surf: I agree completely and understand your frustration.. it's not fair. One of the assumptions made by guys going on remote to Korea is that their families will be taken care of. Apparently, that's no longer the case.

This could have been handled in any number of ways that would have been more appropriate than this...I'm sure most spouses would have no problem with being required to provide documentation of their new address, including a copy of your lease,etc.

It's -not- fair to our AF families, especially given that these families are already enduring the hardship of being separated for a year (and FSH doesn't come even close to covering all the expenses of having to maintain 2 households, from what I've seen).... and if Army families are receiving BAH at levels that we're not, it really is time for someone to bring that to the attentions of congressmen, imo.


Dee :)

ss:

No, Air Force dependents are only authorized to either remain at the base their husband departs from, or to move to their follow on. Any other moves, such as a spouse moving home to be near family during the remote, are not authorized,and are considered to be at your own expense. Under most circumstances, as Kara said, the AF will not assume any expense for storage of your household goods while you are away on remote, nor will they pay travel expenses for that move, so long as you have a follow-on. If you store your household goods at government expense, you risk losing your follow-on...

LOL.. I understand why you're confused, this is easily one of the most confusing aspects of any remote.

Dee :)

I emailed Mr Rust at osan and he said I would recieve OHA with dep rate and utilites.

Right, that's the way it has been since 2005, but the reg change we're talking about took place in October of 2007, and the question now is, will that reg change change things for NCS spouses, or will it only affect CONUS "left behind" spouses?

It may not affect NCS spouses at all.. I really hope it doesn't, but you never can tell,that's why I was hoping that someone with more inside info would know.

If you've corresponded with Mr. Rust in the past month or so, and he didn't reflect any change, then hopefully,that's a good sign. If your correspondence pre-dates October, then you might want to email again, just to confirm,and make sure there hasn't been any change.

Dee :)

If I would get my current BAH payment and just move to Korea NCS, then i would make out much better.

So it is a good question. How does it effect those who choose to live in Korea?

There will be no change to the current OHA policy in Korea. NCS dependents will still receive the dependent rate OHA. This was confirmed with a friend of mine in finance at Osan.

I must admit the BAH policy change came to me as a surprise. However, BAH fraud was a HUGE problem with all military services in Korea and other dependent restricted assignments. It's almost impossible to prevent and would take many man hours and personnel to even attemt to try. Most of the time, the people commiting the fraud would indirectly implicate themselves. In my opinion, the new policy is way overdue and will eliminate this type of fraud.

One final note on BAH. It is a set amount based on a zip code. It is the SAME for each service. The Army does not get a higher BAH rate than an AF member at the same location.

Tap,

Thank you again! As usual, you are the man with the answers.. I'm sure I speak for all of us when I express my appreciation for your time and effort in looking into things for us. :)

Good news for NCS spouses, most definitely!

The one question I had, however, Tap...is this, and I apologize if my wording was vague and didn't express it well..: I understand that BAH is set by zip code, etc, and that that amount doesn't vary service by service..but are Army spouses who stay behind on a remote also limited to receiving BAH for their last duty station, or do they receive BAH for where they reside? Is this new reg being enforced across all services, or is it something that is only AF specific?

Thank you again!

Dee :)

The BAH policy is an across the board change. The information is in the JFTR--meaning it's a joint regulation for all services to follow. We (military members and civilian DoD employees) must all abide by the rules and regulations set forth in the JFTR or be subject to administrative actions or even UCMJ actions.

Military members should be briefed on this new information during their out-proccesing briefing with finance. Hopefully, all finance offices have someone that monitors the JFTR for monthly changes. I believe this is where the problem is and should be corrected as soon as possible.

Maybe if people would stop scamming the AF, we could keep our BAH. There have been quite a few people who research the highest BAH areas but live in a low cost area with mom and pocket the money.

I have another question about JFTR. Are they just rules for travel overseas or do they also cover travel CONUS? I know someone who's husband is deploying and they are being told that they will get BAH based on where they relocate to if they decide to go back home. Will this new change apply to situations like this?

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