The Unofficial SMART Scholarship Forum

Guest wrote:

DScheuf wrote:First off: JoAnn Wright has been replaced by Dana (not sure on last name; will try to find out) for coordinating SMART and USACE.

Also, while the concurrent running commitments are great news, you should also remember ACTEDs is not a permanent employment program. If this hiring freeze lasts longer than 2 years, you may find yourself in this battle for your job once again. That's a big IF, I know, but you should remember it when you make your decision.

Guest wrote:

Guest wrote:DScheuf, can you tell us what the penalty is for breaking the USACE contract?

How hard is it to answer a simple question? Even an I don't know is fine. I've asked three times now. I'm not trying to be rude but come on!

Guest wrote:

Guest wrote:DScheuf, can you tell us what the penalty is for breaking the USACE contract?

How hard is it to answer a simple question? Even an I don't know is fine. I've asked three times now. I'm not trying to be rude but come on!

Guest wrote:DScheuf, can you tell us what the penalty is for breaking the USACE contract?

DScheuf wrote:First off: JoAnn Wright has been replaced by Dana (not sure on last name; will try to find out) for coordinating SMART and USACE.

Guest wrote:

Guest wrote:

DScheuf wrote:My CA is suppose to let me know how SMART "recognizes" this situation* by today. She mentioned how she needs to confer with my liaison and bring this to the attention of the STEM Development Office. I graduate in two weeks! I hope they figure this out soon.

Have any of you started looking for other jobs?


*The situation is that the only way to hire me at my SF (and every other USACE Operations Facility to my knowing) is to sign a four year contract. This adds two years to my SMART contract.

And what are the consequences of breaking the 4 year contract after the 2 year SMART requirement is over?

My uneducated guess: termination.

Which means you won't be working for the USACE anymore (duh, you quit, so the termination is a formality). Maybe the termination means you won't ever work for the federal govt again... Could be bad, depending on where you want your career to go.

Guest wrote:

DScheuf wrote:My CA is suppose to let me know how SMART "recognizes" this situation* by today. She mentioned how she needs to confer with my liaison and bring this to the attention of the STEM Development Office. I graduate in two weeks! I hope they figure this out soon.

Have any of you started looking for other jobs?


*The situation is that the only way to hire me at my SF (and every other USACE Operations Facility to my knowing) is to sign a four year contract. This adds two years to my SMART contract.

And what are the consequences of breaking the 4 year contract after the 2 year SMART requirement is over?

DScheuf wrote:My CA is suppose to let me know how SMART "recognizes" this situation* by today. She mentioned how she needs to confer with my liaison and bring this to the attention of the STEM Development Office. I graduate in two weeks! I hope they figure this out soon.

Have any of you started looking for other jobs?


*The situation is that the only way to hire me at my SF (and every other USACE Operations Facility to my knowing) is to sign a four year contract. This adds two years to my SMART contract.

DScheuf wrote:My CA is suppose to let me know how SMART "recognizes" this situation* by today. She mentioned how she needs to confer with my liaison and bring this to the attention of the STEM Development Office. I graduate in two weeks! I hope they figure this out soon.

Have any of you started looking for other jobs?


*The situation is that the only way to hire me at my SF (and every other USACE Operations Facility to my knowing) is to sign a four year contract. This adds two years to my SMART contract.

Guest154 wrote:What degree are you graduating with, BS, MS, PhD?

Guest wrote:Can you let us know which SF specifically? There are quite a few across the Army. ARL?

gs7-phd wrote:

Guest wrote:I have three questions. 1) Did you discuss salary with your SF prior to signing your contract? 2) Are you at a USACE district? If so why did you take a job at a USACE district with a PhD? They only do engineering design stuff. 3) most importantly, what were the consequences of violating the ACTEDS contract?

Three answers:

1) Yes. I also had emails documenting the fact.
2) No. I was regular Army. As far as I can tell, the Army borrowed the idea of ACTEDs hiring loophole from the US ACE. There are many similarities between the offer I was extended and the ACTEDs offers that the US ACE is extending, though there are some slight differences.
3) The ACTEDs contract only had a 2 year mobility agreement that was going to run concurrently with my SMART service commitment, so there was no doubling of the commitment period as I've seen mentioned in this forum. I never delved too far into breaking JUST the ACTEDs portion of the contract because

• The salary ranges were very different than what I had been anticipating. Vastly different.
• I know that ACTEDs is NOT a permanent position. It's an internship. If the facility is still under a hiring freeze at the end of the ACTEDs internship, I would have been in the exact same situation I was now, except the SMART Program wouldn't be scouring the DoD to find a place for me. I'd be on my own to quickly find employment. I have a family, and that risk is too great.
• The ACTEDs time commitment was concurrent with the SMART time commitment, so if I broke one, I'd break them both. The SMART contract was the contract I was familiar with, and had a stiffer penalty. If I had to guess, there was actually no penalty for breaking the mobility agreement of ACTEDs other than termination.

I'm following this conversation because I'm interested to see what the new SMART management is doing with US ACE folks who feel the ACTEDs offers are a breach of contract. Is SMART trying to coerce them into taking the offers (as was done with me) or are they understanding that ACTEDs is sometimes a raw deal and that the student didn't sign the SMART contract with ACTEDs in mind?

Guest wrote:I have three questions. 1) Did you discuss salary with your SF prior to signing your contract? 2) Are you at a USACE district? If so why did you take a job at a USACE district with a PhD? They only do engineering design stuff. 3) most importantly, what were the consequences of violating the ACTEDS contract?

• The salary ranges were very different than what I had been anticipating. Vastly different.
• I know that ACTEDs is NOT a permanent position. It's an internship. If the facility is still under a hiring freeze at the end of the ACTEDs internship, I would have been in the exact same situation I was now, except the SMART Program wouldn't be scouring the DoD to find a place for me. I'd be on my own to quickly find employment. I have a family, and that risk is too great.
• The ACTEDs time commitment was concurrent with the SMART time commitment, so if I broke one, I'd break them both. The SMART contract was the contract I was familiar with, and had a stiffer penalty. If I had to guess, there was actually no penalty for breaking the mobility agreement of ACTEDs other than termination.

gs7-phd wrote:

Guest wrote:

Guest wrote:
It might just be your position specifically but in general PhD can get you a gs12 right out of the hole gs13 w experience

I was slightly wrong. In general PhD gets you gs11 unless its a research position when it gets you gs12 eligibility. Gs13 is possible w PhD+experience. Google gs12 research engineer go to the opm page that comes up.

Trust me, you don't have to tell me what I SHOULD have been offered... I'm fully aware of what SHOULD have been coming my way.

The part that I was trying to share, and the part I'm interested in watching play out with the US ACE, is why did the SMART program seem to think that it was acceptable to tell a scholar that if they didn't take the GS-7 offer they'd be responsible for repayment of the scholarship? That's the $200k question (literally).

I'm very curious to see if the new management begins to understand that SMART scholars signed a contractual agreement. If the DoD can't hire people full-time, there's a perfectly legitimate avenue for releasing them, and it doesn't involve asking for the scholarship to be repaid. However, as of late, the SMART Program has been asking students to repay scholarships if they choose to decline the loopholes that SMART is trying to exploit (loopholes like ACTEDs student internship programs, instead of full-time employment).

Guest wrote:

Guest wrote:
It might just be your position specifically but in general PhD can get you a gs12 right out of the hole gs13 w experience

I was slightly wrong. In general PhD gets you gs11 unless its a research position when it gets you gs12 eligibility. Gs13 is possible w PhD+experience. Google gs12 research engineer go to the opm page that comes up.

Guest wrote:
It might just be your position specifically but in general PhD can get you a gs12 right out of the hole gs13 w experience

Guest wrote:

DScheuf wrote:

In my experience, they frowned upon the old way of doing things...

What was your experience?

I posted it already in this thread. It was a bunch of heavy-handed threats that if I didn't take the Army's offer, I would have to pay it back. I am a PhD and expected a GS-11 offer and the Army actually offered me a GS-7 ACTEDs position.

DScheuf wrote:

In my experience, they frowned upon the old way of doing things...

What was your experience?