Processing CLIP-B payment

My son is a sophomore on a 4-year ROTC scholarship--contracted since beginning of his freshman year. He is now in his fourth semester of a strategic language (Korean), and also spent 7 weeks of last summer in Korea with Project Go. In all of his language courses to date, he has earned a B or better.

Here's the question: As I understand it, each of the regular semester language programs (though NOT the Project Go sequence) should qualify for a CLIP-B payment of $1500. However, he just cannot seem to get the CLIP-B payment processed. So far, not a penny has moved.

He initially worked with someone in the cadre in Spring 2012 and provided the evidence of qualifying grade, etc. Did the same again this past Fall; did the same again this Spring. Still nothing.

Any thoughts on what he needs to do to shake this loose? He has a CULP spot for this coming summer, but with CULP facing the axe (they're told) under the sequester, he would really like to have access to the $4500 he's already earned (he believes)--$6000 if the Spring 2013 semester is included--to pay his own way to additional study abroad in Korea, China, or Japan over the summer.

Thanks in advance.

GoldenLionDad said:

My son is a sophomore on a 4-year ROTC scholarship--contracted since beginning of his freshman year. He is now in his fourth semester of a strategic language (Korean), and also spent 7 weeks of last summer in Korea with Project Go. In all of his language courses to date, he has earned a B or better.

Here's the question: As I understand it, each of the regular semester language programs (though NOT the Project Go sequence) should qualify for a CLIP-B payment of $1500. However, he just cannot seem to get the CLIP-B payment processed. So far, not a penny has moved.

He initially worked with someone in the cadre in Spring 2012 and provided the evidence of qualifying grade, etc. Did the same again this past Fall; did the same again this Spring. Still nothing.

Any thoughts on what he needs to do to shake this loose? He has a CULP spot for this coming summer, but with CULP facing the axe (they're told) under the sequester, he would really like to have access to the $4500 he's already earned (he believes)--$6000 if the Spring 2013 semester is included--to pay his own way to additional study abroad in Korea, China, or Japan over the summer.

Thanks in advance.

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Unfortunatly not all Battalions are the same when it comes to how the HR handles things like this.

My older son's have been lucky, the battalion was blessed with an HR person that was on top of every aspect. My older son took one semester of Arabic for which he was paid by the CLIP program. At that time the payment was $250.00 per credit hour, his class was 4 credits and the language lab was 1 for a total of 5 credits, he was paid $1250.00, this was 3 years ago, have the amounts gone up, I only ask because you stated that your son was owed $1500.00 per semester.

The pay request form was tricky, everything had to be listed just right with all the I's dotted and T's crossed. The HR person filled everything out and just had my son and others sign the form, the payment came within a month after the request was sent in.

The problem is that there have been numerous stories, some on this board, of cadets that never received their CLIP money, either because the forms were not filled out correctly or other reasons, Things sometime have a way of getting lost in the shuffle. Your son needs to have a sit down with the HR and make sure they trace the requests. I'm not sure if there is a deadline for these requests so he should find that out as well, hopefully a deadline has not passed. I'm not sure how large your son's battalion is but that could be an issue regarding things laying around in an inbox. Tell your son to be persistant, make sure he sees the paperwork and has a way to track the progress, this is not a time to be shy, the money is owed and the should be doing what is needed to process the paperwork. At some point he may need to run it up his CoC in the cadre if he gets nowhere with the HR. The HR person is where he should start.

Good luck, and I hope CULP still works out, my son had a great experience.

Many thanks for your suggestions. Will do.

As for the fate of funding for CULP this summer: the next month will be interesting. Reasonably money says that the cuts will persist until month's end (when a comprehensive budget proposal is due) and then get squared away. Anything could happen, though.

GoldenLionDad said:

Many thanks for your suggestions. Will do.

As for the fate of funding for CULP this summer: the next month will be interesting. Reasonably money says that the cuts will persist until month's end (when a comprehensive budget proposal is due) and then get squared away. Anything could happen, though.

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LMAO

I do hope it gets resolved in a positive way for these kids though. My own son was looking forward to going to an amphib group for a couple weeks this summer.

GoldenLionDad said:

My son is a sophomore on a 4-year ROTC scholarship--contracted since beginning of his freshman year. He is now in his fourth semester of a strategic language (Korean), and also spent 7 weeks of last summer in Korea with Project Go. In all of his language courses to date, he has earned a B or better.

Here's the question: As I understand it, each of the regular semester language programs (though NOT the Project Go sequence) should qualify for a CLIP-B payment of $1500. However, he just cannot seem to get the CLIP-B payment processed. So far, not a penny has moved.

He initially worked with someone in the cadre in Spring 2012 and provided the evidence of qualifying grade, etc. Did the same again this past Fall; did the same again this Spring. Still nothing.

Any thoughts on what he needs to do to shake this loose? He has a CULP spot for this coming summer, but with CULP facing the axe (they're told) under the sequester, he would really like to have access to the $4500 he's already earned (he believes)--$6000 if the Spring 2013 semester is included--to pay his own way to additional study abroad in Korea, China, or Japan over the summer.

Thanks in advance.

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Trying to shakedown $6,000 from supposed back pay over the last two years is going to be difficult especially when FY change over. I had the same problem with book money after my freshman year .I came back sophomore year after sending emails about no payment during the summer and HR sent a request which was eventually denied for reasons I do not know. My HR guy mumbled something about FY money already spent or something.

The point is if you HR is doing nothing you will have to go to a higher level of authority, perhaps finding someone at CC or HRC. This might piss off your HR which could hurt you later but if you feel like you are owed the money then go for it. But just being realistic I don't think you are going to see that 6k...

I am dealing with the same problems while on "Active Duty" orders and the only thing you can do is keep calling numbers till someone knows what they are doing.

The rest of the story . . .

Happy to say that the CLIP-B payment finally came in, in full, in two installments this month. Evidently the new HR person in the batallion made all the difference.

Now if only the sequester hadn't axed his CULP mission, all would be sweetness and light.

(Is dealing with the Army always like this--an ongoing, real-life version of the fortunately . . . unfortunately story?)

That's the first I've heard of CULP cancellations - all of the cadets at DS's battalion are still going as far as i know. I do know Cadet Command rescinded CULP assignments for any cadet who had already been once. DS went to the Marshall Islands last year, and was awarded Bulgaria this year, until it was rescinded. All first time cadets are still going to my knowledge.

Here is a technique I use when it seems like I'm up against a wall. Email the person who is handling the action (probably HRA, but at Clarkson our university secretary has lead on CLIP payments). If you don't hear back, resend the email, but cc your instructor, or your PMS. It's also helpful if you can research the regulation pertaining to your request and reference or even cut and paste the pertinent information.

I can't believe Army gives so mucho or language pay. I'm on AFROTC scholarship and have taken 8 credit hours of Mandarin Chinese, A's in both classes, but so far I'm only owed $400 . Apparently, the language doesn't count as an immediate investment . Ah well. OP, managing to get that much back pay is quite impressive.

I heard from my DD, from her HR person at the Battalion, that the CLIP-B payments are adjusted each year, by language, and sometimes retroactively in the middle of the schoolyear.. Apparently Russian no longer gets the highest pay (which I think is $250 per credit hour), but Arabic IS still in the highest pay category. The cadets taking Russian ended up getting much smaller CLIP-B payments than originally expected.

GoldenLionDad -- why was the Project GO summer language study not bonused by CLIP-B? Did the Project GO classes (I assume 6 units of 2nd year Korean) not make it to your DS college transcript? My understanding is that if a critical language is on the college transcript, it qualifies for CLIP-B payment.

Jcc123: Son #1 was certainly a first-timer in CULP. Mission was to Taiwan, with largest part of the cohort from VMI. Cancelled for all involved. On the other hand, the good news was that EUCOM came in, entirely out of the blue, with an internship offer in Stuttgart. On the third hand, the bad news is that the offer didn't surface until just one week ago, at which time he'd already made plans to do summer school at London School of Economics. Again, the Fortunately . . . Unfortunately tale continues.

GoldenLionDad said:

Jcc123: Son #1 was certainly a first-timer in CULP. Mission was to Taiwan, with largest part of the cohort from VMI. Cancelled for all involved. On the other hand, the good news was that EUCOM came in, entirely out of the blue, with an internship offer in Stuttgart. On the third hand, the bad news is that the offer didn't surface until just one week ago, at which time he'd already made plans to do summer school at London School of Economics. Again, the Fortunately . . . Unfortunately tale continues.

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Sorry to hear about the CULP cancellation. The budget issues probably had less to do with the CULP mission being cancelled then the nature of CULP itself. It is not uncommon for CULP missions to be cancelled, some at the very last minute. There are a lot of factors that can cause this, usually it has to do with the host country cancelling for any number of reasons. There were cadets last year that were already at Ft. Knox when they heard the trip had been cancelled. They include that caveat in the original CULP orders, and it happens more often then you might think. They do try to make other arrangements but sometimes it takes a while like with your son. The London School of Economics sounds like a great opportunity, best of luck to him.