Photo By Brian Godette | Ellen Gruenwald, U.S. Army Reserve lead military pay technician reviews Soldier...... read more read more
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FORT McCOY, Wis. - At the U.S. Army Reserve Pay Center, here, employees have been putting in extended overtime hours to ensure that over 173,000 Army Reserve Soldiers are paid for attending their December monthly battle assembly.
A technical issue in the business software suite, which is normally used to process Army Reserve Soldier pay automatically, has caused a delay in payment processing. This has caused employees at the USAR pay center to use a manual method to process Soldier pay.
The USAR Pay Center handles several Army Reserve pay actions to include battle assemblies, inactive duty of 1-29 days, unit annual trainings, end of mobilization transactions, and all other pay associated with the system. The USAR Pay Center is comprised of 82 employees, split between four different buildings, all working on Soldier pay.
“We sat back and asked, ‘What do we need to do if we have to implement manual processing? What do we need to get ready? What logistic changes, management changes, processing procedures [need to be made] and start looking to implement those manual procedures with higher up at pay management division,’” said Lon Von Haden, a USAR pay officer.
With the system unavailable, the USAR Pay Center staff immediately began to focus their full attention on transitioning to a manual system. This requires submission of spreadsheet data from units along with a sign-in roster in which can then be inputted manually and loaded by military pay technicians and transmitted to Defense Military Joint Pay System Reserve Component, Von Haden said.
Susan Bjorkman, USAR pay manager, said there are six different teams working the pay issue. Since Dec. 10, she said the teams have logged approximately 4,000 man hours to process pay.
“Our main function, before, during, and will continue to be, is the Soldier,” said Ellen Gruenwald, lead pay technician. “Our mission is to have the Soldier paid correctly and accurately.”
“As soon as we found out, my team didn't bat an eye, they jumped in,” said Kay Brown, military pay supervisor. “Even though it's a holiday season, everyone has been working extra hours and coming in on the weekends.”
Von Haden said they are processing documents as they are received.
While the pay issue directly affects Troop Program Unit Soldiers, it has no affect on mobilized and deployed Soldiers. Payments associated with subsistence allowance or basic allowance for housing will not be affected, granted the units provide the correct documentation, Von Haden said.
“We are constantly and consistently in communication with the pay management division in the [USARC] G8, and they understand what we are working on and what we are doing to pay these Soldiers,” Von Haden said.
Bjorkman said she was thankful for the dedicated employees who have sacrificed their time to process Soldier pay.
“They'll bend over backwards to make sure the Soldiers get paid,” Von Haden said.
| Date Taken: | 12.22.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 12.23.2014 16:29 |
| Story ID: | 151023 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 1,360 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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