After much controversy, the Pentagon is suspending its attempts to recover bonuses overpaid to thousands of soldiers in California more than 10 years ago.
In a Wednesday press release, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said:
Carter then stated that he would also order senior officials to plan a more “streamlined, centralized process” to resolve these cases by next year.
The news comes after a Los Angeles Times investigation revealed widespread fraud and mismanagement by California Guard officials as they tried to retain people with bonuses of $15,000 or more during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Originally, such largesse was to be restricted to non-commissioned officers and soldiers working in intelligence, civil affairs, and other high-demand fields. However, the federal government found out in 2010 that the California Guard paid thousands of bonuses and student loan payments regardless of paperwork errors or actual qualification.
And this isn’t the first time that the military has gotten into financial trouble. According to a Reuters article in August, the Defense Department’s inspector general found that the Army made $6.5 trillion in wrongful adjustments during 2015.
Politicians on both sides of the aisle have subsequently criticized the Pentagon.
House majority leader Kevin McCarthy told the Times on Sunday that “the Department of Defense should waive these repayments, and…the House will investigate these reports to ensure our soldiers are fully honored for their service. Our military heroes should not shoulder the burden of military recruiters’ faults from over a decade ago.”
Rep. Mark Takano, a Democratic member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, also said that he was “appalled” by the entire ordeal.
Meanwhile, House Oversight Committee chairman Jason Chaffetz and several other representatives called for a formal investigation on Tuesday.
“The committee is seeking information about this serious matter, and to see that officials who mismanaged bonus programs are held accountable,” they noted in a letter to the California Guard and the National Guard Bureau.
