Army, Air Force halt stop-loss payments to sort out bonus questions
Published: December 23, 2009
Bad news on the retroactive stop-loss pay front; I just wrote a story that both Army and Air Force have temporarily stopped payments due to language in the most recent Defense Appropriations bill.
The language makes clear that troops who collected a re-enlistment or retention bonus while being held under stop-loss do not qualify for the money.
That means the Army and Air Force have to make sure that none of the people who have applied for retroactive stop-loss pay collected such a bonus. Officials could not say how long this delay will last.
The Defense Finance and Accounting Service returned 1,700 claims to the Army that had been submitted in the past week.
I asked both services if they intend to recoup money already paid to claimants and they deferred to the Defense Department.
A DOD spokeswoman would only say the department is reviewing the legislation.
UPDATE: See our latest blog entry.
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