Ideas on what to do about nonpayment of reenlistment bonus (after doing the normal stuff)

2015-03-15T09:05:08-04:00

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.

Response by 1SG Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 15 at 2015 9:30 AM

2015-03-15T09:30:24-04:00

There are a couple of threads I would pick up here SFC Private RallyPoint Member.
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.

Response by SSG Trevor S. made Mar 15 at 2015 11:49 AM

2015-03-15T11:49:25-04:00

While bonus payments can take some time, this sounds like a good reason for Congressional inquiry.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 15 at 2015 11:57 AM

2015-03-15T11:57:17-04:00

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.

Response by SSG(P) Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 15 at 2015 12:23 PM

2015-03-15T12:23:18-04:00

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.

Response by CSM Private RallyPoint Member made Mar 18 at 2015 3:28 PM

2015-03-18T15:28:11-04:00

Track it through your RPAC and or UA. get under their skin by checking with them weekly.
As for your chain of Command it does not stop at Company/Battalion level. If your issue is not resolved at these 2 level request to go to the next in line, BDE/GRP or Div level.
Asa for your NCO support channel if your NCOIC and 1SG are not getting this resolved then it is your right to go to your BN, BDE and DIV CSM in that Order. try that before filing an IG. If all this does not resolve your issue then file and IG or Congressional, These two seems to get all leaders moving quickly.
I hope this helps in resolving your issue.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Apr 6 at 2015 8:30 PM

2015-04-06T20:30:14-04:00

I've been told that currently bonus payments could take anywhere from 6 months to a year for payment. I'm a unit Readiness NCO, and the horror stories I have been dealing with the past 6 months trying to get Soldiers taken care would make anyone pull their hair out. I won't go into specific details because there are still 3 pending Congressionals going on right now and numerous IG complaints still in system. So trying to go Congressional route now....don't know if that will do any good.

Response by SGT Chris Reese made Apr 6 at 2015 8:48 PM

2015-04-06T20:48:49-04:00

I personally have had the opportunity to help someone in a similar situation while I was on active duty. The way we resolved this issue was sending a DA 2142 (pay inquiry) directly to finance with a copy of the SM's enlistment contract and a copy of every LES from the month the contract was signed until the DA 2142 was signed. This process was expedited by our Regimental CSM and COL. From the day we completed the DA 2142 until payment to was received, about 30 days.

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made May 15 at 2015 10:46 AM

2015-05-15T10:46:36-04:00

I thought I'd update this, with how I got my bonus issue resolved. Turns out, the problem was that after putting my contract into iPerms, nobody ever added me to the list of people to get paid, in spite of various people sending pay/bonus inquiries. So the last couple of weeks, part of my unit was at Ft. Bragg, working for USARC - the last day we were there, my team leader suggested the 2 people on his team with bonus issues use the contacts we had made at USARC to fix it. Within 30 minutes we were talking to a guy at the USARC G1, he made a couple of calls, told me what was wrong and a week later I have an LES for my bonus.

Now the only problem is that it was supposed to be tax free (reenlisted in Afghanistan) but the LES shows federal tax taken out - I am hoping it is just like our deployed pay checks, where they cut the federal tax out and then pay it back to you in another check. Does anybody know if that's how it works?

Response by SFC Private RallyPoint Member made Dec 5 at 2015 7:09 AM

2015-12-05T07:09:57-05:00

When I did my first re-enlistment, I was eligible for a bonus of 4,500, and I received all 3,300 (after taxes) together as one lump sum.

Now that I am doing my second re-enlistment, I am eligible for a bonus of 11,100 (tier 5, 60 months, 35F Airborne Position), and just received approximately 4100. I am not sure why, as 8,250 should have been the approximate bonus after a 25% tax.

This is the first I have heard of the "you will receive half your bonus now and the other half annually". Can anyone provide me the regulation to verify that statement, as I didn't receive my bonus in the past like this, or provide me any further information regarding my situation? Thanks!