Posted on 10/22/2016 7:15:19 PM PDT by Chode
Thousands in California, many of whom served in Iraq and Afghanistan, called on to return enlistment bonuses amid reported ‘widespread overpayments’
Thousands of soldiers in the California national guard, many of whom served active duty tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, are being asked to pay back large enlistment bonuses they received as much as 12 years ago.
The Los Angeles Times reported on Saturday that nearly 10,000 soldiers may be affected by the demands, after audits “revealed widespread overpayments by the California guard at the height of the wars last decade”.
Christopher Van Meter, a 42-year-old former army captain and Iraq veteran, told the Times he refinanced his home to pay $46,000 in bonus money and student loans which the army said he never should have received.
“These bonuses were used to keep people in,” Van Meter told the paper. “People like me just got screwed.”
In the mid-2000s, as wars continued in Afghanistan and Iraq, military officials throughout the US felt pressure to boost enrollment. At the peak of the simultaneous offensives, generous enlistment bonuses were one of the ways officials tried to solve the problem.
Overpayments occurred in every state during this period, according to the National Guard Bureau, the Pentagon agency that oversees state guard organizations. But payments were especially unwieldy in California, which is home to the country’s second-largest state guard.
In 2012, a former bonus and incentive manager for the California national guard, retired master sergeant Toni Jaffe, was jailed for 30 months for filing false claims.
In her guilty plea, the US attorney’s office for the central district of California said, Jaffe “admitted that she submitted claims to pay bonuses to members of the California national guard whom she knew were not eligible to receive the bonuses and to pay off officer’s loans, even though she knew the officers were ineligible for loan repayment”.
Rather than forgive the loans, the California state government embarked on an audit of more than 17,000 soldiers who received a combined 25,000 disbursements worth about $100m.
The audit process concluded last month, with roughly 9,700 current and retired soldiers having been told to repay some or all of their bonuses. The state has recovered more than $22m so far, the LA Times reported, but collections are likely to continue for several years.
In a class action suit filed in February, one of the affected guardsmen calls the affected soldiers “victims of one of the most egregious mass frauds in US military history”.
The plaintiff, Bryan Strother, alleges that the payments were laid out in binding contracts and that the statute of limitations for the state has long passed.
Strother has asked for all the money collected to be paid back, and for an injunction against the state collecting any more. The case is in federal court and a ruling is expected in January.
Even state guard officials acknowledged to the Times that the attempt to collect was unfair.
“At the end of the day, the soldiers ended up paying the largest price,” Maj Gen Matthew Beevers, deputy commander of the California guard, told the Times. “We’d be more than happy to absolve these people of their debts.
“We just can’t do it. We’d be breaking the law.”
rounding error is right
That would be beautiful.
The larger ‘bonus’ payment was what they were told they would get, not something ‘extra’ by ‘mistake’.
The CNG was giving out larger bonuses to boost reenlistments. But supposedly these larger amounts were not approved by the US government who were reimbursing the CNG.
Now after an audit, the US government wants the extra ‘non approved’ amounts back from the CNG. So the CNG now wants it back from the soldiers.
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>> “Now after an audit, the US government wants the extra ‘non approved’ amounts back from the CNG. So the CNG now wants it back from the soldiers.” <<
Tough titty for the CNG!
The statute of limitations on this crap is likely long past.
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>> “We just can’t do it. We’d be breaking the law.” <<
What an ass!
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>> “Trump would pay them himself.” <<
Trump doesn’t have that kind of liquidity on hand, nor should he have to enter that fray.
This is standard Kalifornifornicate malfeasance, the double standard of the filthy left.
The Obamination can take the money from the mosques he is restoring.
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OK, but why would the CNG offer bonuses it knew weren’t approved or funded? None of this is adding up, frankly.
I’m not arguing that the soldiers didn’t deserve every last penny, just that there’s something fishy along the line here. I know when my son joined the Army (not the Guard) he had a contract. He committed to a certain MOS, and to serve for four years; the Army promised him $X, in writing, if he fulfilled the contract. How did the CNG make promises, not put it in writing, as part of the reenlistment effort? Didn’t the soldiers have any kind of contract? It was all just wide open?
The top brass at the CNG offered the ‘extra’ bonuses to meet reenlistment levels that they were suppose to meet. Otherwise enough soldiers weren’t reenlisting.
Either the CNG brass thought is was OK, or that they could get away with it and the US government wouldn’t notice.
Note that it did take them 10-12 years to track it down.
Apparently most/all? of them had contracts for the extra amount, but the US says that the fact the CNG wasn’t supposed to offer these extra amounts means the contracts weren’t valid.
And one soldier is being required to pay back his entire $20K bonus because he no longer has his copy of the contract, and they can’t find one for him either.
So they want ‘all’ the bonus back.
Our military isn’t known for excellent record keeping. We’ve all seen that often enough. Soldiers should be told how important their papers are, recruitment and reenlistment contracts, each phase of training they’ve completed, awards, discharge papers, etc. Don’t they need at least some of that to get medical or educational benefits?
But somewhere the CNG has to have records to show that that soldier served from xxxx thru xxxx, what rank he held, etc. SOME records. And, if it’s known that during those years signup bonuses were being awarded, he should keep at least that part.
This is a horror for those men (women) who served and put their lives on the line for this country thru a very difficult time. Now they’re treated like yesterday’s trash. Horrible.
yup, never stopped anything before
Unbelievable that 1/2 our country would put such a man in power.
I would never have believed it possible. Especially only 7 years after 9/11/2001.
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