Clawbacks leave two Nova Scotia navy families high and dry
Beverley Ware
The Chronicle Herald
13 May 2014
On Aug. 1, 2012, Leading Seaman Jeffrey Rissesco received a pay stub saying he owed the navy $51,000.
“He kind of had a bit of a heart attack,” said his wife, Leah.
He wondered how he could possibly owe the military anything, let alone more than $50,000, so he went to the pay office.
“That’s when he discovered military pay unilaterally decided he was no longer within the CFB Halifax service area,” said Leah, who did an interview with The Chronicle Herald because her husband is not allowed.
She said a staff member decided Rissesco, who marks his 30th year of service this year, was no longer eligible to receive a taxable benefit for which he had been approved.
Not only that, he had to pay back the money he had been receiving since October 2001.
“He’s followed the rules, he’s jumped through the hoops, he’s danced the dance. He’s done everything he’s supposed to do,” she said.
But nothing has changed, despite an independent review and ruling that said the navy is wrong.
“When an outside entity looks at this whole situation and says, ‘This is wrong, you’ve made a mistake, fix it,’ well, they haven’t fixed it. … Nine months later, Jeff continues to get garnisheed,” Leah said.
Allen and Laura Barkhouse of Martins Point in Lunenburg County know exactly what the Rissescos are going through. They, too, received a pay stub
20 months ago saying they owed the navy $50,000 and no longer qualified for the taxable benefit.
Allen Barkhouse, a navy lieutenant, filed an internal grievance that has now been referred to the chief of the defence staff, his wife said Monday.
At issue is the geographical boundary for the military’s post living differential, which is a taxable living allowance given to members stationed in different areas of the country.
The Rissescos live in Vaughan, just outside Windsor. They were told their home is on the wrong side of Highway 14, though that is not written in any policy or description. Leah said the house they can see outside their living room window about 300 metres away would qualify.
She said her husband can be aboard HMCS Preserver 60 minutes after leaving the house if there’s an urgent call to duty, pointing out the community itself falls within the military’s boundary for the Halifax base.
Neither family received a written explanation or documentation about the sudden change in their status.
“There is a fundamental lack of logic in the manner in which the boundary is being defined,” says an external review that questions how the part of Vaughan in which the Rissescos live is deemed “on the wrong side of the line when the entire community has been included.”
It says the navy used “an interpretive opinion expressed by a staff office worker at (Maritime Forces Atlantic) headquarters. While I do not dismiss it out of hand as being an unreasonable opinion, neither do I accept that it is the only reasonable possibility.”
Rissesco was being garnisheed the $400 a month he had been receiving for the benefit, plus he no longer gets the payment, which meant an $800 reduction in his monthly pay.
When he completed the 20-year contract he signed to serve in the navy, he was eligible for a severance package and pension. But he was offered a five-year extension and took it. A couple of years in, he was offered and accepted an indefinite extension to serve.
But the military took his more than $25,000 severance package and put it toward the $51,000 it said he owes. It then reduced the amount it is taking off his paycheque to $180 a month from $400.
Rissesco appealed to the Military Grievances External Review Committee, an independent external body, after the military’s internal grievance panel asked him in April 2013 for a year’s extension to hear his case.
Vice-chairman Denis Brazeau, a retired colonel, heard the grievance and presented his findings and recommendations in an 11-page report dated July 18, 2013.
He said Rissesco’s grievance should be upheld, that “the cessation of PLD benefits be repealed and that any money that had been recovered to date be reimbursed.”
His report was sent to the chief of the defence staff 10 months ago.
“To this date, Jeff continues to be garnisheed,” and the benefit has not been restored, his wife said.
A spokesman with the chief of the defence staff says the office can accept, reject or partially accept the grievance committee’s findings. He could not comment on Rissesco’s case specifically.
In the meantime, Leah Rissesco said she has had to sell jewelry her husband bought her so that they can pay bills.
They would not have had a Christmas the past two years for their two children, ages 11 and 22, if not for the money raised by friends from the Bedford Rifle Range and the Military Family Resource Centre, she said.
Brazeau wrote that as a result of issues raised in this case, the policy dealing with boundaries for the post living differential “is currently being rewritten to make the description clearer.”
He wrote that he is “hopeful that this review will clear up the ambiguities of the Halifax boundary.”
Leah said it was wonderful that the federal government on Saturday honoured members of the military who had served in Afghanistan; her husband served two tours in the Arabian Sea.
“But when you look at how fast that celebration was put together and then you look at this, how does that honour and support anybody when you’re taking away their severance package, you’ve left them financially strapped, you continue to garnishee them … it’s heartbreaking, it’s debilitating.”
