Will Amount Of Consumer Debt Trigger Review?

SECURITY CLEARANCE Q&A
1

Earn 190k a year with combined military pension, job, and VA compensation. Have 50k in personal and credit cards. No late payments. All accounts paid on time. No financial issues during the 7 year period. The reviwervwill not know my income level.

Relatively high debt load tied to having to relocate son to a safer city (crime involved) establish a second household for four years, as he worked through his mental health issues and growing up. That arrangement is ending now as he is doing better AND he has negatively impacted me financially.

Periodic Investigation for Secret Clearance.
I have had a security clearance since 1978, either TS or Secret.

My gut says to say something about having two households. My three mentors, all with current or past TS-SCI or familiar with investigations say I should simply answer the questions and not provide other data, since I am paying the bills. They say wait to see if the process wants to know my income-debt ratio.

Advice?

2

I think as long as there are no debts in collection or likely to go into collection (which is like over 90 days late I think) then you should be fine. I agree with the others, no need to mention the second household, but have all the information ready in case it comes up. Unless you live in the second household, but that does not appear to be the case.

There is a lot of scrutiny on financial issues these days and it seems to be the number 1 cause people get denied. But if there are any concerns, it sounds like you are in good shape to address them, especially if you don’t have to maintain the second household anymore.