Civilian LQA restored

Around the time we arrived in Korea, some friends of ours were on their way out. The husband, an ex-military civilian, had had his Living Quarters Allowance (LQA) cancelled, which meant about a $3,000 per month pay cut. [Source]

The reason was that by leaving the military and taking a local job while he was still in Korea, the rules say he should have been considered a "local hire," and therefore ineligible for a housing benefit. As someone who was not "physically present in the United States during the entire recruitment process, i.e., application, selection and acceptance of the position," he never should have qualified for the LQA benefit he'd been receiving. [Source]

With the Army saying that he had to pay back all the LQA he'd collected over the years, it put him in the awkward position of either acknowledging the debt and requesting a debt waiver or waiting to see if the issue just worked itself out. [Source] Rather than continuing to live in Seoul with the pay cut, he transferred to a job back in the U.S.

With the ramifications of this policy threatening hundreds of U.S. civilian jobs in Korea, the Pentagon recently overruled the Army's interpretation of the restrictive "U.S. hire" term. [Source] Now, applicants who when hired were only overseas temporarily (for deployment, TDY, or leave) get to keep "U.S. hire" status and their LQA benefits.

Sadly, USFK has already lost a number of highly qualified and experienced personnel, including my friend. Hopefully, the Army will retroactively acknowledge their own debt to these civilians and pay them the LQA they should have been getting all along.

List of relevant articles Stars & Stripes articles Here.