Those pesky reenlistment bonuses and their repayment
The Los Angeles Times published a story this past Saturday about nearly 10,000 former members of the California Army National Guard are being forced to repay reenlistment bonuses they received and the public is up in arms about it. There are members of Congress who are being highly critical of the Pentagon for not just waiving the repayments.
Before exploring the issue and the appropriateness or inappropriateness of requiring repayment of these bonuses it is important to understand what actually transpired at the time. These bonuses were paid out in error at a time when reenlistment rates were crashing. When the U.S. was conducting combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As always, the devil is hidden in the details and the devil in this case is a woman named Toni. Master Sergeant Toni Jaffe was in charge of the Guard's reenlistment bonus program in California. As the administrator of this program she was authorizing both reenlistment bonuses and federally subsidized repayment of student loans owed by these soldiers. But as detailed in an article published in the Sacramento Bee in October of 2010, the people who were being paid those bonuses and loan payments were not always authorized to receive them. The following extract from the Sacramento Bee article is very enlightening (I have made some salient points in the extract show in bold text):
"Instead, according to a Guard auditor turned federal whistle-blower, as much as $100 million has gone to soldiers who didn't qualify for the incentives, including some who got tens of thousands of dollars more than the program allows.
For years, the auditor and other Guard officials alleged in interviews or internal documents obtained by The Sacramento Bee, California's incentives program was operated as a slush fund that was doled out improperly to hundreds of soldiers with fabricated paperwork, scant supervision and little regard for the law.
The Guard documents describe a high-speed assembly line for bonuses and loan repayments, in which Jaffe single-handedly processed some 8,600 payments over a 16-month period in 2007 and 2008 — about 25 per workday.
Most student loan repayments, the documents show, were drawn from money designated for combat veterans. Yet a large portion of those funds went to Guard members who hadn't served a day at war. Captains and majors were among those whom auditors think benefited improperly.
A Bee investigation, including a review of thousands of Guard documents gathered or prepared by auditors and other officials and sworn statements from managers who replaced Jaffe, found evidence that from 2001 until last year Jaffe often provided improper or illegal bonuses and loan payments.
The documents show that by recruiters and officers up the chain of command overlooked or ignored her efforts. Some recruiters appear to have benefited personally. The documents also show that state Guard officials failed to fix the incentives program despite warning signs going back years.
In comments to The Bee laced with profanity and evident bitterness toward former superior officers, Jaffe denied wrongdoing, insisting that she had followed regulations "by the book."
"They are still trying to blame me for s--- I didn't do," she said in a phone interview from her home near Sacramento. "I wish I never joined the Guard. I regret it, and I hate the Guard."
Did the Guard members who received payments to which they were not legally entitled not know they weren't supposed to get those payments? Probably not. Years of improper payments ignored by state Guard officials.
Now members of Congress are being critical of the Pentagon for requiring the Guard to seek repayment of improperly paid bonuses. Duncan D. Hunter is a Republican member of the House who is also a U.S. Marine who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. He sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter that included this:
"It remains my firm belief that even the simple request of asking soldiers to repay money contingent on reenlistment is disgraceful and insulting,"
Well Congressman Hunter, perhaps you should read the laws of the United States before you question how government officials enforce those laws that you have a hand in creating and amending. According to 37 U.S. Code, Section 303(b) the Pentagon must seek repayment of bonus payments that were made to people not entitled to receive them. Instead of calling out the Secretary of Defense, get off of your ass and introduce legislation to allow these bonus repayments to be waived. Maybe we can find the $25 million or so that would be needed by trimming a few Congressional perks.
But apparently Congressman Hunter is too busy seeking reelection to find time to be part of a solution to this problem. Perhaps the fact that there are a lot of veterans living in his district has something to do with his blustering since he couldn't possibly accomplish anything else before election day.
If a veteran received a bonus due to an error that was not their fault, then there should be a system to address that honest mistake. If a veteran received an amount they knew they were not legally entitled to, they should be forced to repay it. The problem is, how do we know for certain what that person knows. Anyone who served, in combat or not, is entitled to the benefit of the doubt.
Before exploring the issue and the appropriateness or inappropriateness of requiring repayment of these bonuses it is important to understand what actually transpired at the time. These bonuses were paid out in error at a time when reenlistment rates were crashing. When the U.S. was conducting combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As always, the devil is hidden in the details and the devil in this case is a woman named Toni. Master Sergeant Toni Jaffe was in charge of the Guard's reenlistment bonus program in California. As the administrator of this program she was authorizing both reenlistment bonuses and federally subsidized repayment of student loans owed by these soldiers. But as detailed in an article published in the Sacramento Bee in October of 2010, the people who were being paid those bonuses and loan payments were not always authorized to receive them. The following extract from the Sacramento Bee article is very enlightening (I have made some salient points in the extract show in bold text):
"Instead, according to a Guard auditor turned federal whistle-blower, as much as $100 million has gone to soldiers who didn't qualify for the incentives, including some who got tens of thousands of dollars more than the program allows.
For years, the auditor and other Guard officials alleged in interviews or internal documents obtained by The Sacramento Bee, California's incentives program was operated as a slush fund that was doled out improperly to hundreds of soldiers with fabricated paperwork, scant supervision and little regard for the law.
The Guard documents describe a high-speed assembly line for bonuses and loan repayments, in which Jaffe single-handedly processed some 8,600 payments over a 16-month period in 2007 and 2008 — about 25 per workday.
Most student loan repayments, the documents show, were drawn from money designated for combat veterans. Yet a large portion of those funds went to Guard members who hadn't served a day at war. Captains and majors were among those whom auditors think benefited improperly.
A Bee investigation, including a review of thousands of Guard documents gathered or prepared by auditors and other officials and sworn statements from managers who replaced Jaffe, found evidence that from 2001 until last year Jaffe often provided improper or illegal bonuses and loan payments.
The documents show that by recruiters and officers up the chain of command overlooked or ignored her efforts. Some recruiters appear to have benefited personally. The documents also show that state Guard officials failed to fix the incentives program despite warning signs going back years.
In comments to The Bee laced with profanity and evident bitterness toward former superior officers, Jaffe denied wrongdoing, insisting that she had followed regulations "by the book."
"They are still trying to blame me for s--- I didn't do," she said in a phone interview from her home near Sacramento. "I wish I never joined the Guard. I regret it, and I hate the Guard."
Did the Guard members who received payments to which they were not legally entitled not know they weren't supposed to get those payments? Probably not. Years of improper payments ignored by state Guard officials.
Now members of Congress are being critical of the Pentagon for requiring the Guard to seek repayment of improperly paid bonuses. Duncan D. Hunter is a Republican member of the House who is also a U.S. Marine who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. He sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Ash Carter that included this:
"It remains my firm belief that even the simple request of asking soldiers to repay money contingent on reenlistment is disgraceful and insulting,"
Well Congressman Hunter, perhaps you should read the laws of the United States before you question how government officials enforce those laws that you have a hand in creating and amending. According to 37 U.S. Code, Section 303(b) the Pentagon must seek repayment of bonus payments that were made to people not entitled to receive them. Instead of calling out the Secretary of Defense, get off of your ass and introduce legislation to allow these bonus repayments to be waived. Maybe we can find the $25 million or so that would be needed by trimming a few Congressional perks.
But apparently Congressman Hunter is too busy seeking reelection to find time to be part of a solution to this problem. Perhaps the fact that there are a lot of veterans living in his district has something to do with his blustering since he couldn't possibly accomplish anything else before election day.
If a veteran received a bonus due to an error that was not their fault, then there should be a system to address that honest mistake. If a veteran received an amount they knew they were not legally entitled to, they should be forced to repay it. The problem is, how do we know for certain what that person knows. Anyone who served, in combat or not, is entitled to the benefit of the doubt.
posted by me at 4:36 PM
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