The Navy’s top officer gave some insight into its alternate budget plans at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Nov. 7, noting that the Navy is considering making about four times as many cuts to headquarters personnel as is being asked of the services.
The Pentagon asked each of the services to pare down its headquarters staffs by 20 percent, combining positions or moving responsibilities to lower-ranked officers to help the department save money in the coming years.
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| Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert testifies Nov. 7 at the Senate Armed Services Committee. |
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert said during the hearing that the Navy had chosen to convert that percentage into a dollar figure and then decided the service could find even more efficiencies than the Defense Department had asked it it.
“We were tasked with that 20 percent, and it was monetarily based, when you look at us that’s about $80 [million], $90 million,” he explained to reporters after the hearing. “So, we said, we can do better than that. So we’re looking at about four times that monetarily.”
The Navy is taking a somewhat different approach to finding those savings. Greenert said that the Pentagon had asked for a reduction in about 400 civilian personnel, and the Navy would seek five times that figure, about 2,000. The Pentagon had asked for a cut of about 300 military personnel and the Navy will aim for 450, he added –still well above its required cuts but not nearly to the same magnitude as civilian personnel.
Greenert said the cuts come from all echelons of the Navy, not just his Pentagon staff. The service has not yet determined where exactly those cuts will come from, he added, saying Navy planners needed to take a careful look at how to reduce staffs in a strategic way.
“I directed them to look at missions, functions and tasks. I just don’t want to go, ‘you, you, you and you, you’re out, and then figure out, ok, what can we do now?’” he said after the hearing. “It’s, what do we not want to do anymore? What is the reduction in force structure and reduction in capability that we have overall? What overhead should likewise be reduced? What can be more efficient, what can we relocate?”
He did note, though, that he didn’t want to wait for major efficiency initiatives to go into effect. At the hearing, SASC ranking member Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) showed a chart that outlined where budget cuts would come from between now and fiscal year 2023: operations, modernization, force structure and efficiencies. Operations takes the bulk of the hit in the short-term, and force structure constitutes most of the back-end cuts. Greenert noted after the hearing that the efficiencies was a small section of the chart and said that, rather than sacrificing actual operations now, the Navy ought to look for efficiencies everywhere, particularly in current contracts. His acquisition staffs are taking a close look now at support contracts to determine how many the Navy has and if there’s a way to combine some or find other ways to get the same level of service with less overhead cost.
The Marine Corps has taken a different approach to reaching its 20 percent goal. Marines announced earlier this fall that they would eliminate the three-star II Marine Expeditionary Force headquarters at Camp Lejeune. Marine Expeditionary Units and Brigades will continue to function as they do now, and the higher-level command responsibilities will be folded into existing Marine Corps command structure in Norfolk, Va., Marine Corps Quadrennial Defense Review representative Maj. Gen. Frank McKenzie said last month at a Center for Strategic and International Studies event. He said the changes, while meeting the 20 percent reduction goal, also help the Marine Corps in its shift from fighting land wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to becoming a crisis response force focused on the Middle East and the Pacific regions.
At the hearing, Marine Commandant Gen. James Amos mentioned the II MEF elimination as part of his reduction plan. He added that as the service drew down its total force size, entire air groups would be cut, for example, to help fully meet the headquarters reduction goals.