Wise words from No veteran leave behind face book page....please post anything thing you find there that has merit

Yes, the pic was taken one of the few occasion the wife could get me to Cow Bay. The smell of the ocean can be too harsh of a reminder of the life I lost as a sailor.

I agree bigrex ~ it is bittersweet for me to know I will receive my retro when so many families are waiting for theres ~ I am humbled to receive mine and will never take it for granted.

P.S. Nice to see your photo bigrex

I agree Sparrow, unlike other class actions, all the money we shall receive is money that was rightfully ours to begin with, and many spent years, and even decades, living close to or below the poverty line because of the clawback. So it's not like class members have been viewing this payment like a lottery win, just to buy some new toys with, but as money that can and will improve our lives, paying off bills that have accumulated over years and with any luck, have some to play with as well.

This FB poster does not identify herself as a Veteran, not that I've seen, but only as someone with years in the federal compensation field, and quite possibly a SISIP employee, so take away what you will. Her credentials aside, SISIP did know about this well in advance. The case was won over 14 months ago, so spending time calculating the basic returns up to that point would not have been a waste of manpower or money, and then once the final order was written, any adjustments would only take minutes per file to take into account for interest. She also says in another post, that a complex file could take an entire day, and that is likely the truth, but for every file that is that complex, there are hundreds of files that can be done in minutes. But seeing as Sparrow is only the third or fourth zero sum long term file processed, that we've heard about, out of the 2200 files completed, they must be taking their sweet old time processing even the simplest of files.

I recall Sisip had a job postings blitz when the case had been won last year, so I am not sure how much training would have been involved from that point. The one issue I do have with the post is the final comment where it states unless of course you've spent the money in advance ~ I don't believe that is a fair statement and serves no one any justice and in turn only minimizes our plight.

It is clear that SISIP would not have spent time and money preparing for a settlement that didn't have great chances of winning. Therefore, even if they knew long in advance, no time would have been spent by their pay advisors until a ruling came down. The same thing happened with the federal settlement in the late 1990s. It's only when the union won the settlement that tools were created to help the compensation community with the calculations, explanation of the rules of calculation, etc. When SISIP indicates that they were refining their processes in early June, I'm sure they are referring to the ability for the employees to process files using the same rules everywhere, Tue same calculators, etc. This is a very very complex process and only experienced compensation SISIP employees are probably able to process the files. In the federal compensation field, training a compensation advisor takes two years. To be completely comfortable in your job takes 5 years. I'm sure the training timeframe at SISIP is probably similar.

Without Dennis Manuge and MC, none of this would be happening. We've waited 6+ years for this with a very thin chance of winning. Now that we have won, I don't think a couple more months will make a huge difference... Unless, of course, you've spent the money in advance...

posted by Nicole Marier-Gorley