Return to Article: GAO says reservists experiencing travel reimbursement problems
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8871
I read the GAO Report - all 36 pages of it. It makes your hair curl - perhaps because I'm in the finance area.
As for the comment about the Reserves/Active Service, as a retired reserve officer (not out of the Army/Nat'l Guard) I can fully concur with the previously stated sentiments. There is another dimension to this problem, though.
GAO has once again pointed to the great divide between personnel systems that have $$ dimensions and the financial systems that process the resulting claims.
When will the Admin types stop looking at this as no more than "Issue Orders on paper" to the soldier, and the finance types realize their "Treat this as a Finacial Transaction" approach to the resulting travel claim is not enough? Anytime a document directs someone to do something, and authorizes the government to spend money when that happens, neither approach is enough.
Get the adjutant general types (G-1, etc) to stop thinking that orders are nothing more than direction to go from point a to point b. The $$ and strange numbers on that "piece of paper" are not just more "text". At the same time, for finance types three agencies removed from the traveller to treat that travel claim as "one more voucher to pay or reject" has produced a predictable outcome - chaos.
This is not rocket science! GAO is right - (it does happen occasionally). Get these two competing fiefdoms to get their collective acts together. The problem is not just about the reservists/guardsmen. The same mentality exists for regular travellers in DOD.
Put a standard administrative process in place to issue orders that addresses what can be paid in terms the traveller can understand, train the troops creating the orders how to do it right, and do the same for the finance types that have to decide how much is to be paid. We'll all be better off.
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8864
This article is once again producing the results of Reserve personnel working with Active Duty personnel. The Active Duty people do not want to mess with reservists. It has been that way forever and is not going to change any time soon. Once we stop the nonsense in Iraq this issue will go away, the solution will not be apparent and the Active Duty people will continue ignoring the reserves. Welcome to the real world!!!
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