Starting in March, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service will phase in a new, more reliable and effective pay system for the military.
Called the Forward Compatible Payroll, it promises far fewer errors, an easy-to-understand leave and earnings statement for service members, and instantaneous adjustments to pay records
The system “should have a huge impact on our efficiency in providing pay services,” said Sue Schallenberg, director of the accounting service’s military pay operations transition group.
The new program will be phased in beginning with the Army Reserve and National Guard in March, followed by the Army in July, the entire Air Force next November and the Navy Department, with its more complex shipboard environment, in March 2006.
That will mark the end of a problem-plagued pay system developed during the Vietnam War. Accounting service officials suggest they’re as inclined as service members to say good riddance.
The current payroll scheme, called the Defense Joint Military Pay System, actually is two systems, one for active duty and another for reserve forces. The two are compatible only with enormous effort, officials say.
The reserve system was designed to pay members for weekend drills and two weeks of active duty a year. Relying on it to provide accurate and timely pay for several hundred thousand mobilized reservists has been difficult, requiring frequent manual intervention, which raises the risk of errors.
Indeed, the Government Accountability Office blamed the reserve pay system in part for a plague of pay errors that hit Army Reserve and National Guard members mobilized since 9-11. GAO studied a sampling of mobilized units and estimated that more than 90 percent of activated soldiers suffered the frustration of significant errors in pay in 2002 and 2003.
With the new system, relief is on the way.
To spread that word, Schallenberg in Denver and Sylvia Hanneken, program manager for military pay system transition in Cleveland, discussed the new system and what it will replace.
The current system is written in a programming language developed in the late-1960s, so it is cumbersome, fragile and woefully inadequate to handle recent complex changes to military pay. If Congress approves a new pay feature, it takes on average 12 to 18 months to automate the payments. Some payments, such as medical bonuses, can’t be programmed.
The new system will end the need for 95 percent of current “work-arounds” for reserve mobilization and new payments, said Schallenberg, and allow the accounting service to shift work-force focus to “prevention rather than after-the-fact corrections.”
The process of moving reservists and National Guard members to active status, with all appropriate pay and entitlements, “will be as simple as making a single change on the record,” she added. Pay specialists no longer will have to re-enter basic information on tax exemptions, marital status, numbers of dependents, allotments or what financial institutions should receive direct deposits of members’ pay.
With the new system, pay specialists will work with a Windows-based program, compared with the rigid “green screens” used now.
The new system will restore confidence in the pay system, particularly among those aware of problems suffered by mobilized reservists, Hanneken said.
It will eliminate system challenges that have led to operational problems, she added, and ultimately benefit all service members.
To comment, write Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120-1111, e-mail milupdate@aol.com or go to www.militaryupdate.com .
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