Noteboom The Law Firm

Congress Extends Retroactive Stop-Loss Program Deadline

December 29, 2010 - The deadline for the retroactive stop-loss pay program has once again been extended. Congress has given eligible veterans and their surviving spouses until March 4th, 2011, in which to apply for their earned stop-loss benefits. The hope is the additional 3 months will allow enough time to attract the thousands of qualifying individuals to submit their applications.

U.S. Representative Betty Sutton (D-Ohio) highlighted the sacrifices soldiers in today's army made when they were kept on duty past their separation date and continued to serve their country in its time of need, which is also referred to as stop-loss. Because of that sacrifice, those soldiers deserve to be properly compensated, which is the focus of the retroactive stop-loss pay program.

Congress has extended the deadline 3 times previously. The program was designed to retroactively reimburse every soldier held past their contractually established date of discharge from military service. Specifically, every soldier held over between September 2001 and September 2008. Eligible veterans or their surviving spouses will be given $500 per month the soldier served past their separation date.

The Department of Defense (DoD) estimates approximately 145,000 people qualify for the retroactive payments. According to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, however, only approximately 71,000 people have been paid. The military services have had problems locating eligible veterans, and therefore a significant amount of people never applied for the program because they never received notice of the program or their eligibility.

The Army and the DoD both engaged in direct mailing campaigns earlier this year, which resulted in an influx of last minute applications. In typical army fashion, however, that influx created a 16,000 claim backlog, which will likely take the Army many months to process.