What You Need to Know About UIF and ARCNet

  • Published
  • By Col. Emil Filkorn
  • 224th ADG CC
The early end of winter, and Syracuse basketballs' progress through the post season (both men's and women's) has made this a memorable and pleasant month of March. The commanders, chiefs and staff continue to make my first few months as the Air Defense Group Commander memorable and pleasant because they are some of the finest leaders I've worked with in my 25 year career. We have a great team. As Lt. Col. Ed "Easy" Danis and Lt. Col. David "Jolly" Ellingson and, our Detachment 1 and 2 Commanders, retire and move on, we'll be selecting two new commanders to join the EADS leadership team. I'm excited to lead the selection boards, and to employ the talents the new commanders will bring to our air defense cadre.

I have two topics I want to address this month. They are important components of personnel management and personnel readiness. The first is the AFI-directed Unfavorable Information File (UIF) program we've established. If you've been on active duty, you'll remember the terms UIF and control roster. Since November 2014, the Air National Guard has been included in the UIF and control roster programs as outlined in AFI 36-2907. Simply put, the UIF program is an official record of unfavorable information about an individual documenting administrative, judicial or non-judicial censures concerning the member's performance, responsibility and behavior. The control roster is intended to be a rehabilitative tool. Commanders use the control roster to establish a 6-month observation period for individuals whose duty performance is substandard or who fail to meet or maintain Air Force standards of conduct, bearing, and integrity, on or off duty. As a minimum, commanders cancel all formal training for control roster personnel. Per the AFI, UIFs for officers are mandatory for Letters of Reprimand or greater. For enlisted, UIFs are mandatory for non-judicial punishment with consequences over 31 days or for civilian court convictions. G-series commanders at every level may initiate a UIF or control roster. UIFs and control rosters may be initiated by commanders for less than the AFI-mandated reasons. Commanders will initiate the UIF and control roster for their personnel as they see fit within the guidelines of the AFI. CSS in Rome, New York will maintain necessary documentation for the Group under lock and key. I don't expect it will be a big drawer.

Secondly, on the topic of personnel readiness, we're implementing the widespread use of ARCNet by individuals. You need to use ARCNet to maintain awareness of your readiness items and to help you take action to BE READY for your commanders and chiefs to lead you in mission accomplishment. It's an easy and effective way to review your status from one location. As with most technology application, there are some quirks. ARCNet is active duty driven, so your fitness data, for example, may show you red because it currently assumes you need to take a fitness test every 6 months. We're working that. ARCNet is available from the Air Force Portal, and because of its utility, we'll add it as a Key Link on our SharePoint site. When you go to ARCNet, you'll be asked to update your profile information. From there its two easy steps to your personal data:  select READINESS from the top menu bar, then select My Readiness Report. Updates to ARCNet sometimes take days to a week to occur, but the commanders and chiefs know that, and the simplicity of the tool makes it worth accepting that less-than-immediate-update information. The payoff is individual ownership of responsibility, and avoiding all of us having to build and maintain yet another labor-intensive local tracking tool. Please use ARCNet to ensure you're 100 percent READY.

So, in closing, another great summer in the Mohawk Valley is around the corner; some pretty exciting basketball is coming up this week; you're a bit smarter on how we'll manage the mandatory UIF program; and now you're empowered to ensure you maintain your own personnel readiness in support of accomplishing the EADS mission.