Army auditors scrutinize food allowance deductions for field training

The Army’s internal auditors will review whether officials at five installations correctly docked meal allowances from soldiers during field training events this year, according to an internal announcement reviewed by Army Times.

At stake is roughly $15 per field day for a typical enlisted soldier, and troops interviewed by Army Times were furious that the service is “counting pennies,” as one characterized the audits.

The audits, conducted by the Army Audit Agency, will check basic allowance for subsistence — or BAS — deductions from May and June at Fort Campbell, Kentucky; Fort Cavazos, Texas; Fort Drum, New York; Fort Carson, Colorado; and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington.

BAS, according to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service and Army regulations, is a monthly payment between $311 and $905 based on rank and availability of cooking facilities, intended to “partially offset” the costs of service members’ meals. Although virtually all troops beyond those in initial training receive BAS, many barracks-dwelling members must pay equivalent mandatory meal card charges.

Under the same regulations, though, units must deduct soldiers’ BAS on a day-for-day basis when they attend field exercises and eat “Government-provided” meals. The deductions add up, and can tear a hole in a soldier’s budget amid widespread food insecurity in the ranks.

It’s unclear what triggered the audits or whether they’re routine, but the announcement indicated they’re linked to the service’s new HR platform, the Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army, which changed long-standing processes for BAS deductions. The Army did not respond to questions about the reviews before publication deadline.

According to the regulation governing Army audits, such efforts identify areas where improvements can be made, make recommendations to solve problems, and identify “potential monetary benefits” in cases of financial loss. The internal auditors often review complex or new pay-related programs. Last year, the agency found an experimental recruiting performance bonus program may have overpaid recruiters by nearly $500,000.

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Before the new HR platform debuted, the deductions would occur after lower-level commanders submitted field exercise rosters to finance offices. According to an internal control checklist, division-level units are typically responsible for ensuring their units impose BAS collections in line with DoD directives and Army policy.

On social media forums devoted to the Army, soldiers discussed the pending audits and openly wondered if they’d see missed deductions retroactively applied as debt on their paystubs.

One former infantry NCO who spoke with Army Times, requesting anonymity because he isn’t authorized to speak to media, suggested responsibility for any mistakes should fall on administrative personnel rather than individual soldiers.

But the NCO, now a cyber warfare soldier, also questioned the practice of deducting the meal allowance during field training altogether.

Army regulations governing the allowance explicitly state BAS “is not intended to offset the costs of meals for family members.” But many military families try — and fail — to qualify for food assistance programs, and even the Pentagon’s new “basic needs allowance” for hungry families is not working as intended.

“If you’re an E4 and married, that’s an extra [$450] a month,” the cyber NCO said. “You want to tell the guy, ‘Hey, I know you’re in the field away from your family, and we fed you MREs, but we’re gonna completely wreck your budget this month and you just have to suffer.’”

Another soldier, an NCO stationed in Georgia, acknowledged the allowance is technically only intended for the soldier, but argued that “BAS is a vital part of [most service members’] monthly budget, especially with the current high inflation rates.”

In a text message to Army Times, he argued the service “should not be doing BAS deductions for field time…rations should be included in the training budget.”

Currently, it’s not clear whether the audits will expand to other installations should the first round uncover widespread deduction failures.