The Coast Guard needs every dollar it is requesting for FY ’12 to be able to continue sustaining front line operations and any budget cuts will mean either boats or people will have to go, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Bob Papp told a Senate panel yesterday.
Papp, appearing before the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on the Coast Guard, said his “most important job” is telling Congress what he needs and that is the FY ‘12 budget as requested.
“We need every dollar, every ship, every plane, every shore station that it funds,” Papp testified. “I’ve made some tough trade-offs in this budget. I’ve directed management efficiencies and administrative reductions totaling over $100 million but I cannot afford to cut any more without jeopardizing our most valuable service to the nation, front line operations.”
Later in the hearing, Papp said he also gave guidance during budget preparations that “I don’t want to cut a single person.” The Coast Guard, he said, is maintaining a delicate balance in its budget among mission effectiveness and recapitalization.
If the budget is cut, “either we’ve got to stop buying more boats and ships, or we’ve got to start cutting people,” Papp said.
The Coast Guard personnel force is back to the level it was in the early 1990s, Papp said, yet the number of missions the service is performing has grown. “People are fully employed,” he said.
So far in the budget cycle for FY ’12 the Coast Guard’s overall budget request is intact although the House cut appropriations for acquisition programs, in particular the short-endurance Fast Response Cutter and high-endurance National Security Cutter. The House actually added over $250 million to the service’s budget to pay for ware related expenses the Coast Guard is incurring.
Papp didn’t comment specifically on the House version of the Coast Guard’s budget. Senate appropriators are in the process of writing their version of the FY ’12 bill.
Papp said there are at least several reviews ongoing within the Coast Guard looking at force levels and capital needs. One entails a review of cutter boats that has been directed by the Department of Homeland Security to “refocus the balance of ships that we’re building right now,” he said.
Another, that Papp is driving, is a review of the service’s smaller boats that are typically found in ports and waterways. There are too many boats and boat classes, which in turn leads to logistics and training challenges at Coast Guard boat stations, he said. The Boat Force Optimization study is being done with an “eye towards reducing the number of boats that we have to maintain out there while still maintaining operational effectiveness,’ Papp said.
The Coast Guard is also doing a “stem to stern” review of its deployable specialized forces, Papp said.
About the only outcome Papp expects from most studies of the Coast Guard’s requirements and missions is the need for more assets. Regarding the DHS directed cutter study, Papp said that “even if you give it to a third party, the numbers that you come up with—have the Coast Guard do all of it’s jobs all the time—are something to choke on and I think that’s why we have a hard time gaining traction getting these reports forward. They always come back showing we need more.”