Navy, Marine Corps haven't delayed their stop-loss checks
Published: December 30, 2009
Last week both the Army and Air Force temporarily stopped payments due to language in the most recent Defense Appropriations bill. But according to Navy and Marine Corps officials, it didn't slow down their efforts to send out checks.
The bill prevents troops who collected a re-enlistment or retention bonus while being held under stop-loss from qualifying for the money. But while that's provided major paperwork headaches for Army and Air Force officials, the other two services said their low numbers of stop-lossed servicemembers means the new law has had little effect.
About 9,660 Marines and 500 250 sailors eligible for retroactive stop-loss pay, officials said. The Marine Corps already screens claims to see if the claimants received a re-enlistment or retention bonus while being held under stop-loss, said Corps spokeswoman Maj. Shawn Haney.
And while the Navy is working how to determine that sailors did not receive a bonus while stop-lossed, “to date the low number of applications received allows Navy to conduct the additional verification which should result in minimal delay in the processing of those applications,” said Lt. Candice Tresch, a spokeswoman for the chief of naval personnel.
[PHOTO: Leo Shane]
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