{"id":45314,"date":"2023-05-04T10:05:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-04T10:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/uncategorized\/2023\/05\/04\/inside-the-navys-pay-and-personnel-crisis\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T19:58:44","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T19:58:44","slug":"inside-the-navys-pay-and-personnel-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/navytimes\/news\/your-navy\/2023\/05\/04\/inside-the-navys-pay-and-personnel-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Inside the Navy\u2019s pay and personnel crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 2018, the three-star admiral in charge of Navy personnel promised the fleet would soon reap the benefits of a massive effort to modernize how the Navy handles pay, entitlements and retirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collectively known as \u201cHR Transformation\u201d and formerly named \u201cSailor 2025,\u201d the program would allow sailors to handle their pay and records needs from their phones, as easily as they bank, among other benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As part of that process, the Navy would modernize and unify dozens of antiquated information technology systems that process pay and other sailor needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBy the end of 2019, Sailors will do most of their personnel business by smartphone ashore or desktop applications afloat,\u201d then-Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Robert Burke wrote in \u201cProceedings\u201d magazine<\/a>. \u201cBy 2023, they will have forgotten about today\u2019s personnel system and many of its frequent frustrations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But here in 2023, those grand promises have not materialized. In some ways, frustrations have only increased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Navy\u2019s HR Transformation effort has disrupted pay, paperwork and benefits for thousands of sailors and veterans in recent years, according to a Navy Times investigation based on hundreds of pages of internal records and interviews with key leaders and sailors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Sailors heave in a line on the fantail aboard the aircraft carrier Nimitz as the ship gets underway in Guam March 4. (MC3 Caylen McCutcheon\/Navy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Some sailors have not been paid, while others have lost access to their healthcare or have not received the rent money or other entitlements that they are owed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most pressingly, those leaving active duty have seen their DD-214<\/a> and post-service paperwork and benefits severely delayed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, the Navy has made these sailors whole, and Navy brass insist that the worst of these problems are in the service\u2019s wake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But they have yet to explain why the critical work of HR Transformation, slated to cost at least $1.6 billion, inflicted such pain on so many sailors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the effort became an official program of record in 2019, much-heralded IT and HR systems have not come online as scheduled. Internal records reveal that the service has failed to monitor prime contractors, while not dedicating enough people with the technical know-how to do the meticulous and complex work of replacing legacy systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, the Navy shut down its old customer service model on the assumption that these new systems would come online on time, shuttering dozens of offices known as personnel support detachments, or PSDs, and shedding the personnel who worked in them. When the new systems didn\u2019t arrive on time, a yawning customer service gap emerged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sea service has also at times stuck to \u201caggressive timelines\u201d for rolling out key features that aligned with arbitrary dates on a calendar, records show, instead of timelines that reflected the extraordinary difficulty of the work involved, or what would happen if things went wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
An internal Navy PowerPoint slide from early 2022 showcases some of the problems the service has encountered as part of its $1.6 billion HR Transformation initiative. This slide was obtained by Navy Times via a Freedom of Information Act records request. (Navy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This rush to meet deadlines played a part in nearly 3,000 sailors not getting paid<\/a> or seeing their benefits interrupted in summer 2021 after a botched migration of the Navy\u2019s enlisted and officer personnel systems, according to internal records and Navy officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To this day, the full extent of the problems caused by HR Transformation remain unclear, and Navy officials say they are not tracking all the disruptions caused by the modernization effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, the human toll of these missteps are apparent to those who suffered them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Elizabeth Arms, 25, left the Navy in October. Along with thousands of her brethren in recent years, she did not have her DD-214 retirement paperwork in hand on her last day like departing servicemembers are supposed to, a problem both exposed and exacerbated by HR Transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of the DD-214 processing backlog and Navy personnel systems showing she was still a sailor, Arms struggled to get listed as her sailor husband\u2019s dependent while they were in Japan. This complicated efforts to get their young family back to the states early so their toddler could be treated for nonverbal autism, she told Navy Times.<\/p>\n\n\n\t