ROBINS AIR FORCE BASE, Ga. -- The Air Force Reserve Command has initiated a beta test of the Reserve Travel System at five U.S. locations to help reduce the time it takes for some traditional reservists to get their travel vouchers processed and paid.
The test is a response to repeated requests from reservist assigned to units on active duty bases who are voicing concerns of having to redo travel vouchers and waiting an inordinate amount of time for payment.
There were times last year where only 7 percent of travel vouchers submitted by reservists on active-duty bases were paid within 10 business days through RTS according to Jeffrey Pennington, director of the Headquarters AFRC staff here.
He said the AFRC Directorate of Financial Management and the Air Force Financial Service Center staff have teamed up to make significant improvements in that success rate, but he has higher hopes for getting more members paid in a timely manner.
The beta test is happening at:
-- 908th Airlift Wing, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama
-- 403rd Wing, Keesler AFB, Mississippi
-- 512th Airlift Wing, Dover AFB, Delaware
-- 446th Airlift Wing, Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington
-- 442nd Fighter Wing, Whiteman AFB, Missouri
Currently, unit reservists fill out their RTS vouchers and take them to the host unit finance office, where the voucher is reviewed and manually entered into another system and sent to the Air Force Financial Service Center at Ellsworth Air Force Base, South Dakota.
From there, workers at Ellsworth audit the vouchers. If everything is OK, the vouchers are submitted to the Defense Finance Accounting System for payment. If there is a problem, the vouchers are sent back to the reservists for corrections.
For a Reservist this becomes one of their most important issue very quickly," said Col. Scott Durham, 512th Airlift Wing commander. "Reimbursement of travel funds for many of our members is the difference between making money or losing money in order to come out to Dover and participate."
In the past, Durham has seen 512th AW members limit their participation simply because it is too difficult to be reimbursed in a timely manner.
"We had to do something," he said.
The beta test models what has been effective at Reserve host units. Reservists take their vouchers to their unit’s finance office for review. The finance office is able to make on-the-spot corrections and enter the information into the system.
From there, the unit audits the voucher and submits to the host base finance office for payment through DFAS.
“The reserve unit can’t do the disbursement themselves because disbursing authorities are limited regionally,” Pennington said. “But this will give the unit more ownership over the pay of their members.”
Understanding the traditional reservist's challenges, and working towards a solution is key in customer satisfaction, Durham said.
The unity of effort required to successfully process and pay these vouchers must be consolidated under one invested and involved chain of command," Durham said. "The 512th (AW) has been working very hard to get this test and we know that we can do better."
Pennington said getting paid for travel has been a top complaint among reservists, and he is happy to finally have a plan to fix this issue.
“We’d like to see 100 percent settled within 10 business days,” he said. “Across the board, our members deserve to be paid on time, every time.”
The 512th AW has had better success, sine the testing started June 6, with RTS vouchers paying reservists within six days, according to Durham.