WASHINGTON — Misprints about retirement plans on nearly every higher-ranking airmen’s pay stubs won’t have any affect on those troops’ after-service pay, Air Force officials said Thursday.
This week active-duty airmen’s monthly leave and earning statements were sent out with a brief note explaining that most of these NCOs have had the wrong retirement plan listed on their paperwork.
Airmen with less than 14 years of service in most cases were unaffected by the errors, because they have not yet selected any retirement options.
Officials don’t have precise numbers but believe every airman who has selected a retirement plan was affected by the mistake. The force has more than 87,000 airmen with more than 14 years in service, according to Personnel Center statistics.
Master Sgt. Kat Bailey, spokeswoman for the Air Force Personnel Center in Texas, emphasized the error was “just a typo” and does not mean airmen have had their retirement plans changed.
“This has zero pay impact, zero retirement impact,” she said. “The Air Force still does have all of the right information in the system, so those who have a retirement plan in place shouldn’t worry.”
The problem arose back in April, when the personnel center made a software change in one of their systems. Even though the retirement selection records were unaffected, information sent to Defense Financing and Accounting Services was missing or incorrect.
Bailey said most May pay stubs had no information listed in the retirement pay field. A month later, nearly all of them had the REDUX retirement plan listed, even if airmen hadn’t chosen that pay system.
Many of the July pay stubs still have that error. Bailey said officials expect to have the issue fixed by September.
For more information, visit the Personnel Center’s web site at: http://ask.afpc.randolph.af.mil.
