- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 110
Update: So...IST/CST not getting spec pay for awhile?
*** Sent on behalf of LCol I.R. Marchand ***
** This email has been sent to affected members of the RCCS, all RCCS Senior Officers and Senior NCOs **
It has been more than two months since our last official communication concerning ACISS specialist pay – although there has been many developments on this file, we assessed that it was best to ensure we had a firm understanding of the way ahead before re engaging with our community and our soldiers. Please disseminate this message to all concerned personnel.
1. FORMER LCIS TECHS
All technical data on former LCIS Techs who are entitled to specialist pay retroactive to 1 October 2011 has been provided to the Director of Human Resources and Information Management (DHRIM). This organization takes that data for every individual ACISS-LCIS Tech and rebuilds their military employment history in the Human Resource Management System (HRMS). While this process is achievable within a relatively reasonable amount of time, it is only part of the process. Once HRMS has been updated, files are then transferred to the pay authority, Director Military Pay and Allowances Processing (DMPAP). They must synchronize the new HRMS data with the member’s pay account, rebuilding the pay history – cycle by cycle (in 2 week intervals) for approximately 7 years. Because this process cannot be scripted, all actions need to be manual inputs and it is very time consuming and vulnerable to error. One file takes approximately 1 hour to synchronize, and that is when there are no complications. To date, several hundred files have been either completed or in the process of being completed. Given the complexity and unpredictability of file processing, DMPAP cannot provide an estimated time for completion. They have dedicated resources to our requirement and will continue to provide feedback as large number of files are completed. We are confident that they are working as fast as reasonably possible and our team will continue to work with them on LCIS files until every last soldier is correctly compensated.
2. CST /IST
IAW CDS Order 046/17, IST and CST were granted specialist pay retroactive to 1 October 2011; for a variety of reasons, the payment and/or corrective actions to pay accounts for these individuals has not commenced. First, we have to process LCIS Techs as a priority and the work cannot be done concurrently - as it is being completed by the same authorities within DHRIM and DMPAP. Secondly, and equally as important, we are currently working on modifying the Military Employment Structure (MES) of ACISS in order to greatly simplify career management and better manage the payment of specialist pay for the future. Unfortunately, but unforeseeable at the time, the revised ACISS MESIP (Aug 31 17) was not structured with CST and IST as specialist trades. Our attempts to establish a structure that could accommodate them being specialist trades in the future was not supported. As such, only once CDS Order 046/17 was approved in December 2017 could we begin the work to amend the structure to reflect IST/CST as specialist pay trades. In short, we need to fix this before we move forward or we would be complicating the career management of these sub occupations. Making this fix is now our main effort. Our objective is that a new MES can be in place shortly after the completion/payment of former LCIS Tech files.
3. CST – AKOR BEFORE AKOX
We sent an advisory in early January warning that any CST member who had received retroactive pay, but, who had qualified AKOR before AKOX, should be very cautious about spending all of their money because it is highly likely that some of it will be recuperated. To reiterate, when CDS Order 050/16 erroneously granted specialist pay to CST in January 2017, the pay authority based the backdated payment on the day the soldier obtained DP 2.1 (not taking into account DP 2.0 – AKOX). This should not have happened and we only discovered this oversight in late 2017 when reviewing the implementation of CDS Order 046/17. We encourage all units to look closely at these situations on an individual basis to mitigate the financial impact on our soldiers. While we have no mechanism to prevent a recuperation of monies paid between the date the soldier achieved AKOR (the date they were paid IAW CDS Order 050/16) and the date they achieved the latest of AKOR and AKOX (the date they should have been paid IAW CDS Order 046/17) – there are various courses open to alleviate the burden. The chain of command may contact us or G1 Personnel Policy to discuss individual cases.
4. CISTM
Recently, we have received many questions concerning CISTM and specialist pay, namely, why we have a structure in which a CST or IST Sgt will be promoted only to lose their specialist pay. This is a valid question, and we want all affected WOs and MWOs to know that we asked the same question to the authority which evaluates specialist pay. CISTM was considered for specialist pay in 2013 and were told by authorities unequivocally that CISTM was not eligible for specialist pay. Subsequent efforts by RCCS to petition for its consideration (2016, 2017) met with a similar inability to persuade the policy holder of our logic. Despite our unwavering assessment that IST and CST WO remains a specialist after promotion from Sgt, based on the Director of Pay Policy Development’s system for specialist pay evaluation, it would not meet the threshold to be assigned to the specialist pay trade group. To be clear, former LCIS Techs who retain specialist pay as CISTMs are receiving it because of their former status as LCIS Techs – and this is the only reason. We are now evaluating the future trade structure of ACISS to ensure that future evolutions of the MOSID address this discrepancy and ensure that for applicable occupations, our ranks from Cpl to MWO are considered for specialist pay assignment. In the interim, we continue to ask for patience, reinforcing that although we may not have been able to have specialist recognition bestowed on WO-MWO ranks of CST and IST at this time, we are laying the groundwork for the long term compensation of deserving ACISS members from Cpl to MWO.
5. REQUESTS FOR PAY REVIEW
We are aware that many of you had already estimated what amount of retroactive pay you should have received – and, have subsequently discovered that you were paid a lesser amount. First, our leadership advises against this practice of self-calculation. Only the analysts in DMPAP are qualified to calculate retroactive pay transactions given the complexity of rebuilding approximately 400-800 separate transactions and taking into account several General Pay Increases (GPI). However, some soldiers have taken the time to do this exercise. If, based on some form of quantifiable evidence they believe that they should have received additional money – then I suggest that (through the chain of command) they request a review of their pay account. I caution, however, that if such a review reveals that a soldier was overpaid rather than underpaid, recovery action will be initiated and there will be nothing that can be done to avoid it.
6. PENDING RELEASES
We have received a number of requests to accelerate the process of addressing pay files of CST and IST members with pending releases. For reasons described in paragraph 2, we are unable to process these requests at this time as much as we would want to. As file data to DHRIM and DMPAP is processed in groupings of 20-40 soldiers, it is extremely difficult to influence when an induvial soldier’s file is treated. That said, we understand that as some soldiers approach release, the uncertainty of not knowing how their pay situation will affect their retirement income is creating justifiable stress. With this in mind, we will be discussing these scenarios with DMPAP in order to issue supplementary information about how a member who is retired will receive the money that they are owed and how this will affect their pension. Any soldier who is releasing should be informed that RCCS leadership remains responsive to them to provide updates on their pay situation until such a time that it resolved.
7. COMMUNICATIONS
The passage of clear and accurate communication is vital to our community in respect to these challenging developments to ensure soldiers receive proper compensation. To this end we have attempted to provide the most accurate information available, trying to balance the need to accurately inform against issues which evolve weekly. However, communication which has originated from the field has been less than helpful at times. With this in mind, I remind all senior leaders of the RCCS to discourage the passage of negative, incomplete or even inflammatory information through official means (DWAN, town halls) and unofficial means (social media). I will be clear – negative communication does not assist our community in achieving our compensation goals and is dangerous to the morale and health of ACISS and the RCCS. We will continue to provide as much information as we responsibly can, as quickly as we can; any soldier who wishes a more timely update is free to request one from us through the chain of command and they will receive a sitrep accordingly. In short, negativity - especially pessimism based on conjecture - will not assist in achieving the end state and is harmful to our community and credibility.
8. NEXT COMMUNIQUE
Keeping with our objective to provide meaningful and informative communications, our next communique will provide information about the payment of releasing members. Following from this, the next major update will come in April and it will outline the overall progress in ACISS-LCIS files as well as progress in re-aligning the ACISS MES to improve the management of IST and CST soldiers for specialist pay purposes.
Interim questions may be sent to the undersigned, or Major J Manley at G1 Personnel Policy (613) 971-7282.
Respectfully,
*** Sent on behalf of LCol I.R. Marchand ***
** This email has been sent to affected members of the RCCS, all RCCS Senior Officers and Senior NCOs **
It has been more than two months since our last official communication concerning ACISS specialist pay – although there has been many developments on this file, we assessed that it was best to ensure we had a firm understanding of the way ahead before re engaging with our community and our soldiers. Please disseminate this message to all concerned personnel.
1. FORMER LCIS TECHS
All technical data on former LCIS Techs who are entitled to specialist pay retroactive to 1 October 2011 has been provided to the Director of Human Resources and Information Management (DHRIM). This organization takes that data for every individual ACISS-LCIS Tech and rebuilds their military employment history in the Human Resource Management System (HRMS). While this process is achievable within a relatively reasonable amount of time, it is only part of the process. Once HRMS has been updated, files are then transferred to the pay authority, Director Military Pay and Allowances Processing (DMPAP). They must synchronize the new HRMS data with the member’s pay account, rebuilding the pay history – cycle by cycle (in 2 week intervals) for approximately 7 years. Because this process cannot be scripted, all actions need to be manual inputs and it is very time consuming and vulnerable to error. One file takes approximately 1 hour to synchronize, and that is when there are no complications. To date, several hundred files have been either completed or in the process of being completed. Given the complexity and unpredictability of file processing, DMPAP cannot provide an estimated time for completion. They have dedicated resources to our requirement and will continue to provide feedback as large number of files are completed. We are confident that they are working as fast as reasonably possible and our team will continue to work with them on LCIS files until every last soldier is correctly compensated.
2. CST /IST
IAW CDS Order 046/17, IST and CST were granted specialist pay retroactive to 1 October 2011; for a variety of reasons, the payment and/or corrective actions to pay accounts for these individuals has not commenced. First, we have to process LCIS Techs as a priority and the work cannot be done concurrently - as it is being completed by the same authorities within DHRIM and DMPAP. Secondly, and equally as important, we are currently working on modifying the Military Employment Structure (MES) of ACISS in order to greatly simplify career management and better manage the payment of specialist pay for the future. Unfortunately, but unforeseeable at the time, the revised ACISS MESIP (Aug 31 17) was not structured with CST and IST as specialist trades. Our attempts to establish a structure that could accommodate them being specialist trades in the future was not supported. As such, only once CDS Order 046/17 was approved in December 2017 could we begin the work to amend the structure to reflect IST/CST as specialist pay trades. In short, we need to fix this before we move forward or we would be complicating the career management of these sub occupations. Making this fix is now our main effort. Our objective is that a new MES can be in place shortly after the completion/payment of former LCIS Tech files.
3. CST – AKOR BEFORE AKOX
We sent an advisory in early January warning that any CST member who had received retroactive pay, but, who had qualified AKOR before AKOX, should be very cautious about spending all of their money because it is highly likely that some of it will be recuperated. To reiterate, when CDS Order 050/16 erroneously granted specialist pay to CST in January 2017, the pay authority based the backdated payment on the day the soldier obtained DP 2.1 (not taking into account DP 2.0 – AKOX). This should not have happened and we only discovered this oversight in late 2017 when reviewing the implementation of CDS Order 046/17. We encourage all units to look closely at these situations on an individual basis to mitigate the financial impact on our soldiers. While we have no mechanism to prevent a recuperation of monies paid between the date the soldier achieved AKOR (the date they were paid IAW CDS Order 050/16) and the date they achieved the latest of AKOR and AKOX (the date they should have been paid IAW CDS Order 046/17) – there are various courses open to alleviate the burden. The chain of command may contact us or G1 Personnel Policy to discuss individual cases.
4. CISTM
Recently, we have received many questions concerning CISTM and specialist pay, namely, why we have a structure in which a CST or IST Sgt will be promoted only to lose their specialist pay. This is a valid question, and we want all affected WOs and MWOs to know that we asked the same question to the authority which evaluates specialist pay. CISTM was considered for specialist pay in 2013 and were told by authorities unequivocally that CISTM was not eligible for specialist pay. Subsequent efforts by RCCS to petition for its consideration (2016, 2017) met with a similar inability to persuade the policy holder of our logic. Despite our unwavering assessment that IST and CST WO remains a specialist after promotion from Sgt, based on the Director of Pay Policy Development’s system for specialist pay evaluation, it would not meet the threshold to be assigned to the specialist pay trade group. To be clear, former LCIS Techs who retain specialist pay as CISTMs are receiving it because of their former status as LCIS Techs – and this is the only reason. We are now evaluating the future trade structure of ACISS to ensure that future evolutions of the MOSID address this discrepancy and ensure that for applicable occupations, our ranks from Cpl to MWO are considered for specialist pay assignment. In the interim, we continue to ask for patience, reinforcing that although we may not have been able to have specialist recognition bestowed on WO-MWO ranks of CST and IST at this time, we are laying the groundwork for the long term compensation of deserving ACISS members from Cpl to MWO.
5. REQUESTS FOR PAY REVIEW
We are aware that many of you had already estimated what amount of retroactive pay you should have received – and, have subsequently discovered that you were paid a lesser amount. First, our leadership advises against this practice of self-calculation. Only the analysts in DMPAP are qualified to calculate retroactive pay transactions given the complexity of rebuilding approximately 400-800 separate transactions and taking into account several General Pay Increases (GPI). However, some soldiers have taken the time to do this exercise. If, based on some form of quantifiable evidence they believe that they should have received additional money – then I suggest that (through the chain of command) they request a review of their pay account. I caution, however, that if such a review reveals that a soldier was overpaid rather than underpaid, recovery action will be initiated and there will be nothing that can be done to avoid it.
6. PENDING RELEASES
We have received a number of requests to accelerate the process of addressing pay files of CST and IST members with pending releases. For reasons described in paragraph 2, we are unable to process these requests at this time as much as we would want to. As file data to DHRIM and DMPAP is processed in groupings of 20-40 soldiers, it is extremely difficult to influence when an induvial soldier’s file is treated. That said, we understand that as some soldiers approach release, the uncertainty of not knowing how their pay situation will affect their retirement income is creating justifiable stress. With this in mind, we will be discussing these scenarios with DMPAP in order to issue supplementary information about how a member who is retired will receive the money that they are owed and how this will affect their pension. Any soldier who is releasing should be informed that RCCS leadership remains responsive to them to provide updates on their pay situation until such a time that it resolved.
7. COMMUNICATIONS
The passage of clear and accurate communication is vital to our community in respect to these challenging developments to ensure soldiers receive proper compensation. To this end we have attempted to provide the most accurate information available, trying to balance the need to accurately inform against issues which evolve weekly. However, communication which has originated from the field has been less than helpful at times. With this in mind, I remind all senior leaders of the RCCS to discourage the passage of negative, incomplete or even inflammatory information through official means (DWAN, town halls) and unofficial means (social media). I will be clear – negative communication does not assist our community in achieving our compensation goals and is dangerous to the morale and health of ACISS and the RCCS. We will continue to provide as much information as we responsibly can, as quickly as we can; any soldier who wishes a more timely update is free to request one from us through the chain of command and they will receive a sitrep accordingly. In short, negativity - especially pessimism based on conjecture - will not assist in achieving the end state and is harmful to our community and credibility.
8. NEXT COMMUNIQUE
Keeping with our objective to provide meaningful and informative communications, our next communique will provide information about the payment of releasing members. Following from this, the next major update will come in April and it will outline the overall progress in ACISS-LCIS files as well as progress in re-aligning the ACISS MES to improve the management of IST and CST soldiers for specialist pay purposes.
Interim questions may be sent to the undersigned, or Major J Manley at G1 Personnel Policy (613) 971-7282.
Respectfully,
