Realignment moves come with installation fees

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Realignment moves come with installation fees
By Matt Millham, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Personnel moving from one base to another in Germany because of unit moves or base closures might have to pay up to 175 euros — roughly $275 — to get their on-base phone, Internet and cable services moved, according to Telepost Kabel-Service officials.

Allowances will cover some moving costs for personnel moving from Darmstadt to Wiesbaden with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the 66th Military Intelligence Group, and for those moving with the 172nd Infantry Brigade from Schweinfurt to Grafenwöhr.

Allowances range from about $784 for single privates to about $3,540 for married colonels. Still, some troops and family members think the installation fees, which many paid once already to get services installed, are too steep.

Since moving to Darmstadt as a soldier, Chemeka Brown has paid hookup fees on three different occasions — once when she moved into the barracks, then again when the Army refurbished her building and forced her to move. Then she got married and she moved again — this time off post.

“They’re outrageous,” she said of the fees.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=53904