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CANFORGEN on Pay and PIL

The_Dictat said:
Got mine on 15 dec pay!!!  ;D Full-time reserve 100% over 10000K

10 millions? Darn, those really inflated since I was in...    ;D

Nice Christmas gift to put into some other saving instrument. - The 10 thousands or so anyway! - and hopefully not get hit at income tax time.  ;)
 
AliG said:
10 millions? Darn, those really inflated since I was in...    ;D

Nice Christmas gift to put into some other saving instrument. - The 10 thousands or so anyway! - and hopefully not get hit at income tax time.  ;)

LOL, very interesting typo... I wish
 
This is bloody ridiculous. For those of you keeping track, the rest of the federal organizations / departments got theirs with minimal delay- mere weeks in many cases. I'm now stuck getting mine in a subsequent year where I'll face substantially more tax liability because the CF takes a year to process something that should be exceptionally straightforward. Nowhere else would this kind of delay in a benefit worth thousands of dollars be tolerated.
 
Agreed, it's a farce and BS.  There's no way this should have taken this long for anyone.  Excuses from the RMS world be dammed.  We're living in the age of electronics.  This exercise should be no more than a few key strokes and have it done and over with tout suite. 
 
There's a saying. Speak about stuff which you are knowledgeable. You don't know the process. For example they may need to look at physical records which is more then a few electronic key strokes. They already gave notice at the beginning it would take up to 3 years. They also have no bearing on when your file was received. Maybe you should request to help them out and report back just how easy the work load is.
 
Goes hand and glove with the Reserve pension. No other federal department would have been subjected to the terms and interest rates that that plan is, not to mention the ongoing administrative nightmares that are the hallmark of the program.
 
Until senior leaders and managers are held accountable, nothing will change.  The electronic copies of the Reserve pay records from 1976 - 1996 were discarded, yet no one was held accountable.  That one failure continues to reverberate nearly 20 years later, impacting the pension buyback and PiL for Res and for Reg with former Res service.

Yet no one has ever been called to account for it.  Instead, efforts are made to restore archaic colonial symbols of rank.  Great place to concentrate efforts...
 
As someone I work with noted, if we owe the federal coffers $, say for income tax owing, etc we pay fees and interest.  Funny how that isn't a two way street.

I was told at my last BOR PIL Section that the only reason they weren't allowed to process payments for those who elected more than 50% was because someone decided that if that was allowed, and the BOR staff screwed up their audit and payment, then it would be more difficult to recover the overpayments.  So it was decided to go the way they did. 

::)

On top of that, my last unit didn't forward my paperwork until March, despite the fact that I had it in on the first day of the submission period (mid Dec).

The_Apple_Dumpling_Gang.jpg





 
I would not really say it is the clerks faults, I'm sure a few have made mistakes but looking at the whole picture.  It depends how many clerks were assigned to work on the files.  If they had doubled the allotted amount of clerks it would be done by now assuming they are at the halfway point.  We are chomping at the bit only because we want to put the money into RRSP and then use it to buy a house.  It has to sit in the RRSP for 90 days so if we got the money in May, it would almost be at the end of posting season and we'd be left with a smaller selection of houses.  BUT, it will get done in the next few months. Everyone has a reason for wanting/needing the money.  Hope everyone has a great New Year!!!  Cheers  ;D
 
I don't think anyone is blaming the clerks. All they can do is the job they are told to do, as best they can, with what they've got.

The blame sits squarely on the reptilian shoulders of the massive gits that launched these programs without doing their battle procedure.

They were given a task and ran out the door Monty Pythonesque throwing useless paper and issuing even more useless orders.

Treasury Board is not blameless in all of this either. They had the power to issue clear direction and timelines, and failed to hold up their end of the bargain and people's feet to the fire.

That's how I see it anyway.
 
Sheep Dog AT said:
There's a saying. Speak about stuff which you are knowledgeable. You don't know the process. For example they may need to look at physical records which is more then a few electronic key strokes. They already gave notice at the beginning it would take up to 3 years. They also have no bearing on when your file was received. Maybe you should request to help them out and report back just how easy the work load is.

Or maybe the military should have gotten its poop in a group from the outset. The 'up to three years' was a decision the military made; the CF decided that that was an acceptable benchmark, and staffed the cell doing it accordingly.

The *work* is, undoubtedly, quite easy, even if some files present a challenge due to how fractured someone's service is and how the CF can suck at maintaining records. The work *load* is greatly disproportionate to the resources allocated to it, and we get bent over a barrel because of it. I am not blaming the clerks processing files. I'm saying that only in the military is this sort of hamfisted approach to compensation and benefits acceptable. The rest of the federal sector was able to accomplish this in a few weeks to a few months. The military puts together a shoddy approach, and many of thsoe who haven't worked outside the military think it's acceptable simply because they don't realize that it's far from the norm.
 
Brihard said:
I am not blaming the clerks processing files. I'm saying that only in the military is this sort of hamfisted approach to compensation and benefits acceptable. The rest of the federal sector was able to accomplish this in a few weeks to a few months. The military puts together a shoddy approach, and many of thsoe who haven't worked outside the military think it's acceptable simply because they don't realize that it's far from the norm.

Since seeing this comment about other government departments mentioned more then once I took some time while home on vacation and spoke to two relatives of mine who work for other federal government departments.  One works for the passport office and he told he his took 22 months from notice to payment.  Another cousin works for PWGSC and hers took over 18 months.  Yes, shorter then ours but hardly "a few weeks to a few months".
 
A friend of mine, ex-CAF now RCMP got his just before Christmas 2012.  His wife, also RCMP, had hers abou a month before him. 
 
Tibbson said:
Since seeing this comment about other government departments mentioned more then once I took some time while home on vacation and spoke to two relatives of mine who work for other federal government departments.  One works for the passport office and he told he his took 22 months from notice to payment.  Another cousin works for PWGSC and hers took over 18 months.  Yes, shorter then ours but hardly "a few weeks to a few months".

What are extreme cases in other department are largely the norm in the CF. I figure if the RCMP were able to get all of their within a couple of months - and that's with a force of 22,000 spread more widely across Canada than, I would contend, any other federal agency - then it's indicative of what should be possible. The fact that for the CF it was not suggests that there are some serious deficiencies in record keeping if something this straightforward could not be figured out and paid out reasonably quickly.
 
CAF also has to deal with Reserves and combined service which no other federal service has and is the largest government agency with people coast to coast and internationally.
 
Sheep Dog AT said:
CAF also has to deal with Reserves and combined service which no other federal service has and is the largest government agency with people coast to coast and internationally.

Crazy thought- maybe have more people working in the cell processing it? Not hard toget people for that kind of work.

I ran the numbers for my case; receiving my severance this tax year vice last will cost me ~$500 more of my severance lost to taxes. That's a bit of a kick in the nuts given that mine was in well on time.
 
Brihard said:
Crazy thought- maybe have more people working in the cell processing it? Not hard toget people for that kind of work.

I agree with you that the machine is not well-oiled. The unfortunate part is... somewhere from the ground, I am sure, someone was probably pushing info up that "we need more people and more resources to do this within the constraints you've given us." And that info got shut down some at a certain level, a level which I'd rather not openly guess at on a public forum :-\
 
I find it interesting that many of the complaints here centre around the idea that there are obviously not enough people working on what is proving to be a particularly labour-intensive process.  Now where would those people come from?  Another common theme on this forum is that there are too many people in HQs doing seemingly "pointless" staff work and not enough folks in the front line units (i.e. our "tooth to tail" ratio is all screwed up).  The sad reality is that if we want to reduce the "tail" in the organization and put more resources into the "teeth," that's fine, but we also have to recognize that our staff functions (which are still necessary), will become less efficient and will take longer.

PS:  Anyone who thinks that this kind of problem is unique to the CF/DND is dreaming.  Inefficiency and delay are rife throughout both the public and private sectors as everyone wants to concentrate on their "core" functions, thinking that their "support" will just kind of happen. 
 
Pusser said:
I find it interesting that many of the complaints here centre around the idea that there are obviously not enough people working on what is proving to be a particularly labour-intensive process.  Now where would those people come from?  Another common theme on this forum is that there are too many people in HQs doing seemingly "pointless" staff work and not enough folks in the front line units (i.e. our "tooth to tail" ratio is all screwed up).  The sad reality is that if we want to reduce the "tail" in the organization and put more resources into the "teeth," that's fine, but we also have to recognize that our staff functions (which are still necessary), will become less efficient and will take longer.

PS:  Anyone who thinks that this kind of problem is unique to the CF/DND is dreaming.  Inefficiency and delay are rife throughout both the public and private sectors as everyone wants to concentrate on their "core" functions, thinking that their "support" will just kind of happen.

It's an exceptional manning need, not something that will endure. Perfect instance to hire some reservists full time, or some public servants from the pools on term contracts. Let's not pretend for a second that there isn't massive headquarters bloat- and not on necessary staff functions, but on largely redundant bureaucratic ones- a different beast entirely.
 
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