Airmen promoted in March can prepare for anticipated pay delays

  • Published
  • By Air Force Personnel Center Public Affairs
YOKOTA AIR BASE, Japan -- --  Airmen, officers and enlisted, being promoted in March should prepare for expected pay delays because of the Military Personnel Data System upgrade occurring that month.

"Individuals getting promoted from Mar. 4 to Mar. 26 will not get their promotions updated in MilPDS because of the upgrade," said Lt. Col. Shelley Strong, Air Force Personnel Center operations division chief. "Their promotions will be projected in MilPDS and will automatically update as soon as the system is back online."

Airmen are authorized to sew on their new rank on their respective promotion dates, but they will not receive an increase in pay until their promotion is updated in MilPDS and processed by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

"Because of this, we ask all Airmen to be proactive and submit any required updates to the MPS no later than 20 February, 2013," said 1st Lt. Roy Surita, 374th Mission Support Group military personnel section chief here. "Please don't hesitate to ask us questions- it's better to ask now than wait until the system goes down and we are unable to make any updates."

According to Surita, several essential personnel and pay systems, education and training systems, and transactional applications will be impacted during the downtime because they rely on data in MilPDS.

"Members may continue to turn in update requests while the system is down and we will update the requests in the order we received them as soon as MilPDS is back up," Surita said.

Once the system is available, service members can view their promotion data in the virtual Military Personnel Flight application to ensure their promotion information is accurate and updated, said Strong.

Airmen should contact their base military personnel section if their promotion information is not updated in vMPF within 10 days after the MilPDS upgrade is completed. Base military personnel sections will track local personnel records to avoid overpayment for Airmen who received a promotion cancellation or delay. AFPC officials are also requesting that base commanders accomplish Stripes for Exceptional Performer promotions before the MilPDS upgrade to avoid pay delays.

"We are looking forward to the upgrade as it is the first major upgrade to MilPDS since 2001 and will bring it within current information assurance and stability standard," Surita said. "The changes to the system should be transparent to our customers."

The Air Force is upgrading and transferring the Military Personnel Data System to the Defense Information Systems Agency's Defense Enterprise Computing Center in March. The upgrade project is scheduled to take approximately 23 days to complete, during which time, MilPDS will not be available.

The information above also applies to Reserve promotions as well with the exception of STEP promotions which are not applicable. Reserve members should contact their MPS if their promotion information is not updated in vMPF within 10 days after MilPDS upgrade is completed. More information is available on the myPers website at https://gum-crm.csd.disa.mil/app/answers/detail/a_id/22654/kw/r12/p/16%2C18.

Guard members should review the "MilPDS Upgrade/Migration Guidance - Unit Assigned Members" section on the myPers website at http://mypers.af.mil [ http://mypers.af.mil/ ] under the "Alerts" or "Announcements for Airmen" sections.

MilPDS is the primary records database for personnel data and actions that occur throughout every total force Airman's career. MilPDS is also used to initiate Airman pay actions, maintain Air Force accountability and strength data and support a host of interactions with other Air Force processes and systems that rely on personnel data.

Officials will continue to release additional information and guidance to the Air Force's manpower, personnel, services and pay communities and total force Airmen to continue to educate them on how the service will perform critical personnel and pay tasks during the MilPDS upgrade.

For more information about enlisted promotions and the MilPDS upgrade, visit the myPers website at http://mypers.af.mil [ http://mypers.af.mil/ ].

(Tech. Sgt. Steve Grever and Senior Airman Cody H. Ramirez contributed to this article)