European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - December 30, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Friday december 30, 1994 the stars and stripes Page 3 Wurzburg co closure leaves 4 to go. ,Revamp service to by Carlos Bongioanni ". Staff writer the arduous restructuring of the army civilian personnel system in Europe has passed the Halfway Mark with the closure of the Wurzburg Germany civilian personnel office. It was the fifth regional office to close and officials Hope to eliminate the remaining four by the end of March 1995, four months later than originally scheduled. In place of the old system which relied on regional offices operating More or less independently the army has created an operations Center designed to serve 23 smaller civilian personnel service centers spread throughout Belgium Italy and Germany. The restructuring process affects about 35,000 civil Ian employees in Usa eur. Four service centers in the military communities of Kitzinger Bamberg Schweinfurt and Ansbach opened tuesday assuming the responsibilities formerly handled by the Wurzburg civilian personnel office. The transition to a centralized system has been a difficult process. As part of its duties the operations Center was sup posed to rate Job applications and Issue referral lists for All of Usa eur. Civilian personnel workers rate applications to determine which jobs applicants qualify for positions and How they rank in comparison to other applicants. From the inception officials have been beset with problems. In one Case they had to rebuild their com Puter system data base after it crashed in july dumping information for thousands of customers. We had to rebuild the data base because we did t have a backup said Lee Goeke Usa eur s director of civilian personnel. Since then we be built in programmatic backups that the system does automatically. If the system were to crash again there would always be a backup tap with a Complete copy of the  in late november the Central staff finally eliminate the backlog that resulted from the july computer crash. At that Point the Wurzburg co s area of responsibility was passed to the new system. The transition took almost three weeks to Complete. � to avoid some of the problems experienced in other transitions the Wurzburg conversion was handled differently. For the time being the new service centers have re Aal Cally we really Haven t seen any dramatic change in service tothe customer " trained the responsibility of rating applications. Basically we really Haven t seen any dramatic change in service to the customer stated Jim Ting Wald the service Center chief at Kitzinger. However most of the backroom technical services paperwork like producing documents for personnel records is now handled by the operations Center. That s the major  Goeke said the service centers will rate applications locally until the Central office computerized All the personnel information from the Wurzburg area. He said it could take As Long As a month. Then the operations Center will take Over the task of rating applications. Under the old system Goeke said it took about three to four weeks to process a Job application. He acknowledged that the performance level dropped in August and september when the operations Center took Over in the first four co transitions. But the Standard for rating applications at the operations Center has been set at 10 Days Goeke said. During the october and november time Frame As the Center caught up on its backlog we were operating under the 10-Day  Goeke said customers should not Call the operations Center for the first 10 Days after turning their application into a service Center. However some customers have expressed dismay at the process stating that there is no Way to track an application once the Center gets it. Addressing the Issue of tracking Goeke said we re not going to encourage applicants to Call the operations Center within the time Frame we have for proc Essing it because we would t be rating applications then. We d be spending time pulling applications or trying to find whose desk it s on. But anybody who does t have a rating within 10 Days of turning it into their service Center. I Don t care who they Are we re going to find out  Goeke said that if customers Haven t heard anything about their application within 10 Days they can Callei ther their service Center or the operations Center. The restructuring has included the development of More than 50 similar standards for accomplishing personnel jobs Goeke said. All the work should be done faster under these standards he said. For example the Center s Standard for issuing refer ral lists for jobs Europe wide is three Days from the time the operations Center receives a request from an employer who needs a Job vacancy filled. The three Day Standard applies if the Center already has an inventory of people for a specific Job. If there is no standing inventory or open vacancy announcement we have to prepare a Job announce ment Issue it and leave it open for two or three weeks Goeke said. In that situation our Standard says we have 39 Days to Issue a referral  new year Means new higher . Postal rates by Darrell Lewis staff writer the new year will bring new . Postal rates the first across the Board hike in four years. A letter with a first class stamp will Cost 32 cents to Send after Midnight saturday an increase of three cents said Walter , spokesman for the 1starmy postal directorate at Schwet Zingen Germany. The rates for express and priority packages also will jump he said. Postage for a Standard express mail envelope goes from $9.95 to $10.75. An Apo customer who mails a 10-Pound priority package from Germany to California Wal pay $14.q5 an increase of $1.25.that s a hike of about 10 percent. Post offices Are Selling temporary g series Stamps printed before the new rates were approved. The g series will be used until the new Stamps Are in Stock the Standard 32 cent stamp a 3 cent stamp to pair with the old 29-cent version a to cent postcard stamp to replace the current 19-cent version and a 25-cent first class stamp for presorted commercial mail. The g Stamps cannot be used on International Mai because they do not show a face value. International mail rates did not change though so Especial services rates such As for insured and receipt required mail did increase Bleiler said. Also the fee for Money orders bought in overseas Post offices will increase from 25 to 30 cents. The fee in the United states is 80 cents. The new 32-Ccnt series g Stamps come in sheets or Rolls of 100 and books of 20. S4s Ken Georgc inquiry raises questions in Soldier s stabbing by Carlos Bongioanni staff writer a Derheim Germany Soldier who was stabbed outside a downtown Frank Furt club last week is continuing to re cover from the wound. Pfc. Paul Lewis says he was the victim of a mugging about 2 45 . Saturday. But a moroccan Man arrested immediately after the stabbing by an off jury German police officer says the incident was a drug Deal gone bad said Peter ohm a Frankfurt police spokesman. Army officials began preliminary investigations into the incident thursday. According to their initial inquiries Lewis left the club about 2 45 . At that time a third country Ger Man National a moroccan Man approached Lewis and demanded  refused to give him any said Christel Borris a spokeswoman for the1st army div in bad Kreuz Nach. Borris said the assailant a suspected drug dealer then stabbed Lewis in the upper Abdomen. The off duty German police officer was in the area when the incident occurred German authorities said. Tote officer saw the dispute from a distance ohm said. After he intervened he noticed that the 29-year-old victim was injured. He then called for help and rushed him to the  Lewis spent the Christmas weekend at the University emergency medical clinic in Frankfurt. He left tuesday and returned to Dex Heim where he has been stationed since dec. 13. Chm said the area where the incident occurred is a Well known spot for drug deals. German police Are continuing their investigation