Soldiers more used to helping tribal leaders solve problems could be cutting the grass on installations once they’re back home and billions in budget cuts for the Army load “stress” and “shock” on readiness and the force, officials said.
Those cuts to the Army could potentially hit $18 billion, a figure about the size of the state budget of North Carolina, said Maj. Gen. Karen Dyson, director for Army budget Financial Management and Comptroller (FM&C) at a roundtable yesterday. She described the fiscal outlook as “dire” and “unprecedented.”
The $18 billion includes the Budget Control Act cuts of $170 billion, the continuing resolution that holds the service to fiscal year 2012 numbers, a shortfall in overseas contingency operational funds for Afghanistan and the sequester for FY ’13, plus another $6 billion in other programs, all of which must be achieved in seven months, by the end of the fiscal year–Sept. 30.
The cumulative effect of those numbers is to “stress and shock” the workforce and erode readiness, which would put the service at risk in meeting the nation’s demands, officials said.
Soldiers could be living in barracks with a tarp over the roof because there was no money to fix a leaky roof, or living with boarded up windows.
Those things could happen and more, under a planned 70 percent reduction in base sustainment funds, said Brig. Gen. Curt Rauhut, director for Resource Management Installation Management Command, G8. He’s responsible for 75 installations and the 37,000 who work at them in the United States and abroad. “$400 million in service contracts are under review.”
While many contracts are under review and could be terminated, the service says it is too early in the process to tell what termination costs might be, or where the funds to pay for them would come from.
Soldiers will see an 80 percent training reduction, creating shortfalls in specialties such as intelligence and aviation, which will have 37,000 flying hours cut, leading to a shortfall of more than 500 pilots by the end of FY ’13, service statements have said.
Readiness will erode over time, and manifest itself in FY ’14 and beyond, Dyson said.
Maj. Gen. Robert Dyess, director of Force Development G-8, said he couldn’t say which programs were most at risk from additional sequestration cuts kicking in but the three portfolios with the most money are mission command, aviation and science and technology.
Major program decisions will not be made until later in the year as the Army financial offices have not completed work on the Program Objective Memorandum ’15-’19 yet.
Everything is interconnected and affects readiness.
For example, shortfalls in the overseas contingency operations account will affect the ability to reset equipment returning to the United States from Afghanistan, Dyess said. Equipment could be delayed by as much as “three to four years getting back into the unit.”
The Army plans to cut third and fourth quarter depot maintenance, terminating some 5,000 employees, producing a “significant delay” in equipment readiness for six divisions and an estimated $3.36 billion impact to communities around the depots, the Army chief of staff told the Senate Armed Services Committee Feb. 13.
Additionally, there is an estimated $5 billion to $7 billion shortfall expected in war funding this year, Dyson said. A major challenge is that a lot of equipment is being flown in, and the charges for air transport are “way beyond what was projected.” Additionally the need for civilian assistance has risen to prepare equipment to leave Afghanistan.
For example, Dyson said in Iraq in the last quarter of the drawdown the bill was $5 billion more than the year before because of the increase in operations needed to bring equipment out. They’re anticipating the same thing in Afghanistan.
However, the Army still counts the Network Integration Evaluation effort as very important to have twice a year. Vehicles now are being configured now for the spring evaluation. The change will be in how much funding will be available, Dyess said. “We will continue to work within the amount of money that’s allocated.”
Senior leaders have been closely coordinating across the force to ensure all the second and third order ripple effects are known and accounted for. For example, officers said, if Army Materiel Command can’t maintain a truck that belongs to a training company, Training and Doctrine Command may have to cancel that company’s training activities.
Dyson said for the Army sequestration is like a being on a treadmill that is picking up steam. The impact will most likely be felt first in April when a potential civilian employee furlough would start.
In an uncertain operating environment, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno has said repeatedly: “the greatest threat to our national security is the fiscal uncertainty resulting from the lack of predictability in the budget cycle.”
Odierno also said he would assure that soldiers heading to Afghanistan and South Korea are properly trained, ready and equipped.