Dining facility closure: How it will affect you

The Nightingale Dining Facility is scheduled to close July 1 and remain closed until the end of November to complete the renovations for the Food 2.0 initiative.

Dorm Airmen can expect, as early as July 15 but as late as Aug. 1st, to receive $369.39 of Basic Allowance for Subsistence monthly during the entirety of the DFAC closure. Due to insufficient meal prep storage and space, Airmen may potentially receive BAS II to support them during the closure.

This effort is already being coordinated by the 375th Comptroller Squadron and is awaiting Secretary of the Air Force (Financial Management and Comptroller) approval. BAS II is a separate allowance that is double the standard BAS rate.

If approved, the 375th Comptroller Squadron will coordinate the requests for BAS II through the Defense Finance and Accounting Service on behalf of the dorm Airmen.

“BAS II carries with it some innate risks in the sense of unavoidable debts due to leave and (temporary duty assignments),” said Master Sgt. Matthew Such, 375th Comptroller Squadron flight chief of financial operations. “Due to the amount of time it takes to get the transactions processed, it ends up carrying the BAS II past cutoff dates for us to affect the Airmen’s pay in a timely manner.”

Airmen should be proactive and do their best to calculate potential debts in relation to days of leave and/or TDY since BAS II is not applicable on those days.

This sort of movement can cause some serious long lasting credit grief if Airmen do not carefully manage their finances to prepare for these debts.

“This item reaches further than the dorm residents in the sense that all Airmen at any level, who are involved in supervisory roles or management of some sort, should be versed on what to expect with the upcoming changes,” said Such.

“The most critical part, in the shared opinion of seasoned leaders involved in this process and have seen it at other bases, is to hold their dorm dwellers accountable.”

Any information Airmen seek should be vetted through the 375th CPTS office. They can start by emailing the Finance org box at 375.AMW.Finance@us.af.mil.

“I’d like to stress ... the need to communicate any issues as early as possible through their chain of command or to my office,” said Such. “We are well aware of the monumental tasking ahead of us when it comes to organizing potentially 300 pay records for this and wish to make the impact on the Airmen as minimal as possible.”