New rules being proposed by the Defense Department to tighten up the use of living quarters allowances are making some DoD employees nervous they might lose the benefit altogether.
At issue is draft guidance — a Defense Department instruction — that would limit LQA to a five-year period unless the worker is granted special permission from agency management. The rules would also limit LQA for time-limited appointments or local hires. The guidance would apply to DoD workers in overseas posts.
Rick Moderie, a retired Army investigator, took a job at the Army Customs Agency in Europe in 2005 in part because he was exempted from the mandatory five-year rotation policy in the Army and because he would receive an LQA while living in Germany.
"It amazes me how you can be promised something as an incentive, otherwise you would not bother to make a home in a foreign country, foster relationships with your host nation and garrison counterparts, and then have it taken away just like you didn't deserve it in the first place, like you did something wrong, when you didn't," Moderie said.
He said many of his colleagues have purchased property in part by using their LQA and have established lives in Germany, but that if the LQA is taken away he could lose it all.
"If my LQA is discontinued, I don't know what I will do," Moderie said.
Nathan Christensen, a spokesman at DoD, said they were in the process of conducting a review of the policy as part of a routine effort to make sure the policies were accurate and up to date. The last update to the rules was in 2012, he added.
"The proposed changes aim to eliminate confusion, simplify the rules, ensure greater consistency and equity in application, mitigate the potential for erroneous approvals of LQA, and increase oversight and accountability in administering overseas allowances and differentials such as LQA," Christensen said.
The fear about losing the LQA also stems from a May, 2013 decision by the Pentagon determining that 659 civilians working in Asia and Europe had to repay LQA that DoD said it paid by mistake.
For some recipients, the amount of money at stake ran into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Eventually, affected employees had to sign a waiver request acknowledging the legitimacy of the debt in order to have it forgiven.
Fred Evans, an employee at the Army Customs Agency in Europe, said members of their organization were "career locked" which means there are no comparably jobs in the United States to transfer to, even if they wanted to.
The five-year time limit on LQA would exclude them automatically unless they were given special permission, he said.
Losing the LQA would throw him into financial chaos, he said. The Army is also not offering a chance to move on to military installations to make up for it, Evans added.
"This is really just one of several broken promises that the Army has made," Evans said.
Julius Morales, who works at the same agency, said the proposed rules were an attack on the people who agreed to work at the agency. Now 50 years old, Morales said he worries he would not be able to find another job within government.
"If they cut the LQA I will be struggling severely to try and make ends meet because of the amount of money I have to spend to afford housing in Germany," Morales said. "The effects of losing that amount of money a year would be devastating."
