The Coast Guard to end its paper LES; trees rejoice

Posted on 19 June 2009 by Ryan Erickson | Comments

A few month months ago we wrote a post for Earth Day titled It COSTS to know how much you make in the Coast Guard which basically covered how much we as an organization could (no hard data, just guesstimates) be spending on printing and sending leave and earning statements, better known as your LES. In said post I brought your attention to a question that Jim Dolbow asked: “Why is my LES mailed to me? Won’t it save money and trees if I could just access it electronically?” In fact his question is what prompted the post in the first place.

Well perhaps our labor of research and asking paid off, or maybe it was already in the works; the Pay and Personnel Center (PPC) annoucned on their blog yesterday that we’ll soon be able to potentially “opt-out” of receiving paper copies of our LES. As we’re all well aware, and reiterated on the PPC site, almost all the information that is available on your LES is also viewable in Direct Access; the only part really missing is your leave balance- change is afoot-

Once “View Paycheck” is modified to include leave, DA would provide each member electronic access to all LES information including leave, almost exactly as it appears on the current hard copy LES. Members will be able view and/or print the page at will.

This will surely be accepted from those of us who prefer to do things via the internet, or those who may be considered “tree-huggers.” So far as the ‘online only’ option goes this will be coming down the pipe shortly after the changes inside DA are made. The entirety of the project will begin testing during October of ‘09 and the option to “opt-out” of that paper copy should be available to us by early 2010.