The Navy has fired the commanding officer of one of the handful of centers responsible for handling its pay and benefits transactions, the service announced Tuesday.
Cmdr. Steven Green was relieved as commander of a Transaction Service Center (TSC) in Great Lakes, Illinois. Capt. Jason Grose, the commander of the Navy Pay and Personnel Support Center, said that the firing was "due to a loss of confidence in his ability to fulfill the responsibilities as commanding officer" in a service press release.
Green became at least the tenth Navy commander to be removed this year.
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Navy officials would not offer any more details to Military.com about what led to Green's firing, but one official noted that none of the command's other top leaders has been removed.
The service's statement offered general remarks that it expects its commanders "to uphold the highest standards of responsibility, reliability and leadership, and the Navy holds them accountable when they fall short of those standards," language that is typically used for commander firings and doesn't specify cause.
The Navy said that Capt. Mary Decker, who is currently serving as executive officer of the TSC in Norfolk, Virginia, will assume the duties as commanding officer of the Great Lakes center which, according to the statement, focuses on "pay and personnel transaction processing" for sailors new to the service.
Navy officials stressed that the relief will not have an impact on the TSC's work in processing any sailor transactions.
According to an official biography provided by the Navy, Green became the commander of the TSC in September 2020.
The firing comes as the Navy's pay and personnel management commands emerge from a multitude of issues that led to a dramatic delay in processing some key transactions for sailors -- most notably discharge paperwork.
Last November, Military.com reported that miscommunications about proper processes at a small detachment of Navy pay specialists working out of an office in Charleston, South Carolina, led to delays for students at the service's nuclear power school in getting their housing allowances.
That work was in the process of being transferred to TSC Great Lakes, but a Navy spokesman explained to Military.com at the time that the hand-off ended up triggering the pay issue.
Military.com reported on several other stories of sailors who were also impacted by delays -- some months long -- in getting their formal discharge paperwork. The results ranged from stressful discharges all the way to an inability to get proper health care and lost job opportunities. In September 2022, the Navy's pay boss apologized to those sailors in an interview with Military.com.
In April of this year, the Navy's top admiral in charge of pay and personnel issues told Military.com that the backlog of discharge paperwork had been cleared.
The Navy said that Green "has been administratively reassigned to higher headquarters in Millington, Tenn."
-- Konstantin Toropin can be reached at konstantin.toropin@military.com. Follow him on Twitter @ktoropin.
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