Director’s Message


Greetings from Cleveland! Can you believe it’s already pumpkin spice time (fall)? Here in Ohio we are enjoying our warm days and cool crisp nights. We hope you are, too.

We are excited about our progress in rolling out status notifications to keep you in the loop as forms or documents you submit move through the retired pay processing cycles. Please see the article in this issue for the good news.

DFAS Retired and Annuitant Pay’s primary goal is to ensure you receive your pay accurately and on time. With tax season approaching, we need your help to do that. Please  check your account statement and myPay to ensure your account information and mailing address are correct. You will find an article in this issue about all the steps you should take to prepare for tax season, including a link to instructions on setting up a myPay account if you do not already have one.

While we are talking about myPay, did you know they made updates to their two-factor authentication to allow the use of third party apps? You will find the details in this issue.

It’s important to make sure your Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) coverage and beneficiaries are current. You can do that by verifying the SBP lines on your Retiree Account Statement, and we have outlined how in an article in this issue.

Surviving spouses of members who died on active duty/line of duty and chose to have the annuity paid to a child (SBP Optional Annuity for Dependent Children) should keep an eye out for the SBP Spouse Annuity Eligibility Packet that you will be receiving later this year. See more in the article.

In 2020, we started a new bi-annual newsletter especially for your loved ones, the DFAS Survivor SBP Newsletter. This newsletter features a number of informative articles, including the latest info about the SBP-DIC Offset Phased Elimination and special information for those annuitants who lost a loved one in the line of duty. Look for our next issue at the end of the year. Previous newsletters are available to view online or downloadable at: https://www.dfas.mil/survivornews

We also have some great information for you from our partners, including information on extended temporary Uniformed Services ID (USID) card expiration policy guidance for all USID cards with expiration dates between January 1, 2020 and July 31, 2021.

We continue to develop helpful tools such as expanding askDFAS submission categories, updating forms, and creating Form Wizards to make filling out the forms easier. We talk about our newest additions to the askDFAS online upload tool later in this issue. To find the newest tools and information between newsletters you can visit our website: https://www.dfas.mil/retiredmilitary.

We honor the service and sacrifices made by you and your family.

 
Page updated Sept 29, 2021