documents, the person who works it actually has the power to make it happen. If you went to the IG, this is how he would make it happen too. If you have all of the required documents available, it should take your UA no more than 30 minutes to prepare, and a couple of business days to execute.
Good luck.
Good luck.
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A Congressional inquiry may be your only option, but exhaust your efforts at the lowest level in your chain of command, and document contact, letters, responses, and then move on. A Congressional inquiry will fix this lickity split. Don't wait years either. When requesting help from your command give a date stamp that you want a reply before you esculate it to Brigade, and base commander.
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Talk to your local Career Counsleor. If they are still having issues and not betting any response ask to speak with their Area Leader. This is the MSG Career Counsleor responsible for multiple Career Counselors in that area. They have a more direct line to the BN Operations. As a Career Counsleor I can tell you that is is a slow frustrating process. If the contract is not iPermed and correct the bonus will not be paid. No being on iPrems is a big deal.
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