HR Experts Learn Fundamentals of Finance Operations

FORT CARSON, CO, UNITED STATES

08.19.2019

Story by Staff Sgt. Scott Evans 

4th Infantry Division Public Affairs Office

FORT CARSON, Colo. – In the coming months, the Integrated Personnel and Pay System –Army (IPPS-A), an updated Army online human resource system currently in development will come into full effect, requiring Army human resource specialists to assume military pay duties which have been handled previously by financial management specialists.
In preparation for this coming change, the 4th Infantry Division personnel section has developed a pilot program to train human resource specialists, both Soldiers and civilians, from various installations throughout the Colorado Springs area. The Fort Carson MilPay Fundamentals Course, which was taught by military pay instructors assigned to Fort Knox, Kentucky who are currently on duty at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) in Indianapolis, took place at the Military Training Complex (MTC) at Fort Carson, Colorado August 12-15.
“The IPPS-A program is being designed to modernize the HR system by bringing these services into the modern world,” said Maj. Matthew K. McDaniel, the chief of the 4th Infantry Division Human Resources Operations Center (HROC). “Many of the systems currently in use have been around for a long time.”
The four-day course helped to ensure human resource specialists had a thorough understanding of their future responsibilities in order for them to gain knowledge and confidence in the system’s processes.
“We have to learn about coding, financial pay, audits and anything that has to do with finance it’s now going to have to be done within the (Division personnel office),” said Sgt. DeJuan A. Means, a human resources sergeant and Human Resource Operations Center NCOIC for 4th Infantry Division. “We are looking to take these students to be able to take that knowledge, process it so that when they leave they will be able to train people within their units.”
With many attendees stationed outside of Fort Carson, such as at USNORTHCOM, much forward planning had to be conducted by the Fort Carson Human Resources Operations Center to make it effective for everyone involved.
“As part of the planning process for setting up this class, we had to consider that there are students from elements that are not part of Fort Carson computer network, so we had to make sure they had access to the tools that would use in an operational environment,” McDaniel said.
Though this was the first course conducted on the subject, the course length did allow the instructors to cover a lot of the training that will make the students effective in their career fields in the future through both practical exercises and testing.
“There is a lot of information, and I believe that this is the foundation for HR professionals when it comes to the military pay portion,” said Sgt. 1st Class Radia A. Rogers, military pay instructor, assigned to U.S. Army Human Resource Command at Fort Knox, Kentucky, currently on duty at DFAS. “Just giving them the basics on what needs to happen when a Soldier comes in with a pay issue and how to resolve it, not just going off of knowledge but how to conduct research and giving them the tools to know how to conduct that research.”
The HROC is planning to have these classes conducted frequently, so more HR personnel from Active Army, Reserve, and National Guard units will be able effective training which they can bring back to their units at the battalion and company level.
“I spoke with the instructor team and asked if they could come again in February,” Means said. “They say that timeframe works well for them since it’s sort of the beginning of their fiscal year… so we just need to coordinate it and make it happen.”
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• Date Taken: 08.19.2019
• Date Posted: 08.19.2019 18:12
• Story ID: 336484
• Location: FORT CARSON, CO, US