The impact of existing and looming budget cuts facing the Defense Department from an ongoing budget resolution and sequestration in FY ’13 alone would have a severe impact on some sectors of the defense industrial base for years to come, affecting military readiness and missions, a department official said yesterday.
Some public and private sectors of the national industrial base would be damaged enough that it would take them a decade to fully recover from FY ’13 budget cuts driven by the Continuing Resolution and sequestration, which is scheduled to go into effect today, John Johns, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Maintenance Policy and Programs, told the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness.
Johns believes that it will be difficult to limit the impacts of the budget cuts on the industrial base.
“Given the magnitude of the combined concentrated reductions, even the most effective mitigation strategies will not be sufficient to protect the sustainment industrial base,” Johns said. “As a result, third and fourth quarter inductions will be canceled in many areas, gross financial and production inefficiencies will be generated. Thousands of government temporary and term employees and contractor personnel will be impacted immediately.”
Johns said that in the private sector, small companies that are very dependent on military spending will suffer the most, with “thousands” affected and “hundreds” at risk of bankruptcy.
Large companies that have a diverse business base will better absorb the cuts but the defense supply chain will be hampered if smaller companies go out of business.
“Any failures here will have direct impact on supply chain and maintenance operations and would likely take years to recover,” Johns said in his prepared remarks.
Johns also in his prepared testimony provided a lengthy list of examples for all the military services as to what impact the combined budget cuts would have on public and private sector work.
For the Army, he said there would be workload reductions at the Tobyhanna Army Depot that would impact Standardized Integrated Command Posts, tactical operation centers, electronics shelters and Firefinder Radar. At Anniston Army Depot work on M1s, M88s, howitzers, and filed artillery support vehicles will be hindered, Johns said.
The Navy will have to cancel about 70 percent of ship’s maintenance in private yards in the last two quarters of FY ’13, including deferring up to 25 ship availabilities that will impact about 7,000 contract employees, Johns said. The Navy has already delayed Refueling and Complex Overhaul for one its carriers and similar work on another will also be impacted (Defense Daily, Feb. 28).
For Navy aircraft, Johns said all maintenance inductions will be canceled in the second half of FY ’13, affecting about 320 aircraft and 1,200 engines, and “As a result, diminished operational availability of these platforms will degrade Navy’s ability to support future Fleet mission requirements.”
Work at Marine Corp depots supporting ground systems will drop below 30 percent of the baseline requirement, resulting in letting go more than 800 term and contractor support workers, with maintenance affecting various models of armored vehicles and tactical trucks, Johns said.
For the Air Force, all three of its Logistics Centers will be affected and the budget cuts will result in deferring maintenance on about 150 aircraft and 85 engines while also postponing sustaining engineering tasks such as structural integrity programs.
“Collectively, these actions will push aircraft availability below standard on more than 30 weapon systems and degrade the Air Force’s ability to support critical mission demands,” Johns said.
Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), the chairman of the HASC readiness panel, said that he’s concerned about a “hollow military force” and added that the “readiness crisis is real.”
For the time being, Johns said that forward deployed logistics are not threatened by the potential budget cuts as DoD is protecting in-theater military operations. However, he warned that “If sequestration and related out-year reductions endure beyond 2013, our ability to surge, deploy depot teams, or provide reach back capability in support of contingency operations and emerging threats will be impacted.”