Financial managers hit hard

  • Published
  • By Staff Sgt. Ronald C. Lafosse II
  • 22nd Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs
MCCONNELL AIR FORCE BASE, Kan. --  As of Dec. 3, McConnell's finance reduced customer service hours to 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Mondays through Fridays, due to a 65 percent decrease in manning over the past 12 months.

The staffing cutback were the result of program budget decision 720, through which Congress granted the Air Force permission to reduce manpower authorizations to save money.

"The Air Force financial management community is going through a tremendous transformation affecting literally every function within FM," said Tech. Sgt. Kelly Pearson, 22nd Comptroller Squadron. "These initiatives have resulted in manpower savings that were accelerated due to Program Budget Decision 720," she said.

However, McConnell has lost seven comptroller squadron slots due to PBD 720. That leaves three technicians to process all travel and military pay transactions. Without the reduction in customer service hours, payment delays were rising.

The cut hours allot the required time for technicians to process transactions in a timely manner.

"In the eyes of the customer, we will have less face-to-face customer service," said Sergeant Pearson. "However, the benefits the hours reduction will have on the customer are that we will have more time to meet their ultimate need - paying their entitlements."

Many of the day-to-day questions asked by people can be handled via e-mail, which can also save customers time and a drive to finance. General pay, travel inquiries, address changes, allotments, and leave inquires can now be taken care through e-mail.

Finance has established 22cptsfinancecustomerservice@mcconnell.af.mil, a customer service e-mail account, for people to send questions and minor changes.

"Our goal is to answer your emails within 24 hours, but NLT 2 duty days," said Sergeant Pearson.

Customer service can be reached at 759-4618. After hours, people shoul leave a message and clearly give their names and phone numbers. Be sure to include an after hours phone number, as calls may be returned after normal duty hours.

Some transactions can also be processed on the MyPay Web site, https://mypay.dfas.mil/mypay.aspx.