Airmen urged to reenlist, extend before MilPDS upgrade

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Steve Grever
  • Air Force Personnel Center Public Affairs
JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-RANDOLPH, Texas --  Air Force officials are urging Regular Air Force Airmen who are eligible to reenlist or extend their current enlistment in December and early January 2013 to complete these personnel actions through the myPers website and their base military personnel sections or force support squadrons by Nov. 15 to avoid processing delays and military pay issues.

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

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.

Airmen should access the myPers website and work with their base MPSs or FSSs to minimize the impact the MilPDS upgrade will have on processing military personnel transactions like reenlistments or extending current enlistments.

Reenlistment-eligible Airmen or Airmen with service-directed retainability requirements such as Permanent Change of Station or retraining orders should contact their base MPS and complete their reenlistment or enlistment extension paperwork by Nov. 15.

"Airmen who accomplish their reenlistment or enlistment extension by Nov. 15 should not experience interruptions in their pay because their MPS can process their actions and clear any rejects in the system prior to the MilPDS upgrade," said Michael McLaughlin, Air Force Personnel Center reenlistments branch chief. "Getting these personnel transactions completed and into the Defense Finance and Accounting Service system are the fastest means to update an Airman's pay and entitlements and will reduce the need for DFAS to manually override or correct an Airman's pay record."

Airmen can reenlist during the upgrade in December, but they may experience additional delays in processing these transactions to DFAS if their date of separation expires during the MilPDS upgrade.

The Air Force processes more than 60,000 reenlistments and enlistment extensions annually.

Reserve and Guard members will receive specific instructions from the Air Force Reserve Command and Air Reserve Personnel Center concerning how the MilPDS upgrade will impact their personnel programs. More information is available on the ARPC public website at http://www.arpc.afrc.af.mil.

FSS and MPS representatives are continuing to host MilPDS upgrade briefings to help base leadership and Airmen understand the upgrade's impact on Airmen and Air Force personnel programs.

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 the MilPDS upgrade, visit the myPers website at http://mypers.af.mil.