“We’ll Get You Paid”: Wyoming Guard Finance Team Holds the Line During Federal Shutdown

The original story by Staff Sgt. Edward Hermsen for DVIDS.

When the federal government slid into a shutdown earlier this year, uncertainty hit the Wyoming Air National Guard almost instantly. For airmen on base, one question rose above everything else: Am I still getting paid?

At the center of that storm was the 153rd Comptroller Flight — the small finance team suddenly responsible for protecting every paycheck on the installation.

What’s usually a routine, behind-the-scenes job turned into a near round-the-clock operation for Staff Sgt. Rebecca Frederickson, financial technician; Master Sgt. Dillon Deshay, chief of financial services; and Senior Master Sgt. Carrie Galaz, senior enlisted leader.

“We see this possibility every year,” Galaz said. “But this one came at a time when we were preparing for major exercises.”

As the shutdown hit, guidance from higher headquarters was changing by the hour. No one could say for sure how long the funding gap would last. Airmen started worrying out loud:

• Will my paycheck show up?
• How do I pay rent or cover my car payment?
• What happens if this drags on?

“It’s hard to listen to airmen worry about finances,” Galaz admitted. “We couldn’t give firm answers, and that weighs on you.”

The finance crew couldn’t control Congress, but they could control how ready they’d be the moment money started flowing again — so they stepped on the gas.

Normally, the 153rd Comptroller Flight sends payroll to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) twice a week. During the shutdown, they cranked that up to every single day.

Frederickson and other technicians handled the grind of entering and verifying pay data, while Galaz and Deshay pulled late-night audits to make sure each batch was clean before sending it off.

Some nights, the team stayed at their desks until almost midnight, fighting through slow systems and data backlogs to keep everything on track.

Their goal was simple:

Make sure every airman gets paid as soon as it is legally possible once funding is released.

At one point, national guidance directed that technicians submit their own timecards to help manage the chaos. The 153rd finance team pushed back — not with complaints, but with action.

Instead of pushing the extra work out to hundreds of people, they pulled it in.

They processed four full pay periods for the entire base themselves.

“We took it on because we didn’t want that weight on the members,” Galaz said. “We knew how overloaded the system already was.”

The turning point came not in a classified message or internal memo, but in the news. Media reports broke that the military would receive funding for the first affected pay period.

Finance personnel found out at the same time as everyone else.

Even then, they kept submitting payroll daily until DFAS confirmed it had processed everything.

When the shutdown ended, the job shifted from survival mode to clean-up:

• Reconciling retroactive leave;
• Fixing comp time and any transactions that posted wrong under tight timelines;
• Restarting travel operations, but only for priority missions because funding still wasn’t fully open.

“We have the green light to function again, but it’s not an open faucet,” Galaz said. “We still only have money through January, so we have to be deliberate and careful.”

Despite the stress, the team said airmen across the 153rd stayed patient — even as rumors swirled and anxiety climbed.

“No one blamed us,” Frederickson said. “They were frustrated with the situation, not with finance.”

For the Comptroller Flight, that trust mattered. Their mission throughout the shutdown was clear:

• Keep airmen informed;
• Protect their pay;
• Absorb as much of the administrative pain as possible so others could stay focused on training and operations.

“This is our job,” Galaz said. “It’s stressful, but our goal is always to take care of the members — technicians or military, it doesn’t matter. That’s what we’re here to do.”