by orange2themax » Sun Sep 12, 2021 7:40 pm
Tl;dr - Get your supervisor/ SF on board, find a new job at a different SF, submit a SAAR, and pray.
So I am currently in a similar situation. I'm one year into my 3 year commitment and am actively looking for a new SF since I have never had plans to stay at my current SF long term.
SMART could not give a single quantum of fuck if you literally went right next door/down the road to a sister agency in the same branch that sponsored you or fled the country to go work for an enemy foreign power...
I fully agree that in the grand scheme of things, SMART gives zero shits about where we end up, so long as they do not have to do any paperwork or accounting on their end. This being said, the second half of this, I have found to be false.
Over the last 6 months, I've been slowly figuring out what exactly it takes in order to leave your SF without having to pay SMART back and have actually gotten concrete steps in order to make this happen:
- First, reach out to your supervisor and/or SF Smart coordinator and express your intent. I will admit that this part is a little scary since you never know how they'll react, but it is important to first have some degree of support for your transfer from your SF. Support from both your old and prospective new SF is required for the transfer to be approved.
- Time to start looking for a new SF. This part is somewhat open ended, as there are a LOT of SF's out there (look at the SMART website). To my understanding, staying within the branch you started in significantly improves your likelihood of transfer, something about how the money is received/allotted for the program. Although there may be other DOD/ service branch locations in an area, SMART will likely treat a transfer to a non-SMART Sponsoring SF as a breach of contract and begin the steps for debt collection.
- Start applying for jobs at the new SF. In order to continue the transfer process, you have to actually have a tentative offer from the new facility.
I haven't made it to the next few steps and I'm not 100% sure the order, but here they are for reference:
- Provide the tentative offer to your SMART Program coordinator.
- Submit a Service Agreement Amendment Request (SAAR) to the SMART Scholar Portal.
- Provide a "Signed Signed personal statement detailing the circumstances of the request, including confirmation that all other aspects of the award will not change." (This is listed at the bottom of the SAAR form)
- SMART SHOULD reach out to the new/old SMART SF coordinators to receive letters of support from both facilities.
After all of this has come together, SMART is supposed to look at each case individually and determine if they approve, and go from there. It is super shitty to have to go through all of these steps, only to have the transfer get blocked, but if you truly want to move, I think it's worth it to try. Worse case scenario, you finish out your commitment like you were originally planning.
Hope this helps.
[b]Tl;dr - Get your supervisor/ SF on board, find a new job at a different SF, submit a SAAR, and pray.[/b]
So I am currently in a similar situation. I'm one year into my 3 year commitment and am actively looking for a new SF since I have never had plans to stay at my current SF long term.
[quote]SMART could not give a single quantum of fuck if you literally went right next door/down the road to a sister agency in the same branch that sponsored you or fled the country to go work for an enemy foreign power...[/quote]
I fully agree that in the grand scheme of things, SMART gives zero shits about where we end up, so long as they do not have to do any paperwork or accounting on their end. This being said, the second half of this, I have found to be false.
Over the last 6 months, I've been slowly figuring out what exactly it takes in order to leave your SF without having to pay SMART back and have actually gotten concrete steps in order to make this happen:
[list]First, reach out to your supervisor and/or SF Smart coordinator and express your intent. I will admit that this part is a little scary since you never know how they'll react, but it is important to first have some degree of support for your transfer from your SF. Support from both your old and prospective new SF is required for the transfer to be approved.[/list]
[list]Time to start looking for a new SF. This part is somewhat open ended, as there are a LOT of SF's out there (look at the SMART website). To my understanding, staying within the branch you started in significantly improves your likelihood of transfer, something about how the money is received/allotted for the program. Although there may be other DOD/ service branch locations in an area, SMART will likely treat a transfer to a non-SMART Sponsoring SF as a breach of contract and begin the steps for debt collection.[/list]
[list]Start applying for jobs at the new SF. In order to continue the transfer process, you have to actually have a tentative offer from the new facility.[/list]
I haven't made it to the next few steps and I'm not 100% sure the order, but here they are for reference:
[list]Provide the tentative offer to your SMART [i]Program [/i]coordinator. [/list]
[list]Submit a Service Agreement Amendment Request (SAAR) to the SMART Scholar Portal. [/list]
[list]Provide a "Signed Signed personal statement detailing the circumstances of the request, including confirmation that all other aspects of the award will not change." (This is listed at the bottom of the SAAR form)[/list]
[list]SMART SHOULD reach out to the new/old SMART SF coordinators to receive letters of support from both facilities.[/list]
After all of this has come together, SMART is supposed to look at each case individually and determine if they approve, and go from there. It is super shitty to have to go through all of these steps, only to have the transfer get blocked, but if you truly want to move, I think it's worth it to try. Worse case scenario, you finish out your commitment like you were originally planning.
Hope this helps.