The USAF won’t be receiving the M17 pistol

[jetfire]

Nah. It isn't even close. Army Finance is the clear winner.

When General Pete Schoomaker, who had been CG of Special Operations Command, "unretired" and came back on active duty in 2003 to become Army Chief of Staff, the Finance Corps needed to take him off pension and put him back on regular pay. They managed to cancel his pension payments immediately, but weren't able to get him paid for something like another two years.

Any finance organization worth its salt can drag out normal travel vouchers for 60-90-120 days. Organizations that try really, really hard can make the process last 180 days-one year.

But think about the awesomeness of a Finance Corps that doesn't pay the head honcho of an entire military branch anything for two years? Now that goes beyond any normal superlative. Think about it. If the finance people at a Fortune 500 company was a day late in paying the CEO, you can bet that heads would roll. But the US Army finance team managed to not pay the head of the entire Army for almost two years! Indeed, if I remember the story right he had to borrow money to pay his bills because the Finance Corps simply couldn't figure out how to program its computers to pay him.

Now, I'm sure AF Finance is exceptional in its inability to perform its functions, and has clearly reached professional levels and are no longer just gifted amateurs.

But no one--no one--can top the Army Finance Corps!

Good lord. Okay, now there is one great instance of USAF finance being almost that awful - back in 2014 about two months worths of trainees at Lackland (Basic training) were overpaid by $400. Why? Who knows. Now fast-forward to last year, when the error was discovered, and USAF Finance’s solution was simply to deduct $400 from the upcoming paychecks of every single one of those troops, with no advance notice or anything.

I don’t know if that’s as bad as not paying a the General of the Army but it’s fuckin’ close

[Jeep]

Good lord. Okay, now there is one great instance of USAF finance being almost that awful - back in 2014 about two months worths of trainees at Lackland (Basic training) were overpaid by $400. Why? Who knows. Now fast-forward to last year, when the error was discovered, and USAF Finance’s solution was simply to deduct $400 from the upcoming paychecks of every single one of those troops, with no advance notice or anything.

I don’t know if that’s as bad as not paying a the General of the Army but it’s fuckin’ close

I have to admit that is pretty good--indeed it shows a dogged mechanistic view of the world that would make any finance corps proud to claim the person who came up with that "solution" as one of its own. And lets face it, those airmen who needed to feed their kids could always turn to food stamps. Besides, paying the mortgage is way overrated.

But it was the Army Finance Corps (and you will have to forgive my justifiable pride as an Army vet in Army finance) that was able to pull off the following. You will note that they demanded immediate repayment ten years after the re-enlistment bonuses were paid; the recipients had carried out their end of the deal and long-since had serve their re-enlistment time; and they had no way of knowing the bonuses had not been properly authorized. http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-...nap-story.html.

In other words, those folks re-enlisted on the promise of a set bonus, served their time, and then were told years later that the bonuses had not been properly authorized by people they had never heard of and were required to immediately repay the amounts.

The Army later rescinded the decision, but up until that point it was a truly world class finance SNAFU.

[Shoresy]

Good lord. Okay, now there is one great instance of USAF finance being almost that awful - back in 2014 about two months worths of trainees at Lackland (Basic training) were overpaid by $400. Why? Who knows. Now fast-forward to last year, when the error was discovered, and USAF Finance’s solution was simply to deduct $400 from the upcoming paychecks of every single one of those troops, with no advance notice or anything.

I don’t know if that’s as bad as not paying a the General of the Army but it’s fuckin’ close

One of my first lessons regarding the above ("overpaid by $400. Why? Who knows") was "if the Army ever pays you more than they owe, put that shit in an interest bearing account and don't spend it - they WILL come back for it".

It happened often enough for me to hear that advice from several sources.

[ranger]

I got promoted to 1LT early from 2LT - told everyone I could up to BN CDR it was a mistake. You guessed it - I have a set of orders stating that I was erroneously promoted to 1Lt and subsequently demoted to 2LT "due to no fault" of me. You can only imagine how messed up my pay was for a very long time. Yes, I saved the money.

[GardoneVT]

Good lord. Okay, now there is one great instance of USAF finance being almost that awful - back in 2014 about two months worths of trainees at Lackland (Basic training) were overpaid by $400. Why? Who knows. Now fast-forward to last year, when the error was discovered, and USAF Finance’s solution was simply to deduct $400 from the upcoming paychecks of every single one of those troops, with no advance notice or anything.

I don’t know if that’s as bad as not paying a the General of the Army but it’s fuckin’ close

I’d hate to interrupt the Finance bash fest, but before folks sharpen their pitchforks some disclaimers are in order.

AF Finance is not a DoD-owned process. Thanks to some careerist O who put his need for a Pentagon office above that of the service,most core processing of the financial transactions happens at DFAS ,which stands for Defense Accounting Services. When you handle financial affairs at the squadron pay office, the Airmen then send the info to DFAS to be processed.

When I was in that agency gave zero fucks. It’s the bureaucracy I think of when someone says the VA is the worst. I’ve seen a Finance NCO who did two tours in Iraq brought to the point of tears dealing with those folks. We’d send member pay data to that office , assume they did their jobs and then get blasted when DFAS fucked up and a member showed up with money issues. Because Finance accounts are tied to Congressional authorizations, fixing screwups was never as simple as “hang on lemme press F5.”

When it came to debt processing, my unit did our best to work with members before they got a bill. If we saw paperwork on a large debt, we’d reach out to the member and set up a time to arrange payments in their budget. We wanted debts paid, because that meant less paperwork to send to the union drones at DFAS for future dated fuckups. Members too cool to answer emails from Finance about their $5,000 travel debt? Say goodbye to next months paycheck.

On the subject of people “gaming the system”; you’d be surprised how many folks think it’s ok to rip off Uncle Sam. Lying on travel vouchers, claiming a buddy’s trailer as weight allowance, not updating bases when they’d PCS from high cost to low cost bases in order to pocket the COLA, etc. Somewhere there’s a Colonel who’s paying off a $100,000 dry cleaning debt; I don’t know who told them being posted to the Pentagon entitled them to bill their laundry expenses to the TDY voucher.

[jetfire]

I’d hate to interrupt the Finance bash fest, but before folks sharpen their pitchforks some disclaimers are in order.

AF Finance is not a DoD-owned process. Thanks to some careerist O who put his need for a Pentagon office above that of the service,most core processing of the financial transactions happens at DFAS ,which stands for Defense Accounting Services. When you handle financial affairs at the squadron pay office, the Airmen then send the info to DFAS to be processed.

When I was in that agency gave zero fucks. It’s the bureaucracy I think of when someone says the VA is the worst. I’ve seen a Finance NCO who did two tours in Iraq brought to the point of tears dealing with those folks. We’d send member pay data to that office , assume they did their jobs and then get blasted when DFAS fucked up and a member showed up with money issues. Because Finance accounts are tied to Congressional authorizations, fixing screwups was never as simple as “hang on lemme press F5.”

When it came to debt processing, my unit did our best to work with members before they got a bill. If we saw paperwork on a large debt, we’d reach out to the member and set up a time to arrange payments in their budget. We wanted debts paid, because that meant less paperwork to send to the union drones at DFAS for future dated fuckups. Members too cool to answer emails from Finance about their $5,000 travel debt? Say goodbye to next months paycheck.

On the subject of people “gaming the system”; you’d be surprised how many folks think it’s ok to rip off Uncle Sam. Lying on travel vouchers, claiming a buddy’s trailer as weight allowance, not updating bases when they’d PCS from high cost to low cost bases in order to pocket the COLA, etc. Somewhere there’s a Colonel who’s paying off a $100,000 dry cleaning debt; I don’t know who told them being posted to the Pentagon entitled them to bill their laundry expenses to the TDY voucher.

Found the finance nerd.

We’re still burning you at the stake

[TGS]

I’d hate to interrupt the Finance bash fest, but before folks sharpen their pitchforks some disclaimers are in order.

Found the finance nerd.

We’re still burning you at the stake

GardoneVT, tell him that SF/PMO/MPs are security guards, not cops....

(NY accent *now we're cookin wit' gas*)

[GardoneVT]

Found the finance nerd.

We’re still burning you at the stake

I’m not worried. Being ANG SF , you can’t afford the lighter fluid.

[Trooper224]

I’m not worried. Being ANG SF , you can’t afford the lighter fluid.

A pencil pusher and a weekend gate guard having a slap down, amusing.

[GardoneVT]

A pencil pusher and a weekend gate guard having a slap down, amusing.

*ahem* . Sir I’ll have you know I pushed a ballpoint pen during my time as a tactical bean counter.

Now,where’d I put my Spreadsheet Operator Edition Agency Arms Glock again?