About 60,000 U.S. soldiers will have their monthly Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) payments revoked if they don't update their personnel files with documents proving they qualify for the benefit.
The mandate to update the documents, first reported Aug. 30 by the site U.S. Army WTF Moments (USAWTFM), will be released in an official message "soon," Army officials said.
That message will direct soldiers to update their documentation in the interactive Personnel Electronic Records Management System (iPERMS), service officials told Military.com on Thursday.
"An ALARACT [All Army Activities message] addressing the required documentation that should be loaded into iPERMS for BAH and the timeline for required actions is being drafted," Army Lt. Col. Randy Taylor, an Army manpower and reserve affairs spokesman, said in an email to Military.com.
"Currently, we have around 60,000 soldiers who are missing documentation in iPERMS," he added.
Whether a service member qualifies for BAH is based on paygrade and if he or she has dependents.
For those who qualify to live outside the barracks, the allowance amount is based on paygrade, dependents and duty station zip code.
Dual military couples are both given a BAH payment at the "without dependents rate," unless they have children. In that case, one of the members receives the "with dependents rate," while the other does not.
Documents that show eligibility and should be in iPERMS can include birth, adoption and marriage certificates.
Soldiers will be given 60 days from the release of the ALARACT message to upload their missing documentation, Taylor said.
After the 60 days, their with-dependents rate BAH payments will be reduced or, in the case of soldiers who do not otherwise qualify for BAH, eliminated.
They will be notified of the need to update by both email and by their unit, he said.
If soldiers still have not updated their documents within 90 days of the initial deadline, they will be referred to the Army Criminal Investigation Division (CID) under suspicion of BAH fraud, USAWTFM reported.
Taylor, whose initial response didn't mention such a referral, said the iPERMS document requirement has been in place since 2013.
"Since 2013, there has been a Secretary of the Army directive mandating that KSD (key supporting documents) are to be stored in the interactive Personnel Electronic Records Management System (iPERMS)," he said in the email.
"Loading KSD in iPERMS allows the Army to improve on its business processes and ensure all Soldiers are receiving the correct payments for their entitlements to include BAH," he wrote.
The Pentagon is preparing for its first-ever full financial audit, which is to begin this fall. White House officials hope to have the audit completed by mid-2019.
Meanwhile, BAH payments and rates remain a point of contention on Capitol Hill as some lawmakers look to find cost savings by changing who can qualify for the higher with-dependents rates.
Lawmakers ultimately scrapped a 2016 proposal that would have severely limited the amount of housing allowance available to dual-military married couples and service members sharing off-base housing with other troops.
A proposal in the 2018 authorization bill, which is still under negotiation between the House and Senate, would focus reductions only on dual-military couples, bumping both members down to a "without dependent" housing rate regardless of whether the couple has children.
-- Amy Bushatz can be reached at amy.bushatz@military.com.
