Photo By Eric Pilgrim | Sheila Nelson, a Quality Control Inspector at Fort Knox, Kentucky, stops by the home...... read more read more
FORT KNOX, Ky. — With the busy peak PCS season set to begin in about six weeks, Transportation officials are encouraging military personnel expecting to move to make their plans early.
Horace Bowden, installation transportation officer at Fort Knox, said the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 changed a lot of how the moving process. As a result, transportation officers don’t yet know what to expect with this year’s season.
“We don’t know what the moving flow is going to be yet because we don’t know what the personnel flow is,” said Bowden.
While they iron out the details, Bowden asked for Soldiers and their Families who are preparing to move to remember four areas of a move that have a tendency to create complications.
Start early.
The first area, which Bowden considers one of the most detrimental when overlooked, is to start early when scheduling a mover.
“Nine times out of 10 when someone has a problem getting their pack date or their delivery date, it’s because they sat on their orders for two months. Then they come into the office and say they need to get picked up next week,” said Bowden. “So starting early and getting your orders is a big issue.”
Bowden recommends visiting https://move.mil/ for the first stop.
“They have some videos on there which are very detailed — a lot of things you can read through,” said Bowden. “Move.mil is where one goes to build their profile, and it can seem like information overload, but 99.9% of the time when folks have a question and you ask if they went to Move.mil for an answer, their immediate answer is no.”
Bowden encouraged personnel to create a new account at the website. A disclaimer at the site alerts personnel to the Defense Personal Property System’s transition to a new URL, at https://dps.move.mil/cust/standard/user/home.xhtml, which began Feb. 26.
Bowden said personnel also need to plan on pickup or delivery dates being a window rather than a specific day.
“You have to give a window now; you can’t just say, ‘you have to be here on Jan. 22!’’ said Bowden. “When you pick that window, the carrier can then come a couple of days earlier or a couple of days later.”
Personnel and their Families should be flexible as a result, said Bowden.
Seek counseling.
Another area to remember is counseling. For those who are moving for the first time and last time, counseling is mandatory. For everybody else —
“A physical counseling with a counselor is not required,” said Bowden. “But it’s highly recommended because things change all the time.”
Bowden said counselors know all the latest changes as they occur and can help personnel with health screenings and specific issues that not only affect from where Soldiers are departing, but also to where they are going. It also provides Soldiers a reminder about what to expect.
Those who are concerned about a face-to-face counseling can request a telephone counseling session, instead.
James Glover, a quality control inspector from the installation Transportation office, said he and fellow inspector Christopher Blount often recommend that those who choose to self-counsel still take their paperwork over to the Transportation office to be looked over, especially if they decide on a partial Personally Procured Move (PPM) — what used to be called a DITY, or do-it-yourself.
“They’ll get most of their questions answered there,” said Bowden.
Bowden offered an example of a common misunderstanding with PPMs. Last year, the Army raised the percentage of PPM money to 100%.
“There’s a downside to doing this,” said Bowden. “They get taxed on that money, and when something gets destroyed, they can’t come back to the government for compensation.”
Quality assurance inspections.
Fort Knox has several inspectors whose job it is to ensure that packers and loaders provide quality work with moving Soldiers’ household goods. Per Army guidance in 2020, each installation is required to conduct inspections on every move.
Bowden explained that every move is broken down into physical and telephonic inspections due to the sheer number of moves that take place each year. His team physically checks 75% of the moves, and telephonically inspects the remaining 25%.
“That 25% can be picking up the phone and saying, ‘Hey, Mr. Blount, how’s your shipment going? If there’s a problem, I’ll come out there,’” said Bowden. “To do that, the Army added close to 600 new positions CONUS-wide.”
Fort Knox has four inspectors.
Bowden said Fort Knox is unique from many other installations in that they have a built-in added layer of quality assurance based on guidance from Maj. Gen. John Evans Jr., commanding general of U.S. Army Cadet Command and Fort Knox.
Due to COVID restrictions, Evans requires that a unit representative be included in the inspection process.
“Inspectors can’t be everywhere,” said Bowden. “General Evans wanted to make sure everything is to standard. The only we could physically enforce that was when installation tasked units to do that.”
Bowden calls his inspection team the fire prevention squad because they often put out problematic fires before they reach higher echelons. He said his team is so effective and problem-solving that only two Inspector General complaints were filed last year, each one with a resolution in place by the inspectors.
“By the time word gets over to [leadership], these guys nine times out of 10 have already been involved,” said Bowden. “By then they will have already worked the issue and have a solution in place.”
The household goods process oftentimes is reactive when things go wrong, said Bowden, emphasizing the value the inspectors bring to every move.
“Once a move goes [wrong], you can’t turn it around; it’s just punitive at that point,” said Bowden. “These inspectors catch the problems, and then fix them.”
File timely claims.
Claims is done two ways, according to Bowden.
The first way is between the service member and the transportation service provider through the Defense Personal Property System website.
“That’s meant to be kind of a rapid, ‘The couch is broken, fix it fast’ kind of deal,” said Bowden. “If the service member isn’t happy with that, then they can elevate it to the Military [Personnel] Claims Office.”
That office just happens to operate at Fort Knox. However, they handle Army claims from virtually every corner of the globe.
“It’s important to get those claims turned in in a timely manner because if they miss those windows, they risk not getting compensation for the loss,” said Bowden.
The window to file a claim is 180 days.
“They need to keep in mind that once they file a claim in DPS and are not satisfied with that route,” said Christopher Blount, “they have to start that claim all over again in the MCO—“
“… and the systems don’t talk to each other,” followed Bowden. “That’s another value to the physical counseling process.”
Masks are enforceable.
One issue the inspectors keep running into is residents defying the mask orders during the pack out or delivery process.
“Families think that’s their house, and the government can’t come in and direct that they do certain things,” said Bowden. “What they don’t realize is that when they accepted a government move, it became a government workplace.”
While the Transportation office can’t predict when the actual PCS peak season will begin, Bowden said he suspects it will be an extended one like last year.
Because of so many questions yet to be answered, he advised that military personnel and their Families take advantage of the Move.mil website’s detailed information and take time to research the laws pertaining to where they are going next.
| Date Taken: | 03.03.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 03.03.2021 13:56 |
| Story ID: | 390463 |
| Location: | FORT KNOX, KY, US |
| Web Views: | 57 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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