NAVAL STATION GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- Active duty and reserve sailors who fail to properly check-in onboard Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba may have their pay and leave days adversely affected.
Naval Station Guantanamo Bay’s Personnel Service Detachment is experiencing an increase in the number of sailors who arrive onboard the installation and fail to check-in within the required 2-day period.
“The check-in process is a necessity and cannot be overlooked,” said LCDR. Will Parks, the officer-in-charge of PSD-GTMO. “We at PSD have a Navy requirement to post a member’s check-in within four days of their arrival date. A sailor should obtain a check-in sheet from his or her parent command and then report to PSD.“
When sailors fail to report to PSD within the required time period, they may experience issues that could affect their quality of life.
“Two issues can arise when a person fails to properly check-in with PSD,” Park said. “First, there is a ‘fail to report’ message that goes out, which will stop all pay and allowances. Secondly, the member can be placed into an overpaid status due to unauthorized entitlements; and we all know that the government will require a member to payback an overpayment.”
A recent example of what can happen to personnel when they fail to check-in, involved a Sailor who was overpaid approximately $3,500.
“The sailor checked in with housing to pick up the keys to his housing unit but never checked in with PSD,” Parks said. “He continued to collect housing allowance for his last duty assignment, which was not an authorized entitlement. My staff ultimately tracked him down six weeks after his arrival date.”
Sailors failing to report on time also affect the support of others requiring administrative services from PSD and that of their commands, said Parks.
“On average, a late check-in can cause overpayments and other required administrative reaction transactions,” he said. “An unnecessary late check-in will cost numerous man-hours here at PSD and Defense Finance and Accounting Service, to correct overpayments, not to mention the multiple required trips a member will be required to make to PSD to correct his or her problem.”
Parks has directed his PSD staff to place members who do not check in properly into a leave status, until the sailor checks in. If the member cannot be located or the assigned command does not know the Sailor’s location, a “failed to report” status will be entered and all pay and allowances will be stopped.
“If for some reason a person cannot make it over to PSD within the two workday requirements, they can simply call us and we will work with them to set up a time that will work for the member,” Parks said.