This month, the Air Force (AF) began moving the processing of military pay transactions from the Air Force Financial Service Center (AFFSC) at Ellsworth AFB back to base-level financial services offices. The move is part of the department-wide efficiencies effort directed by Secretary Panetta.
According to Lee Franklin, director of AFFSC, the change “provides better support, allows faster update of a document-driven process, and permits face-to-face resolution of pay issues.” Franklin said that processing military pay transactions centrally had actually delayed processing time for updating pay entitlements.
An Air Force review determined that military pay transactions that were processed at AFFSC had a higher rejection rate and required frequent corrections. This had a “negative effect on Airmen,” Franklin said. By moving processing to local bases, he said Airmen will see faster processing of changes to military pay records and get an immediate response to questions about pay transactions.
As a result of the change, the Air Force will reassign almost 300 Airmen to base-level finance offices. AFFSC will retain 161 civilians to process travel pay requests for active duty, Reserve Airmen and AF civilians.
The Air Force expects to complete realigning the pay processing activities and making the necessary personnel changes by the end of FY2012.
