Defense Military Pay Office (DMPO) Fort Riley Newsletter February 2018

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1 DMPO Mission Statement To deliver and administer superior financial services in an efficient, effective and timely manner for Ft. Riley Soldiers and their families while setting the standards in customer service as leaders throughout all of DFAS. Normal Hours of Operations Mon Fri: CLOSED FOR: Mandatory Training Every Wed: FEB RDO 16 FEB RDO 19 FEB PRESIDENTS DAY IMPORTANT: Please take note of the closed days so soldiers don t waste valuable training time coming in when we can t support them. S-1 Certification Course Held 12 Feb in Bldg 217 Room In-Out Processing Reporting Soldiers must Contact 1st Replacement Company before attending the In-Brief. You must bring 1 copy of your orders & leave form (DA 31). Soldiers must attend the In-Brief to ensure the are paid correctly. Departing Soldiers must attend Out-Brief. You must bring 2 copies of your orders, amendment(s) & approved leave form. Downrange Pay Entitlements Soldiers returning from deployment with their Unit or Individually must process through the SRP site in order for downrange pay entitlements to stop. Failure to visit the SRP will result in an overpayment of downrange pay entitlements and collection from pay. We are having too many Soldiers come to Customer Service with Pay Issues that could have been solved at the SRP. S-1 s and Commanders need to make sure they don t let Soldiers turn in their Meal Cards when on Essential Unit Messing Deployments to stop their meal deductions. Meal deductions are MANDATORY on these types of Deployments. Updating BAH All soldiers are reminded to update their BAH entitlement when they have a change to their status. All Soldiers, regardless of rank have the responsibility to notify Finance, at the time of the event, when they have a change to their Marital Status. Doing so will prevent possible over or under payments of BAH. A certified marriage certificate must be presented for a new marriage. A certified marriage certificate is a certificate returned to the court clerk where the license was issued, after performance of the marriage ceremony, for written certification of the document and entry into the book of marriage record for that jurisdiction. There may be additional cost and a waiting period in order for the couple to receive their certified marriage certificate. Uncertified Marriage licenses and marriage certificates will not be accepted for BAH purposes. Document Turn-In Timeliness is critical to pay accounts. Please do not hold documents and batch them for processing. They need to be submitted daily if you have them. Unit Commander s Finance Report (UCFR) Self Registration visit: Unit Commander s are required to review & annotate updates, changes, corrections, additions, or deletions of personnel & finance information. Finance needs the full SSAN and the PACIDN or UIC to which a soldier will be transferred. You can not just remove the soldier, they must be moved to a new PACIDN/UIC. You will submit all requests for changes to the following address: dfas.riley.jfl.mbx.dmpo-riley-utl@mail.mil. Units must return the UCFR to DMPO NLT 10th day of each month. CDR s/1sg s must ensure that their new Soldiers have attended the Finance In-Brief and submitted all documents to ensure their pay is correct. Interactive Customer Satisfaction (ICE) The ICE survey is your way of providing valuable feedback to the DMPO Director. You are highly encouraged to self-identify, and by expressing your concerns with DMPO products, services or customer-care allows the DMPO and departmental personnel to improve upon our products and services. Visit:

2 DEPLOYMENT INFORMATION Deployments to Korea and Europe are Essential Unit Messing (EUM) or filed duty. This means that ALL soldiers will have Meal Deductions taken out of their pay. Soldiers must not surrender their meal cards under any circumstances to stop these Meal Deductions. They are MANDATORY!! Soldiers wishing to give their Family Members access to My Pay to view their Pay Account can do so in the My Pay Website. The access will be read only so they will not be able to make changes to the Pay Account. Go to Log in with your CAC card or Login ID and Password Go to the Personal Settings Page Click on Limited Access Account Follow the Instructions on this page to set up a Limited Access Account. Make sure your Family Members have a Special Power of Attorney so they can come in to Finance so we can answer their questions. Without this type of Power of Attorney, we will not be able to assist them. If for any reason you are Redeployed and won t be returning to the Deployment Area, make sure to process through the SRP Site so all entitlement can be stopped or started as the case may be. Failure to do so could result in large debts. If you qualify for receive AIP-OD FD of $195 you are no longer authorized Per Diem of $3.50 per day for these deployments. Please do not submit a Travel Voucher as they will be rejected.

3 FINANCE REDEPLOYMENT INFORMATION AFTER REDEPLOYMENT AND REVERSE-SRP YOUR PAYROLL DEPOSIT AMOUNT WILL DECREASE. THIS IS NORMAL, NOT THE RESULT OF A PAY PROBLEM. Your pay will be lower due to deployment entitlements being stopped, the restart of mandatory deductions including taxes and, in many cases, debt collection. Entitlements that will be stopped: Exemption from federal and state tax withholding (CZTE). (If authorized) Hardship Duty Pay (HDP). Hostile Fire Pay/Imminent Danger Pay (HFP/IDP) for qualifying countries. Family Separation Allowance (FSA) for soldiers with eligible family members. Deductions that will restart: Federal tax withholding (If you were in a CZTE). State tax withholding for states that do tax military pay (If you were in a CZTE). Tax withholding will resume the next calendar month after departing downrange. Debts for overpayment of deployment entitlements: Hardship Duty Pay (HDP) and Family Separation Allowance (FSA) debts will collect the current or next pay month, depending upon the date of Reverse-SRP. Hostile Fire Pay/Imminent Danger Pay (HFP/IDP) debts will normally collect the next pay month following departure from downrange. Pay deposits after redeployment may be lower than your pay before deployment: Allotment and garnishment amounts may have increased. Tax withholding and other government deductions may be higher. Other entitlements, such as BAH or base pay, may have decreased. You may have additional government debts that are being collected.

4 The Blended Retirement System Eligibility and Opt-In The Blended Retirement System (BRS) is a modernized retirement plan for the Uniformed Services that is available to eligible service members starting Jan 1, Features of the BRS includes a defined benefit (monthly retired pay for life) after at least 20 years of service, a defined benefit (consisting of government automatic and matching contributions) to a member s Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) account, a bonus called continuation pay and a new lump sum option at retirement. Eligibility BRS eligibility depends on when you joined or plan to join the Uniformed Services: If you enter the Uniformed Service on or before Dec. 31, 2017, you are grandfathered into the legacy high-3 retirement system. If you are an active-duty service member with fewer than 12 years of service as of Dec. 31, 2017, or a member of the National Guard or Reserve in a paid status who has accrued fewer than 4,320 retirement points as of Dec. 31, 2017, you are grandfathered under the legacy retirement system, but may choose to opt into the BRS. If you enter the Uniformed Services on or after Jan. 1, 2018, you are automatically enrolled in BRS, and this is your military retirement plan.

5 How can I figure out which system will work for me? One of the most important things you ll need to do in making a decision of whether or not to opt into the BRS, is to assess the likelihood that you will serve for at least 20 years, bearing in mind that if you do not serve that long and do not join BRS, you will get neither a lifetime monthly annuity nor service contributions to your Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) account. If you think it s likely that you will make it to 20 years, then you have other factors to consider: How many years of making contributions and receiving service contributions will I have before retirement? Is it likely that these contributions and their earnings along with any benefit I might get from continuation pay or the lump sum will ultimately outweigh the amount I d give up as a result of the reduced monthly annuity? What is my tolerance for risk? Will I be willing to follow a long-term strategy with potential for substantial earnings? Get the facts. Those eligible to opt into the BRS must take the mandatory BRS Opt-In Course. Training courses are available on Joint Knowledge Online (JKO), your service s learning management system or publically available on Military One Source. All service members joining on or after Jan. 1, 2018, are required to complete the BRS new accessions training course. Calculate your options. Calculate, compare, and contrast retirement systems using the DoD BRS Comparison Calculator at BRS/. Make a decision. If you re an eligible current service member you have an important decision to make between January 1 and December 31, 2018: You must decide whether to stay with your current retirement system or move to the new BRS. Once you make your choice, you won t be able to take it back, even if you change your mind before the Dec. 31, 2018 deadline.

6 Resources Learn more about BRS at Explore Military OneSource and other financial resources at Locate an accredited personal financial manager or counselor at your installation s Military and Family Support Center, or search at militaryinstallations.dod.mil. The DoD does not take a position on which retirement system a service member should choose.