The 21st Comptroller Squadron at Peterson AFB, Colo., and many other local base finance offices, will once again process military pay returns, starting on Aug. 25. The Air Force Financial Services Center at Ellsworth AFB, S.D., took over the task in 2006 in an effort to centralize military pay processing. The change back to the local level should mean faster and more accurate service for airmen for tasks, such as stopping deployment entitlements or changing an airman’s basic allowance for housing. However, there will be an adjustment period, according to a Peterson release. “Since military pay functions moved to the AFFSC, we eliminated these blocks from our tech training,” said 1st Lt. Laura Vergez of the 21st CPTS. “We’ll have a generation of young airmen who will learn military pay processing via [on the job training], which is not ideal. We know there will be issues initially but I’m confident our personnel will quickly grasp the concepts.” The change will not affect the procedure for travel pay.
The F-35 Joint Program Office has officially announced plans to issue multiple sole-source contracts to Pratt & Whitney to upgrade the fighter’s F135 engine—a widely expected move after Pentagon officials indicated they would do so earlier this year instead of developing an entirely new engine.