LAUGHLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Texas -- The Military and Family Readiness Center (M&FRC) team discovered an error effecting student pilots’ Thrift Savings Plan (TSP).
The issue was found when a client made an appointment with M&FRC. The service member specifically wanted to look at the Blended Retirement System (BRS) and his TSP.
“We attempted to create his TSP log-in but were unable to do so,” said Natanya Watkinson, 47th Force Support Squadron, work life consultant. “This prompted me to look at his Leave and Earnings Statement (LES). His LES did not have any TSP contributions. At 60 days of service, at a minimum, all service members under the BRS should have 1% of their base salary going into the TSP. This service member commissioned in 2022.”
The initial response was that it was a TSP issue, and the service member needed to reach out to TSP directly. Shortly after this engagement more cases popped up and four more service members met with M&FRC, having the same issue.
“This showed a pattern, and I reached out to 1st Lt. Sarah Cap, Financial Operations Flight, flight commander, and explained the issue,” said Watkinson. “I did not want to sound the alarm or bring attention to the issue until we knew how to resolve [it].”
Lt. Cap took the issue, researched, and did not stop until she had a working solution. “My office reached out to other UPT bases, USAFA, DFAS and AFPC and eventually found where the root cause was,” said Cap. “From there, we confirmed the correct course of action to fix these missing retirement benefits, and back paid any missed agency contributions.”
It was found that the issue was an agency coding error for members transitioning between the Legacy retirement system to the BRS. From there, they developed a working solution where the Financial Operations Flight embeds a finance Airman in the 47th Student Squadron (STUS) Command Support Staff every Wednesday as part of a mobile operations program for students to get in-person finance customer support.
The student population is not required to complete First Term finance training until they are stationed at their first permanent duty station which makes them susceptible to missing entitlements or pay errors accumulating. Finance and M&FRC stress the importance of service members being educated and active participants in their finances and utilizing the resources available to them.
Cap estimates $255,000 in contributions, including missed interest, will have been credited to service members TSPs at Laughlin AFB once all the errors have been corrected. In 40 years, that could amount to over $11 million dollars in retirement benefits for service members.
“I hope that working through this error with finance and bringing the concern to the base population, rather than having them discover it many years from now where the accumulation of missed interest could be detrimental, helps with retention,” said Watkinson.
The M&FRC at Laughlin has a variety of financial classes, including Financial Touchpoint Training designed to give information and repeat information throughout the lifecycle of active-duty personnel. They encourage the student pilot population along with all members of Laughlin to attend as many skill building courses as they can, including one-on-one appointments. Learn more about what M&FRC does here.
If service members notice anything wrong with their TSP or LES, they should contact the finance office as soon as possible. Finance is available for walk-ins Monday-Friday or through the CSP portal.