TYNDALL AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- Four months after Hurricane Michael made landfall over Tyndall, members of the 325th Comptroller Squadron are still completing vouchers for those that remain on the installation.
To expedite the process and ensure proper payments are made to personnel’s Government Travel Card, financial operations technicians from the 325th CPTS have been conducting mass briefings in the 337th Air Control Squadron’s Bullseye Auditorium.
“We are doing briefs for the vouchers Monday through Thursday at 8 a.m. in the ACS auditorium,” said Senior Airman Joseph Ingold, 325th Comptroller Squadron financial operations technician. “At the briefs we have a PowerPoint presentation with one technician walking through, and 6 to 8 technicians walking around assisting afterward to answer questions. Once the participants complete their voucher, we review it and inform if they need to make corrections on the spot.”
The 325th CPTS has dedicated manpower and increased the focus to help assist as many Airmen, civilian employees and their families during this time.
“Since the storm, the main focus of our entire office are the evacuation vouchers,” Ingold said. “Before we even started the vouchers for the first couple of months after the storm, it was figuring out the entitlements and getting that information out to the base populous to ensure they were making the correct and sound financial decisions for themselves and their families.”
“Now, the focus has changed to getting the evacuation vouchers done – paid, and paid correctly,” he continued. “It’s basically been all hands on deck just doing that.”
As of Feb. 4, 2019, the squadron has completed 1,292 vouchers and sent them up to the Air Force Financial Services Center for payment. Ingold estimated a total of vouchers 2,800 will be completed after the process is completed.
Ingold then went on to explain the process for those that come to the brief will go through every step to complete a travel voucher from filling, to filing, to payment.
“Someone comes to the brief, it takes them an hour or two to do their own voucher,” he elaborated. “They come back to the office. The technician that took it in is going to do another review on it. That takes about 20 minutes or so. They then attach a barcode for the voucher, which is used to send it up to the servicing center for payment. Before that happens, an auditor takes another look at it. This is to make sure all the social security numbers match and all the information is correct. At the servicing center a technician reviews it, computes the payment, sends it to another auditor, and then it is processed for payment. It takes about 30 to 45 days for payment to be rendered.”
While concluding, Ingold implored Airmen to use this opportunity to accomplish this task, as well as, highlighting what he finds information Airmen need to know before coming to the brief.
“The most important thing to know is to bring your hard copy receipts, and keep an accurate account of every day where you were,” he said. “When you get to the brief, you think you know where you were every single day during the evacuation, but you need to be very specific on this voucher to ensure you get correct payment. If you don’t have those things written down and handy, you are going to have a very hard time on this brief. If you don’t have a receipt, you need to know how much your lodging and lodging taxes are for each location.”