Recent stories about LQA

By STARS AND STRIPES Published: January 25, 2014

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U.S. Army Europe has introduced a new policy that allows more flexibility in how housing allowances are used by civilian employees, but the modifications designed to boost worker morale could be on a collision course with a Department of Army review that proposes more restrictions.
JENNIFER SVAN/STARS AND STRIPES

The Army in Europe is lifting some restrictions on housing allowances. But Big Army might add new ones.

U.S. Army Europe’s revised policy to allow more flexible housing allowances for civilian employees could be on a collision course with a Department of the Army review that seeks to add more restrictions.

Chanteen Violette, shown here during her deployment to Afghanistan, was considered eligible for living quarters allowance under Army regulations when she accepted her job. But new Army guidance determined that she isn’t eligible for LQA.
COURTESY CHANTEEN VIOLETTE

Army civilian loses housing benefits after Afghanistan deployment, policy change

A long deployment to Afghanistan cost Chanteen Violette the housing allowance the Army initially granted and left her with a choice – pay for a costly overseas home or lose a promotion.

Houses line a street in Weilerbach, Germany, in February 2018. U.S. Army Europe has quietly introduced rules that put tighter restrictions on how its civilian workforce can use housing allowances for personally owned homes.
JENNIFER SVAN/STARS AND STRIPES

US Army Europe civilians face new restrictions on housing allowances

U.S. Army Europe has quietly introduced rules that put tighter restrictions on how its civilian workforce can use housing allowances for personally owned homes, reducing the amounts of some payments and imposing a new commuting distance limit.

DOD adjusting US job placement program for returning overseas workers

The Defense Department is adjusting its priority placement policy in hopes of eliminating a backlog of overseas civilian employees entitled to jobs on returning to the U.S.

Airmen attend a ceremony in a hangar at a Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, on June 18, 2015. Air Force officials in Europe will ask the Pentagon to consider forgiving over-payments of roughly $4 million in Overseas Housing Allowances to about 1,500 airmen.
TIMOTHY KIM/U.S. AIR FORCE

USAFE to ask Air Force to forgive $4 million in housing overpayments

The command is compiling paperwork to submit to Air Staff for what’s called a group “remission of indebtedness” for all airmen affected, said Andy Coggins, chief of financial operations division for Headquarters USAFE-AFAFRICA.

A house sits for rent in Landstuhl, Germany.
SAM AMRHEIN/STARS AND STRIPES

GAO: Overseas housing benefits need more DOD oversight

The Defense Department needs to more carefully scrutinize who is entitled to overseas housing allowance to avoid repeating past mistakes that have cost more than $100 million in recent years, the Government Accountability Office says.

U.S. AIR FORCE

DOD explores changes to 5-year rule, LQA

The Defense Department is considering new limits to housing allowances for civilian employees as it reviews a benefit that costs the government about $500 million annually.

Newly commissioned Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Jessica Wright delivers remarks during a ceremony hosted by Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon in Arlington, Va., Aug. 4, 2014.
DANIEL HINTON/U.S. NAVY

It's a matter of benefits vs. readiness, DOD official tells spouses, civilians

An already tough fiscal environment prompting proposed benefit cuts would get far worse if Congress does not repeal another round of sequestration in 2016, a top U.S. Defense Department official warned military spouses and civilians at town meetings.

Army clinical psychologist Stephen Fitzgerald, a Navy reservist, is about to lose his Living Quarters Allowance because he was in Germany when he applied for his Army job. He was only in Germany, he said, because the Navy deployed him there to work at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center.
MATT MILLHAM/STARS AND STRIPES

Overseas military service costing some veterans their LQA

Like hundreds of Defense Department employees overseas, Stephen Fitzgerald is about to lose his housing allowance.

Dr. Jeff Wolff, a civilian physician at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, is among the nearly 700 overseas civilians who the Defense Department says received a housing allowance in error. Without the benefit, Wolff says he is leaving DOD employment abroad and relocating to the U.S.
JOHN VANDIVER/STARS AND STRIPES

'A big slap in the face': Civilians losing LQA vent anger as cutoff nears

When the DOD determined last year that 659 overseas civilian employees, mainly in Europe and the Pacific, were receiving housing allowances in error — a contention refuted by the workers themselves — a one year LQA extension was provided to help employees plan for a future without the subsidy. That extension expires in early May.