Has something changed in the last 18 month with IDT and LIK?

2024-06-02T15:55:03-04:00

Has something changed in the last 18 month? Are not all units required to provide IDT for Soldiers who commute 150+ miles, and or LIK?

I have an employee who I just found out has not been provided LIK, nor has he been reimbursed for travel (IDT) for over a year now. I'm looking for updated info before I call his command and chew someone out.

Response by COL Randall C. made Jun 2 at 2024 4:58 PM

2024-06-02T16:58:13-04:00

No change, however you might have a mistaken understanding about the program which was authorized back in the FY17 NDAA. Services may (not "required to") reimburse IDT travel (if over the set policy distance) or provide Lodging-in-Kind if (and this is the BIG elephant in the room) funding is available.

Although there is usually a service-level overarching policy, the details of implementation will vary between the different COMPOs and major commands within the services (i.e., the latest USAR IDT-TRP/LIK policy from FY23*)

Having said that, your chew session may still be applicable. My experience is that when reserve component service members aren't being paid IDT-TRP or provided LIK, it's because of a screw-up on the unit side, not because funding wasn't allocated. Looking specifically at the USAR, there was almost $27M in the FY24 budget for LIK.

I would dig into it a bit more to find out what the service/command policy is for your employee, but odds are, it would be human error somewhere rather than a lack of funding that they haven't had any reimbursement for over a year.
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* USAR IDT-TRP/LIK policyh - https://www.usar.army.mil/Portals/98/Documents/Publications/memos/USARC%20LIK%20Policy.pdf

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