LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. –
For those who may be planning to re-enlist, retire or make any other changes that could affect their pay, now would be the time to do it.
The Air Force Personnel Center will be upgrading and transferring the Military Personnel Data System to the Defense Information Systems Agency's Defense Enterprise Computing Center in December. The system will be down for approximately 20 to 23 days beginning Dec. 3, 2012.
MilPDS is the primary database of records containing personnel data and all actions affecting every Airman's career. MilPDS is also used to initiate pay actions for all Airmen, such as promotions, separations and retirements.
"We're asking that Airmen who will be doing things such as re-enlisting or separating to have their applications in by Nov. 1," said 2nd Lt. Emili Combest, 633rd Force Support Squadron officer in charge of career development. "This way, we can process and submit all the information necessary to APFC before MilPDS is shut down."
If an Airman's date of separation expires during the MilPDS upgrade, they can still re-enlist, but they may experience delays in processing their information to the Defense Finance and Accounting Services. Retirements and separations will be processed manually for actions occurring in January and February.
Additionally, Airmen will not be able to volunteer for an assignment during the upgrade. However, base pay and entitlements managed by Finance will not be affected.
Military Personnel Services and Force Support Squadrons have processes in place to ensure critical transactions, such as mobilization or activation, casualty and immediate separations can be processed during the upgrade. Paperwork for all other actions should be submitted in a timely manner.
Combest said Airmen should save a copy of their Record Review RIP on file just in case they need to process critical transactions during the upgrade period.
"The best advice we can give any Airman is to be proactive," said Combest. "If you know this could affect you in any way, turn in the necessary paperwork as soon as possible, so we can have as few hiccups in the process as possible."
Reserve and Guard members will receive specific information from the Air Force Reserve Command and Air Reserve Personnel Center concerning how the MilPDS upgrade will affect their programs. More information is available on the ARPC public website at http://www.arpc.afrc.af.mil.
For more information about the MilPDS upgrade, visit the myPers website at http://mypers.af.mil or visit the local Force Support Squadron.