Air Force wife Denise Fernandez wants to help high school and college-age kids of military families get financially savvy. Retiree Bart Aspling, whose wife recently deployed to Texas, hopes to offer financial counseling to families stressed by frequent military relocations.
The two are among nearly 200 U.S. military spouses who last week were awarded financial counseling fellowships aimed at arming more military families with money-management skills.
The two-year fellowships pay for training costs and require recipients to provide up to 1,000 hours of volunteer financial counseling. They also give military spouses a "portable" career, said Gerri Walsh, a vice president with the nonprofit FINRA Investor Education Foundation, which co-sponsors the program.
For spouses whose jobs are often upended by military moves, "It's a way to help increase their employability," said Walsh.
The 4-year-old fellowship program also meets a demand for financial education in the military community, especially in this economy and amid deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
About two-thirds of U.S. military personnel have "more debt than they are comfortable with or have gone deeper into debt within the past year," according to a February poll by Kiplinger's magazine and the Council of Better Business Bureaus.
"When you're dealing with the military, having a debt isn't just a frustrating money issue for the family. It can be a security issue that can end your career," Walsh said, noting service members can lose their security clearances for falling into serious debt.
This year's 196 fellowship winners will spend up to two years taking online classes to earn an accredited "financial counselor" certificate, equipping them for jobs as money-management counselors at military credit unions, community centers and financial aid offices, as well as the private sector.
It dovetails with increased efforts by the Defense Department, financial institutions and nonprofits to boost financial fitness in the military.
For years, military families have been in the cross hairs of dubious financial sales pitches. They've been targeted by payday lenders clustered outside military bases and wooed by unscrupulous financial advisers charging exorbitant fees for inappropriate investments.
There have been some cease-fires. Congress and California have passed laws capping interest rates on payday loans to military personnel. And a number of financial firms have been fined for unfairly targeting servicemen and women.
In perhaps the biggest case, a Texas financial company -- First Command -- was fined $12 million in 2005 for charging inflated investment fees to current and retired military personnel. Part of that settlement -- $6.8 million -- was set aside for financial education by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority in Washington, D.C.
This year's class of fellowship recipients, chosen from about 2,000 applicants worldwide, comes from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, including 26 who live overseas with their military spouses.
Aspling is 68 and a state government retiree who worked various stints as chief of budgets, accounting and audits at the California Department of Education. He figures he has the time and background to offer financial counseling once he completes his training.
He may be doing so while commuting. Aspling's wife, an Air Force reservist, recently gave up a hospital administration job at Kaiser to become a medical claims specialist stationed at Randolph Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.
A former reservist himself, Aspling says, "I know (military life) puts a strain on family finances with frequent moves and relocations," especially when moving from low-cost states into markets like California.
Dealing with higher costs for housing, utilities, gas and groceries, he said, can stress military families in transition. And when personnel are deployed overseas, "the remaining spouse takes care of all the household expenses and may need help making those kind of decisions."
Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service
