Hagel to cut 20% off the top at Pentagon
Chuck Hagel talked to the troops yesterday at Naval Air Station Jacksonville, FL and he told them that he’s calling for a 20% haircut at the Pentagon – to cut staff positions in the bloated bureaucracy. From the Washington Post;
Hagel’s directive could force the Pentagon and military command staffs to shed an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 jobs. That’s a tiny percentage of the Defense Department’s 2.1 million active-duty troops and civilian employees, but analysts said it would be a symbolically important trimming of the upper branches of the bureaucracy, which has proved to be resistant to past pruning attempts.
[…]
Hagel said the cutbacks would apply to the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Staff, as well as Pentagon headquarters staffs for the armed forces.
He did not give further details. It was unclear whether his order also would apply to defense contractors assigned to those offices or the military’s combatant command staffs.
Well, that’s good start, it’s in the neighborhood where the cuts need to happen. Anything that saves operational jobs makes more sense than eroding the benefits for retention purposes. We need to keep more actual Rangers more than we need the PowerPoint variety.
DoD estimates that the cuts to staffs will result in a $1.5 – $2 billion savings, but the plan is scheduled to happen before 2015.
Category: Big Army
I wish they would cut my job so I can PCS the f*ck out of here. Because of the cuts I am on month 42 of a 36 month TDA tour.
$1.5B to $2B savings? Yeah, right. To save even the smaller amount ($1.5B), that’s at least $300k per position and 5000 positions go away. It’s $500k per if the number axed is 3000. For $2B, the numbers are $400k per position (5,000 eliminated) and over $660k per (3,000 eliminated).
The standard planning factor for civilian labor is 1.5x salary (to account for benefits); military costs are somewhat higher, but I don’t think that exceeds 2x salary when benefits are included. Not too many folks in DoD make even 200k annually.
This only adds up if we dump a lot of high-priced contractor support (some of those do cost in the neighborhood of $400k yearly). And, frankly, I just don’t see that happening.
There will be savings, but I want to see and check the math before I believe that kind of savings. I’m guessing we’ll see maybe around 2/3 of that amount – if we’re lucky.
Twist: be careful what you wish for. Sometimes position cuts are accompanied by force reductions.
It’s not a great time to be looking for work on short notice.
Hondo, I know that. It’s just that my family and myself are chomping at the bit to get back to Alaska, me get a job, buy a house, and drop my retirement packet.
I gotta believe there is a lot of unnecessary fat at the Pentagon, so in theory this might make sense. It’s not clear to me whether the positions are being eliminated and the personnel are reassigned elsewhere, or are the personnel being eliminated altogether. Either way, I seriously doubt the actual budget savings will be anywhere near the dollar amounts being quoted.
The Air Force will just do what it did in the past. In order to get around manpower limits on the Air Staff and Secretariat, the Air Force had a bunch of “agencies” in the Military District of Washington. They then pushed people into the agency to technically reduce the numbers on staff. For example, A1 (Personnel) had the Air Force Personnel Operations Agency (AFPOA) located in Crystal City. The people there functioned the same as someone on the staff. The bad part was that they only got credit for an Agency tour and not an Air Staff tour.
@5. “It’s not clear to me whether the positions are being eliminated and the personnel are reassigned elsewhere, or are the personnel being eliminated altogether.” Well, 1953,call the Pentagon, your congresscritter, or Hagel himself. Get clarity and stop the guesswork. You like confirmation and verification. Go get it. And, yes, get gone or get used to it. Or apologize. Pick one or mix and match.
1953: no argument from me that the Pentagon could likely use a bit of “pruning”; ditto higher HQ worldwide. My only argument is with the math. Based on what I’ve seen previously, I don’t think we’ll see anything close to the claimed savings unless DoD sticks pretty much to whacking high-cost contractors (SMEs), and I just don’t see that happening.
I just hope they don’t just “cut” the people that are fighting for the troops and saying “no you cannot just keep on cutting stuff to our troops go find it somewhere else!”
But honestly I’m extremely unfamiliar with how the pentagon works so … 🙂
It’s a start… let’s see if it keeps up.
20 percent off the top usually means about 30-40 percent at the bottom.
Sleep well, America.
I agree with Sparky. The General is pondering, “do I cut my staff and entourage or cut a few hundred troops off the bottom of my command?” The answer, sadly, is usually they like their perks, remember RHIP. Their thought is always, we can always get more boots when we need them but I have to have a staff that would make a head of state proud.
The Navy can, and should, make some serious cuts to leadership. It is obscene that solid, well-trained Petty Officers, and even Chiefs, are being denied reenlistment due to budget cuts, when there are currently more Admirals on active duty than we have warships afloat.
Just think about that. More Admirals than warships. Hell, there are more admirals on active duty than the TOTAL number of ships of all types. Yet, they gut the Petty Officers & Chiefs, whose knowledge base is what can and does provide the combat edge the fleet needs.
So yeah. I’ve written to all 4 of my Congress Critters about this, as well as the CNO and have yet to get a reply from anyone.
Sounds good on paper.
But let’s see what it looks like in reality, both in personnel cuts and co$t $avings. And where.
Today’s US Military is WAY too top-heavy, but politics is going to play a huge role in who gets cut. Better yet, why not make the Politicians cut way pack on their taxpayer-funded luxuries and perks?
30,000 people commute to the Pentagon every day. 20% is 6000 jobs. Do I really believe 6K jobs are going to just “go away” there? Not a chance. IF the cuts are approved, they will be spread around to lower HQs, and God-forbid, combat units.
Sorry. My cynical muscle seems to be in good shape today.
Were I a Pentagonian, I’d be taking down my posters of Ronald Reagan and Gadsden flags. Folks with those will be the first ones cut.
They could save a shitpot full of money if they cut every Nurse Corps, Medical Corps and Dental Corps officer that DOESN’T TAKE CARE OF PATIENTS! ONE of four dentists in the Navy is an 0-6. 80% of Navy nurses over O-3 don’t provide direct patient care. 30% of Navy doctors who earn a specialty bonus don’t see more than 100 patients per year (some as few as 1). WTF? That’s because they’re all in “leadership” positions. The Navy sends more doctors and nurses to Baylor for Healthcare Administration degrees than they send MSCs.
The beltway is thick with Medical Department “caregivers” who don’t provide any care. I can’t imagine the Air Force and Army are far behind.
If they cut a General, that means they’ll probably cut his personal staff which depending on how many stars he has includes a couple of LTCs, a MAJ, a couple CPTs, and a handful of SGTs and PVTs. This debate is going on at another blog I frequent where yesterday’s topic was Congress trying to move forward on a few dozen senior appointed positions that haven’t been filled in a year. Someone made the remark to just cut those positions since it doesn’t appear that we’ve been hurt too much by their absence. We don’t know that for sure, but it’s not a bad hypothesis to explore.