Congress, Strategy & Policy

Cut the Pentagon’s Civilian Workforce

By Mackenzie Eaglen on April 30, 2014 at 3:31 PM

The Pentagon’s civilian workforce is too big and has been virtually untouched since defense budgets started falling four years ago. It’s grown so much, in fact, that the Air Force’s civilian workforce is just 1,400 people shy of matching the entire Air Force National Guard and Reserve combined. It’s time to shrink the Defense Department’s civilian workforce.

President Obama has set in motion a plan to cut the rolls of the uniformed forces, mostly Marines and soldiers, by about 7 percent (the Army is to be cut to as little as 420,000 to 450,000 active duty soldiers under the president’s budget request). The 2015 defense budget request continues to reduce active duty forces quickly, and continuing cuts mean that the National Guard and Reserve rolls are also falling—albeit less than the active component.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon civilian workforce has grown by some 13 percent over the same time frame. From 2001 through 2010, the only employee group in the Department of the Navy that grew was civilians—by nearly 8 percent.

This unbalanced approach to defense spending priorities reflects a broader problem within the administration of favoring one workforce over another and an inability to “rightsize” personnel to best execute the missions of the Department of Defense.

Despite several attempts, the Pentagon has yet to deliver on a holistic and transformational reform program that addresses true overhead growth. They should start with the civilian workforce. One very good reason: according to CBO calculations, the rising costs of civilian pay account for two-thirds of projected growth in operations and maintenance spending from fiscal year 2013 to 2021.

Protecting this workforce breaks with historical trends. The number of defense civilians correspondingly—and appropriately—falls when the size of the US military (and the defense budget) shrinks during a drawdown.

In the 1990s, the Pentagon civilian workforce was reduced by 38 percent. This highlights the relative modesty of recent proposals, including one by California Republican Rep. Ken Calvert, to shrink the defense civilian workforce by just 15 percent in coming years. More important, a lack of adequate matching of the uniformed and civilian workforces makes little strategic sense since they are often intrinsically linked and must be considered side-by-side when smaller budgets mean changing objectives.

Part of the problem is lack of data. Rightsizing this large bureaucracy cannot be done without forethought and planning, but DoD currently lacks many of the tools to do so effectively. The Pentagon lacks a department-wide process to match the supply and demand of labor to plan workforce requirements. While it has examined existing and future skills and competencies for 21 of its 22 mission-critical occupations, competency gap assessments have been conducted for only eight. This means that DoD knows what general skills are necessary for different professions but cannot match the supply of the workforce to the demand for individuals with particular skills. Complicating the issue even more, manpower estimate reports are generalized and not broken down into specific categories like grade, occupation, or skill-level requirements, making it difficult to create a department-wide framework.

Despite guidance that requires that missions be accomplished with the least cost, incomplete personnel data means that DoD does not currently employ the right mix of military, civilian and contractor workforces. The last of these categories is especially problematic, as the Pentagon is still years away from having a database that lists contracted services and currently does not know how many contractors perform work for the Department of Defense.

The Secretary of Defense has proposed some progress in correcting the lack of data on personnel requirements, but much more needs to be done quickly. Mr. Hagel should implement a recent proposal from the Defense Business Board to expand the 20 percent headquarters staff reduction initiative across the entire Defense Department.

Secretary Hagel should also heed lessons learned from the last defense drawdown to ensure this time is different. He must orient civilian worker reductions toward shaping the makeup of the force. Last time around, the Pentagon had poor data, over-relied on hiring freezes and failed to produce a strategy for avoiding skill imbalances and other negative effects of downsizing.

The favored solution of cutting combat forces while holding the civilian workforce steady is the wrong answer. So long as the civilian and uniformed workforce are inversely related, the bill payer will always be the latter. The Pentagon and Congress must get serious now about shrinking the almost-800,000 large Defense Department civilian workforce.

Topics: 2015 budget, civilian workforce, commentary, Defense Business Board, Mackenzie Eaglen, op-ed

Comments

Gary Church

800,000 civilians. A thousand Generals. More Admirals than ships. A single engine tactical fighter one of which costs more than the largest container ship in the world at 1300 feet and 165,000 tons. A single aircraft carrier costing 13 billion dollars.

It goes on and on. The DOD monstrosity is the enemy, not the rest of the world. People are wailing and gnashing their teeth about the Crimea while the puzzle palace is bankrupting the nation.
- Gary Church
  
  When there are twice as many cube rats pulling down six figures than 20-something infantry guys with guns it is pretty obvious to the rest of the world that the United States is ready to fall apart.
  - Hit Manfan
    
    who do you think got them those guns?
    - Gary Church
      
      The same people that give you your paycheck; the taxpayer. If you don’t want to be called a parasite then maybe you should not take credit for something you did not do.
  - OEhokie
    
    Us cube rats engineer the body armor that saves the infantry guys life. Us cube rats design the drones that kill the enemy without putting somebody’s child and spouse in danger. Us cube rats make sure the ship stays upright in rough seas after its been hit by a mine. My command has a great saying: “They fight for us. We work for them.” We take it very seriously. Don’t question our value to the warfighter or our Partriotism that’s dedicated to supporting our heroes!
    - Gary Church
      
      800,000 cube rats can’t be wrong. Wrap yourself in the flag and collect your paycheck.
      - RRBunn
        
        Gary, you not of what you speak! I worked for Navy for 14 years and in each job I saved real (millions) dollars. I also managed the overhaul and upkeep of major combatant ships. I work for the Marine Corps for 15 years doing similar work. I now have worked in OSD for the last 9 years. I am an ENGINEER, Program Manager and Contract Manager with 38 years experience and I have been ONE DEEP in my job for most of my career. I take work on leave and I work about 50 hours a week. Yes we need to be more efficient, But lets compare your car to my combat vehicle. Your car last at most 15 years of service, my combat vehicle may last over 40 years of service and it needs to be 100% to the last day! We over use contractors because congress thinks it’s a good thing, we have military in cubes because we expect them to make sure we buy and maintain what the WARFIGHTER needs. Another car analogy. if you own a 12,000 smart car or a 75,000 corvette, the upkeep is about the same.
      - Gary Church
        
        You are the one comparing cars to combat vehicles, not me.
      - gray_eagle
        
        You are the most disgruntled soldier I have ever seen. Somehow you are highly misinformed and forget we are all on the same team. You are so angry at everyone except yourself……which makes me tend to believe you fit the MO of a security risk with a weapon. I no longer think you are an unhappy soldier. I believe you are a time bomb waiting to go off. I wouldn’t want my base to be within 1000 miles of you.
  - gray_eagle
    
    Infantry work is dangerous and necessary. I honor them for their service. The educational difference between the infantry and so called “cube rats” is as different as night and day. Six figures? Nope. Your comment is laughable – you belittled yourself and don’t even know it.
    - Gary Church
      
      “The educational difference between the infantry and so called “cube rats” is as different as night and day.”
      
      Indeed, you really “honor” them with that statement. I guess you are one of those not getting six figures.
      - Jon
        
        Have to agree with you on that one Gary…I’ve been infantry, AND a “cube rat” making 6 figures, shuffling my little papers to justify my salary. I’ve got something like 6-8 degrees, and college is a check the block farce, far less demanding than most performance based military training and/or schools. Infantry was far more mentally demanding, and I think Mr. Gray Eagle is fairly ignorant of the amount of training/education involved in being even a lower ranking 11B these days.
      - gray_eagle
        
        In no way do I believe that infantry is easy. I’m tired of jerks insulting cube rats. I did my time for 24 years in the AF. Intel Ops, heavy equipment and 14 years as an industrial engineer. You excelled in your line of work and I excelled at mine. Your job was important and so was mine. And don’t give me that shuffle paperwork crap. I know what my contributions were and it had a lot to do with millions of dollars and tens of thousands of military and civilian authorizations. I did mobile aerial port field operations at Fort Bragg. I did months of winter field operations in South Korea. I’ve escorted a hundred million dollars worth of nuclear……..and you don’t have a need to know any more. I’ve now been in US Navy civil service for 14 years. This cube rat has been fully police trained, terrorist eradication trained, high level radiation worker trained and keep my quals up to date on M-9, M-16 and shotgun. I retired a senior NCO and my service left me 50% disabled and I’ll never recover. I’ve got a bachelor’s degree, two assoc. degrees, and certifications in welding, air con and auto mech – which are my hobbies. Degrees to an enlisted in the AF gets you NOTHING. It is a tie-breaker for two equal sets of records for E-9…..only. If you have 6 – 8 degrees, I cannot help but tell you to get off the stupid train. You yourself said it was a check the block farce. Why are you wasting your time on farces? And don’t even begin to tell me the Army paid for all that education……because it didn’t happen. You work towards your degree, get assistance and achieve your degree. You don’t get to start over and over and over and expect uncle sugar to pay for it. Yeah, I respect the infantry……but get down off your high horse concerning how so very intellectually difficult it is. I respect what the Army does for a living……it is their mission, but, don’t you sit there and tell me half the Army could qualify for a difficult AF specialty. I’ve been stationed with and worked around all services except Marines. I respect them a hell of a lot more than I respect you. We have the best Navy in the world….and most are pretty smart…….but they flop around on land. They are at their best at sea in those ungodly, deadly fighting ships and nuclear submarines. The triad that is well established and keeps our country free is Navy submarine nuclear weapons, AF land-based nuclear weapons and AF nuclear-capable aircraft and bombers. The Marines TAKE real-estate from anybody, with any weapons the enemy has and in any numbers of personnel and turns it over to the Army for safe keeping. Great job all. I’ve done my time. I’ve accomplished more for my country than you can see in a lifetime…….and a lot of it I did as a cube rat. So pi$$ off infantry. This cube rat doesn’t have to take your bull$hit. If you do not know anything about a subject, it is best to be quiet. Information is best communicated by people that know what they are talking about. Jerk.
      - Jon
        
        Feel better about yourself now, “jerk”? Don’t get the respect you think you deserve, “jerk”? Poor baby. Grow up, maybe you would, “jerk”. God help us, if insecure children such as yourself are making E-9.
      - Gary Church
        
        Most of the retired on active duty E-9’s I had the misfortune of coming in contact with were obnoxious immature bullies and thought their bodily waste did not smell. They kissed officers behinds so well it made me nauseous. It seems most of them went on to civil service and continued to do nothing. A few of them were decent human beings and let you know in private they thought the whole thing was a joke.
      - gray_eagle
        
        Most of the E-9s I worked around in the AF were excellent people that deserved the rank. And then, there were those that should not have been able to wear it. In the Navy an E-7 thru E-9 is GOD. It is the Navy way and has been that way for a long time. It is not a factor in my job since I am a civilian and their rank and position warrants no more respect from me than anyone else. Pi$$es them off, but I don’t care. I have a job to do……and the top three will not be an impediment for me. I don’t know how much respect a senior NCO in the Army or Marines garners. There are no military in my chain of command all the way up to the base commander. I will give the military as much respect as they give me. They seem to already recognize they have no authority over me and we get along well. There is an occasional problem, however, it is usually easy to defuse. I am a high visibility program manager and the military must be in compliance or they face censure from the base commander.
      - gray_eagle
        
        I tell it like it IS. You merely whimper and whine. You bring great discredit to whomever you work for. Remember, McDonald’s cares about their reputation, too!
      - Jay
        
        Right on target. Gotta role out their entire resume, aches and pains, online degrees from the usual diploma factories and then whine about their lack of wall plaques, medals and parades.
      - RRBunn
        
        Gray Eagle, First Thank you for your service. I could not serve due to physical disabilities, but I have put 38 years in trying to get the best for our warfighters. I never just “pushed paper”, but I did set records for fielding equipment changes to my weapons systems. We need some warfighters in office jobs to keep the GS types on track and meeting the REAL requirements.
      - gray_eagle
        
        RRBunn – thank YOU for your service! You may have never worn the uniform, but you served nonetheless. Military are not the only people serving their country and you can hold your head HIGH. The contributions of civil servants are underrated and those that do not pull their weight give us a bad name. I wore the uniform for 24 years and I am here to tell you……..there is just as much dead weight in the military ranks………that is why I am shocked to hear the military degrading civil service.
      - Gary Church
        
        Roger that.
      - Jay
        
        Great to read some honesty, thanks!
      - gray_eagle
        
        You have outed me. I am one of those six-figure guys. Not for the job, but for the investments I’ve made in myself and monetarily.
- Hit Manfan
  
  Right, we should disband the military and just give all that money to the welfare programs. Did you really just compare the cost of a big metal box with an engine in it to a tactical fighter. Are you stoned or just stupid?
  - Gary Church
    
    If you want to disband the military that would put you out of a job and on welfare. Must be sarcasm. Right.
- gray_eagle
  
  800,000 civilians? How many citizens in the US? Divide that number by 800,000. That will give you the percentile of civilians protecting your way of life compared to the overall population. You are looking at around 1 civilian per 300 – 400 people. NOT a bad deal. Oh yes……..and throw in there a few hundred million allies that depend upon us for their defense.
  - Gary Church
    
    I civilian per 300-400 people? Oh thank you for that meaningful number. What it actually means is about half of those people are paying your salary and that IS a bad deal because I have seen what the majority of civil service workers do. You are not fooling anyone.
    - gray_eagle
      
      Mr. Church…..the grade I believe you have achieved. The numbers are meaningful. The only job that doesn’t need math is hand to hand combat…unless you are measuring knives to see who has the blade length advantage X arm reach. You have no concept of mathematics and how to turn it into meaningful information. I would say….yep, it is best you stay in the infantry. Not calculating….but, loading instead. Or, pulling that “stringy thingy.” Would you rather be in civil service or be in the infantry? That’s what I thought. It is the goal of DoD to civilianize support positions to release the military to fill the military essential roles. In the Army, that would be mostly combat work. Civilians are much less expensive than the military…….and contractors even cheaper than that. DoD is doing the right thing by saving the Army support money and being a good watchdog for the taxpayer’s dollar. You fill a much needed combat role – and isn’t it nice the Army thought to hire civilians to make sure you have the support and supplies you need? Everyone does something a little different and contributes in the way the military dictates they do so. No matter what I have ever done, from packing chutes to managing tens of thousands of assigned Pacific air force manpower authorizations…….I always held my head high, did my best work, was very proud of what I did and made sure myself and my coworkers were the best, or at least thought we were the best at what we did. Shall we set you aside in your golden throne, worship you and throw rose petals at your feet? Or, are you not serving your country, as well? I know you don’t work in the post legal office……so quit judging. If I were still active, I would tell you to shut your mouth and quit embarrassing your service and it would certainly be lawful. However, alas, I am now retired from the military and work as a civilian…….so, you work for me. You work for the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of Defense and the President of the United States. All civilians.
      
      By the way. My first year in the AF, post Vietnam, I worked heavy equipment at Fort Bragg on the drop zones. Fun work. Fun driving back to the BASE…….passing by all those Army troops marching back to the POST. I used to drag the 40 foot trailer as I drove past……and checked my rear view mirror to make sure the boiling military tread tire smoke was blasting through the marching ranks. I had my tractor wide open, belching diesel and had her in 8 wheel-drive. You should have heard the cursing and seen the Lt’s giving me the finger! I prayed to God my tractor-trailer never broke down, because they would have killed me. But, I would have died laughing with a hot meal in my stomach – because the Army only had canned rations to eat. Us AF cube rats would drive into town a go to KFC for some fried chicken. LEGAL and authorized.
      
      Regards
      - Gary Church
        
        However, alas, I am now retired from
        the military and work as a civilian…….so, you work for me.
        
        No. I don’t.
      - gray_eagle
        
        The military exists for the defense of the citizens of the United States. The citizens are civilians. You carry arms in their defense and are sworn to do so. You work for the people………and the three highest ranked commanders in your chain of command are civilians. Do you know who they are?
- Scott Pettigrew
  
  Don’t feed the troll.
  - Gary Church
    
    The troll accuser is the most disgusting of all of you. What are you afraid of? Everyone knows it’s true. Hundreds of thousands of parasites sucking up tax dollars for doing nothing. Most of you are worthless. Anyone who has ever been around civil service knows what a scam it is. Wrap yourself in the flag and spew your righteous indignation all you want. No one is buying it.
    - RRBunn
      
      Gary, What kind of work do you do?
      - gray_eagle
        
        Most likely infantry support, support, support.
- gray_eagle
  
  “Doing something” about Crimea means probable war with Russia. Not in our best interest due to geography. Europe should do more to protect themselves instead of the US spending and having our military die and come home mangled. I would volunteer to fight and die for the protection of US citizens and our country any day. I’m a firm believer of our a$$ comes first and everyone else is a distant number #12. I will never choose to die for people that will not die for their own freedom.
Carlo

A mindless article. First, civilian employees cost half as much as military, so if there if a job civilians can do they should. As you cut uniformed, replace the job with non. Most of the cost savings are retirement, where a GI gets 75% after 30 years and leaves at age 48, and civilian can’t collect until age 62, and gets 40% for 40 years of work (FERS). And total pay for a E-6 is now equal to a GS-11!

Throwing around percentages is mindless. If you demand a cut Generals simply choose to hire more expensive civilian contractors. Eliminate programs! Where do these people work? DoD added A LOT of family friendly BS. One example, spouse tuition assistance. Nowhere else on Earth does such a program exist. Not only does that cost money, how many hundreds of civilians are processing the paperwork! The Marine Corps Marathon employes a dozen full-time civilians for a single yearly event!

The solution is simple. Send a confidential survey to civilian and military personnel asking help to ID positions that are unneeded or overstaffed. Good citizens would love to squeal on their sleeping co-workers, to include Colonels!
- Figanootz
  
  A survey? Talk about mindless. Who is going to say a job is unneeded or overstaffed? Not very many. They will do the opposite because doing so validates there job and helps secure it. “my job is important, you can’t cut it, we need more people!” Maybe you like to squeal, but most people don’t.
  Civilians cost half as much? you are gonna have to back that one up with some data. How many civilians work more than 40 hours per week? How many deploy and are involuntarily separated from their families for months at a time? Civilian and military jobs don’t overlap as much as people think.
  How many in the military even make it to 30 years and collect 75%? Not very many.
  - TFJ
    
    You’re right about most not making it to 30 years. An E-6 in the Air Force can only stay in 24 years. However many support jobs in the military can easily be done by civilians and cheaper too. In 2006 I retired as an E-6; with my base pay, housing and food allowance, I was making about $65k a year, but was only paying taxes on $50 since housing and food allowance is not taxable. I got a job that same year as a GS-11/Step 1, it paid $53k a year. Now with the military, we did physical training 4.5 hours a week. Whenever we or our dependents had medical/dental appointments, off we went. If we got sick, we were put on quarters. If our kid got sick, we got to stay home with them. We got down days off, family days off, most of which were combined with a federal holiday. Free medical care and dental care and 30 days of vacation a year.
    
    Now as a GS employee, I’m exempt from overtime pay, I work just as much overtime as our mils, but I have to use sick leave to go to a medical appointment, if it’s a family day I’m there or I take leave. I do get 19.5 days of vacation and I don’t deploy, but I know some civilians that do. I’m not complaining, I’ve been on both sides of the fence, but some support jobs are probably done better and cheaper by civilians.
- RRBunn
  
  CORRECTION. the staff of the Marine Corps Marathon is paid for out of what is earned or donated by the marathon. What they do for the Marine Corps is worth every penny.
- gray_eagle
  
  The military doesn’t get cut. They will continue their service until it comes time for them to change duty stations. Going to civil service or contract doesn’t cut the military personnel any. Very few military (enlisted) make it to the 30 year point. When I retired, I had 24 years and could have stayed to 26. The only rank, at that time, that could stay for 30 was an E-9…….and they could stay 33 with exclusive higher HQ permission. Only 1% of the military can be E-9………controlled and the number set by Congress. So, making it to 30 – 33. Also, the age limit for enlisted is 55. Not true for high ranking officers. I would say that most retire at 20, then 22 or 24. The pay raise at 20 is extremely low, because they know you are apt to retire. The two year tenure raises after that are better because they want you to stay in past 20 so they can take advantage of your extensive training and management experience. You cannot blame the military for benefits given by Congress. When I retired, I had 36 months of G.I. Bill education to spend……….all lost. Only a small year group of military members are allowed to request their education benefits be awarded their spouse or children. Most vets do not qualify.
Soandso

“From 2001 through 2010, the only employee group in the Department of the Navy that grew was civilians—by nearly 8 percent.”

Wow, you mean the Navy didn’t get bigger while we were fighting two land wars? Hard to imagine.
- gray_eagle
  
  Of course, land wars are manpower intensive. Keeping the sea lanes open world wide and keeping critical ocean space clear of enemy submarines is a big task for the Navy. The Navy has a worldwide mission. The more that go to sea (especially during ANY war) the more civilians it takes to do the work on bases. In fact, most military ship maintenance are almost 100% manned by civilians from bottom to top. At my base, the top civilian outranks the military commander. However, the commander is in charge. No commander at this base, in my 14 year tenure, would dare buck the civilian. The civilian runs the base……pretty much. Why? His rank and he knows what is going on – based on experience.
  - Soandso
    
    “The civilian runs the base……pretty much.”
    Which is wise. The civilians are administrators, while the commanders have widely varying skill sets. I was reading something last year proposing two career paths for military officers–one for combat and one for management/admin. The idea behind it was that sending a general off to fight a war for a few years and then bringing him back and putting him in charge of an installation was silly. He’s a warfighter, not an administrator.
    - gray_eagle
      
      Soandso – I agree with you. The AF has support officers and regular officers. The support officers fill the ranks in much needed support roles, but it is the pilots that run the show. In my day, it was the Vietnam combat pilots. They knew how to do it and get it done. They also knew how it should not be done due to excessive governmental involvement. In no way should an administration officer be in charge of fighting or combat units. No disrespect to them, because without the support officers, the pilots could not fly. Support officers can also be great installation commanders that do not have a war-fighting mission, because of their experience. I think the AF is doing it the right way – at least that was my experience in my 24 years in the AF – 7 years of which was at the HQ – level in the Pacific. Combat pilots were 4-stars on down. I respected them very much because of their time fighting in Vietnam. Many did not come back, but I had the honor of knowing and working for several previous North Vietnam prisoners of war. One had actually escaped. One was the top ace in the war. I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything.
Some Guy

So you cut the civilians and replace them with contractors with their no-bid contracts and assured profit margins. How much do you really think you’re gonna save? Or is that not the point?
- Taran Wandra
  
  You save because the contracts can be cancelled or not renewed, bright boy. The overwhelming number of contracts are competitively bid and the “profit” can be at Walmart margins, even for high-tech R&D work (I speak from personal experience). Civilian staff cost significantly more per hour than contractors, and we work harder.
  - Bright Boy
    
    You’re right, because DoD civilian jobs are like Supreme Court appointments: For life.
    - gray_eagle
      
      If the governmental work continues to exist, the jobs remain in need of a quality worker. The military is not a profit-making enterprise and is in the business of preparing for or conducting wartime operations. The art does not change, much. If you are doing your job and your job remains, there is no cause to release you from the necessary work.
      If you think civil servants are employed for life……..you should witness what I witness often. I work in security programs on a large Navy base. There is a program employing several civil servants that process workers out of civil service due to various common normal “civilian” mistakes. If you don’t have a security clearance in the Navy, you may not work civil service. If you are guilty of any one or two common citizen mistakes, like DUI, foreign involvement, financial difficulty, adultry, theft, jail, tax problems or not filing your taxes (do you hear what I am saying, politicians?)…..and the list goes on and on and on, you can lose your clearance – which means you can be immediately terminated for cause. If you neglect to self-identify yourself for any of these and many other problems, you can also be dismissed immediately. I see it happen all the time.
      - Sarcastic Boy
        
        I was being sarcastic and belittling Taran Wandra.
  - FLTransplant
    
    1. WalMart profits are in the pennies per dollar of sales–if you’ve worked for a contractor that earned only a couple of percent on a contract that reads to me as a fixed price contrct that overran and the contractor was forced to reduce his profit margin to satisfatorily accomplish the effort.
    
    2. Contracts for support services–“civilian replacement/extenders”–are rarely if ever cancelled or reduced. Contracts for specific development efforts–R&D–come and go, but the contracts for supporting the programs offices, Pentagon offices, headquarters organizations, and so on are never ended or downsized. Those are the contracts under discussion here.
  - gray_eagle
    
    Military are more expensive than civil service. Civil Service is more expensive than contracts. When you announce a cost comparison, you may only do so if the work has been identified as non-governmental essential. The contractors rarely have to comply with any governmental pay scales or regulations. So, they are cheap. However, events usually change. If the government’s contract is poorly written and you have to add something to it, you will pay a premium in increased costs. With contractors, the military loses all flexibility in use of the workers. You may only ask the contractor to to do what’s written in the contract. Military (especially) and civil service can be utilized to perform various or changing workload. When flexibility is lost, it becomes difficult for base management to get specific work done that is not covered by contract. If the contractor wins the bid, displaced civilians are offered the work by the contractor first, by law. However, they will take a cut in pay and benefits and are no longer working for the government – hence, no retirement. Most civilians will leave immediately or soon to take work elsewhere in in govt. or private industry. They are being responsible concerning their income, however, it leaves the military holding an empty bag. Due to lost civil servants, the military or other civil servants must jump in and conduct the work until the contractor takes over. It is not unusual for the contractor in-place to win future contracts since they will not have move-in costs, have stifled the competition and can now demand higher contract awards. It is not unusual for the contract to then exceed the original cost when the work was military and/or civil service. Then, you have the government bringing the work back in-house because it is cheaper. Contractors work harder because they have no job security and can be relieved of their job at the whim of their company. If the contract is not renewed, the work will have to be re-competed or brought back in-house. The government laws for how all this is performed is called A-76. I did this work oversight specifically as a military member for ten years. It is a vicious cycle. Work deemed government essential cannot be contracted out. The Air Force had the best A-76 program for years, and in hindsight, suffered the most. A large portion of work had to be brought back in-house, which was very expensive.
    - RRBunn
      
      After 38 years in Civil Service, I would have to disagree with the Civil Servant being more expensive then the contractor. NOT for the comparable job. Contracts include a great deal more in-direct costs (profit, company G&A, etc.) and this does not cover the need to have them supervised by a “YOU GUESSED IT” a civil servant. I’ve done this and it’s not trivial. A great deal of work goes into proper management of support contracts if you want you money’s worth. The real answer is to look at the processes and responsibilities and streamline the system and if needed reduce a few layers of management.
      - gray_eagle
        
        You are correct in that there must be government oversight. In cost comparisons, the decision-making process of determining the cost of doing business with civil servants is factored. I have yet to see a contractor hire the same number of personnel and pay them as much as a civil servant. Where they are advantaged is they have few government regulations to comply with versus the government doing the work. My experience is that in 60 – 75% of the cost comparisons and bids from the potential contractors, they will win. The biggest cost comparison I was in charge of encompassed 3 squadrons of 500 military and 500 civil servants. The civil servants agreed to do the work minus all military authorizaitions and still lost to a contractor. Maybe the contractors purposely underbid to get the contract, destroy the competition and can demand higher prices later. The contract process itself is not my specialty. I did three years of a school bus contract oversight, overseas. Government oversight of that large contract was myself and one foreign national administrator.
      - RRBunn
        
        I started out as a graduate EE and had work one summer with Raytheon as a cost estimator. The Navy hired me as a ship cost estimator. The method had nothing to do with how Raytheon prepared estimates, but I learned a great deal. I then went to ship maintenance and modernization and we never had sufficient funds to do all the upgrades we needed to do, then USMC to support their AAVs, All of those jobs were a great deal of fun and I was team lead and as my contractor would not hire a EE, I did my own EE work. Now I work is systems engineering, but I manage an FFRDC and $50M in support contracts. Not as much fun, but it needs to be done. Support is always what it’s about. I retire in 3 years and I will miss some of it.
      - gray_eagle
        
        RRBunn – no doubt you have made great contributions to our country, the services and yourself. I retired from the military, missed it, competed for a civil service job and came back. I also love what I do for my country and it brings me great personal satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. Ater retired, I was unhappy doing jobs I felt had no tangible meaning to my country. I had to come back. I will never leave until I am forced out or my health gives up. This is what you do and what I do. I respect you and all you have done. The infantry jerk is simply dissatisfied and has a chip on his shoulder. I don’t plan to give him one more second of my time. He doesn’t have a clue. Keep up the good work!
        Regards!
    - WisdomRules
      
      Read this – it quite disagrees with your statement. It says contractors are nearly three times as expensive as civilians.
      http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2012/11/dod-contractors-cost-nearly-3-times-more-than-dod-civilians.html
  - RC1891995
    
    But the problem with that is contractors should be filling short term gaps…until a government civilian can be put in place. If we had longer term contracts, then you could argue the contractors are easier to fire when they don’t meet regulations…but still get the longevity benefit that govt civilians are supposed to provide. The military, especially Army IT, signal, and logistics (DFAC, base ops, maintenance, etc) could NOT function without contractors.
    
    That said – I don’t think this article can carry any weight or provide any cogent argument until you account for the contractor workforce. The lack of oversight for government contracts, especially service contracts, is atrocious. Especially since most of the service contracts should/could be done by govt civilians or military (bring back the tech ranks and the expand the warrant corps!)
  - Scott Myers
    
    Contracting is a racket, you know it, I know it, everyone knows it. The contractors might not see that money, but the firm certainly does. Go take a look at the house your CEO lives in.
Public_Servant

The article fails to note that the bulk of the “growth” was simply due to “in-sourcing”: converting contractor billets to civilians (as a cost-savings measure). There has been net downsizing for the past 4 years running: just ask any department, any office in the Pentagon, except perhaps those stood up to handle the sexual harassment “crisis”.
- Scott Pettigrew
  
  I think you are on to something. This is what I have been seeing as well. Contracts eliminated and some of the positions are then converted to GS.
Gary Church

The worst rot that can infect any organization is when people work their asses off sacrificing their personal time and dealing with stressful crises regularly and see other people in skate positions making more money and getting promoted. It is the worst feeling in the world to know you are being made a fool of. I have seen it in the military and civil service and in civilian companies that hire part-timers to do most of the work while the chosen few do far less for far more. It is what makes people give up and game the system- and others see this and give up also. What’s the solution? Go to the car factories in Japan and you will see. But try and use that system- invented by an American and taught to the Japanese after world war 2- and the wailing and gnashing of teeth is epic. We want nothing to do with it. We have tried to teach it but instead end up changing it to try and make it easier to swallow and making it worthless. I am an eye witness to this.
- Hit Manfan
  
  Do you have a point?
  - Gary Church
    
    Yes. Use the systems that work and not the ones that don’t. Which means all the people doing not much of anything all day long will suddenly get very afraid of having to do something. Which is why TQM is not being implemented but instead watered down and then discarded. I saw it happen where I worked. That is what “I am an eye witness to this” means. Get the point?
    - gray_eagle
      
      TQM doesn’t work for the military. It was a feeble attempt from generals to implement stupidity into the ranks. The AF tried Quality and TQM first. It failed miserably. How do I know? I was an instructor and HATED the work. The first chance I got….I RAN away from it.
      - Gary Church
        
        Seemed to work for Toyota. It was changed for the military and that change made it fail. You were an instructor? That explains alot. Please keep running.
      - gray_eagle
        
        I didn’t believe in the work. I asked for and received a reassignment. I will not do work I don’t believe in. Why is it that you have a smart a$$ statement to share everytime you sit and type?
- Rick
  
  Demmings methods are widely taught and used where appropriate throughout DoD, but they most applicable to production processes. The font of bile you spew on here only serves to advertise your ignorance.
  - Gary Church
    
    It is not TQM that is being taught. My “font of bile” obviously doused some cube rats that do not like the truth.
    - gray_eagle
      
      And what do you say to everyone working in the Pentagon….cube rats all? White House? President?
    - Rick
      
      You’re right “TQM” or TQL to the military hasn’t been the in vogue term for best business practices for a couple of decades. We’ve moved on to LEAN/Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints, etc. But either way the experience required to run an operation effectively goes a little beyond touring a factory. BTW, if I wanted to tour a plant making “Japanese” cars I’d go to South Carolina. You’re dating yourself Gary, sit back in your armchair and relax and let us “cube rats” (mostly retired military where I sit) get the job of supporting the best military in the world done.
      - Gary Church
        
        Where you sit.
- gray_eagle
  
  Isn’t that ironic! I was stationed in Japan for eleven years. Northern……and Southern. Isn’t it ironic they copied Demming in their manufacturing process? Just like the United States? Isn’t it ironic that as a safety rep. I toured a Japanese car factory in Tokyo? Isn’t it ironic that people were hardly working and the assembly line was mostly single task or a robot doing the work? I UNDERSTAND your anger. You are not going to change the situation. If you want to move up, make it happen. Don’t stay where you are doing what you are doing! And, I’m not saying you should join the slug do-nothing club. Use your skills and education to get ahead. Be who YOU want to be. At work, you are on a team – and I assure you that your country appreciates you. After work, worry only about yourself and set your goals HIGH. It is the do-nothings in this world (and there are a lot of them) that make it easy for the few do-somethings. All you need is perseverance. My favorite word.
  
  Regards
  - Gary Church
    
    “Isn’t it ironic they copied Demming in their manufacturing process? Just like the United States?”
    
    No. Deming (at least spell his name right) taught the Japanese. We have tried to copy the Japanese. You toured a car factory.
    - gray_eagle
      
      And your points, if any, are?
- gray_eagle
  
  And you volunteered for the Army? Infantry? You had choices and made one. You were in charge of your future. Quit blaming other people for your unhappiness.
Don Bacon

DOD currently has 4,759 employment opportunities.
https://www.usajobs.gov/JobSearch/Search/GetResults?OrganizationID=DD;AF;NV;AR&ApplicantEligibility=all
JV

“Despite several attempts, the Pentagon has yet to deliver on a holistic and transformational reform program that addresses true overhead growth.
They should start with the civilian workforce. One very good reason:
according to CBO calculations, the rising costs of civilian pay account
for two-thirds of projected growth in operations and maintenance
spending from fiscal year 2013 to 2021.”

This quote gets thrown around a lot, but the reason for this is simple-DOD made a conscious effort to focus the warfighter on fighting wars, and leave maintaining facilities and installations to civilians. The military is moving in the right direction WRT O&M, but this scapegoat account can only be so beaten before it can no longer support the warfighter, and we’re getting close. Shame that this article jumps on the beaten horse.
- RRBunn
  
  I love words like HOLISTIC and TRANSFORMATIONAL. No one has defined these terms such that they lead to a solution. Why are costs so high? Because our systems must last for 50 years before replacement, must be good enough to meet any perceived threat and must make all of the congress happy as well as follow all the laws and rules that have been put in place to make sure we are not doing it incorrectly. Imagine if you will that the next car you buy had to go through the DoD’s procurement process.
OEhokie

1. “From 2001 through 2010, the only employee group in the Department of the Navy that grew was civilians—by nearly 8 percent” … “This unbalanced approach to defense spending priorities reflects a broader problem within the administration”

–> Why are you comparing changes made during the Bush years to the Obama years?

2. What is the author’s background here?

–> I design ships for the United States Navy. I am highly educated in engineering and have worked both for a defense contractor and the USN (civ). Do you have any idea what it takes to design, build, and maintain a platform that involves every engineering discipline in the most dynamic environment reachable by mankind that also has to be capable of waging war? Hate to break it to you MacKenzie, but it takes more engineers, PMs, welders, designers, pipe fitters, etc to design, build, and maintain a ship for 30 years than the number of heroes necessary to man the ships.

3. Do you know what attrition is?

–> You’re calling for a cut in the civilian workforce. Did you know that this is already happening? At my command we can only replace 1 worker for every 3 that leave. As the US wages war somewhat cyclically over the decades, there are corresponding infusions of necessary talent required to provide our heroes with the necessary tools to fight, and to win. We are already at the precipice of retirement for one of these major infusions of talent. Once this great generation of dedicated and hardworking employees leaves, I can assure you, we will be a much smaller workforce. And sadly, we will have lost decades of institutional knowledge and productivity from our senior members who are leaving in large swaths. Do yourself a favor and show them some respect.
- Jon
  
  Relax…what the article sounds like to me is cutting away dead weight in an intelligent manner. I’ve worked government as military, civilian, and as a contractor, there’s an immense amount of dead weight that could be cut, and wasted money. They could start with unnecessary paperwork. For every productive civilian worker, there’s probably 2 shuffling papers, writing/filing pointless reports no one reads, or ensuring compliance with the massive regulatory burden. They might consider actually requiring DoD to be audited IAW the law. Streamlining accounting and financial systems, instead of the roughly 3000 different ones in use.
  - Gary Church
    
    Amen brother. The people generating useless work multiply themselves like…..rats. And what you end up with is cube rat city. I have seen it. But just like you said, for every worthless bunch of paper shufflers getting fatter and older there are the select few who say the magic words and sign on that dotted line that make something actually happen.
  - gray_eagle
    
    No paperwork is done that is not required. The support function personnel numbers at my installation are miniscule in comparison to the workers turning wrenches. The program I (Navy) run is a massive amount of paperwork, security related, that is and has been a Naval requirement for 30 years. The data is used by base management and commanders to assess the effectiveness of security programs. There are not two administrators for every civilian worker. When I was in the AF, I set manpower requirements for squadrons and organizations. Administrators were few and far between. The reason is the AF eliminated the positions and required military to do their own administration. The result was more time doing paperwork, however, most all AF military became very proficient at computer and software utilization……which they can take into the civilian world later. Even the officers were and are doing their own administration.
- Jack Everett
  
  America is not the military industrial complex you want it to be.
- gray_eagle
  
  Also, as work is civilianized or contracted to free military for their duties, the civilian numbers will go up. This does not indicate overhiring. This indicates lower cost civilians are taking the place of military that are needed elsewhere. I am not in opposition to anything you have to say……just giving a little expansion. You are correct with the 1 hired for every three that are lost. I work in a five person office…….and we have lost two. The remaining three have had to absorb the unrelated work. There is TOO MUCH work and we cannot get it done in a normal duty day. We are NOT allowed overtime due to lack of funds – but everyone still wants the same output from our office. Not possible.
KRP

Start Government reduction by cutting the leaches in Congress.
Thomas Conners

The next time there is a snow storm or other problem in DC announce that all nonessential personnel need not report to work. Anyone that deems them self non essential can be eliminated. Simple as that.
FLTransplant

Do the civilian numbers in the USAF include civilian positions within the Guard and Reserve? There are many civilian positions for individuals who do the same job during the week they do during their weekend/summer drill periods to keep the organization performing. An example would be the heavily “civilianized” maintenance functions in a Guard/reserve flying unit, where the same individual performs the same maintenance as a civilian during the week and a military reservist/Guardsman on the weekend so the aircraft can fly full-time. Membership in the Guard/Reserve is a condition of employment for those individuals.
Butch Meisner

Down here at the installation level, where we actually sit in front of Soldiers and provide face-to-face support, we keep losing civilian slots every year. Meanwhile, HQDA and ACOM staffs, who generate a lot of work for their installation counterparts (recurring reports, new policy/procedure implementation, one-time taskers, etc) keep getting larger. Before DoD makes any drastic cuts in civilian personnel authorizations they should take a very close look at where the increases have occurred over the past decade and target organizations who have increased the most over that time frame.
- Jon
  
  At the installation level, people don’t realize ya’ll are having a harder and harder time just keeping the lights burning and the roofs from leaking.
  
  DoD cutting the BS paperwork and reducing the compliance burden would save immense amounts of money and allow cutting a huge number of useless slots…USA regulatory burden is equivalent to the GNP of all but the 9 largest economies in the world. That hits the military even harder, with their additional layers of bureaucracy.
  
  Thing is, DoD has no clue what is really spent where overall, and still can’t be audited IAW the law…thousands of conflicting, non-compatible accounting and management programs costing an immense amount of manhours and huge amounts of money.
Derek Sage

GS positions are just a congressional jobs program. Working on many bases and for many services over the years, you could cut the GS workforce quite a bit, without losing much if any output. Air Force Depots are the worst, with probably half the people employed, not doing anything.
- Gary Church
  
  I confirm that sighting of legions of cube rats emailing football scores to each other.
  - gray_eagle
    
    The worst emailers I have seen? Military cube rates. No morals and nothing to do. No kidding.
    - Gary Church
      
      At least they have to shave and wear a clean uniform.
      - gray_eagle
        
        You have a complaint about every male citizen in the US? The United States Constitution does not require males to shave nor wear a uniform. And you? You had better shave and wear a clean uniform. You are sworn to conform and obey the orders of those appointed over you……….lest you risk NJP under the UCMJ – or, you can request courts martial. Your call on that.
        Gary, you apparently have a proud and God-fearing family history. At what point did the genetic string go wrong?
    - Jon
      
      For a useless cube rat, you sure have a lot of contempt for the people you putatively work for. Tsk. Tsk.
      
      No real skills, afraid your sinecure job is in jeopardy if they start cutting the sick, lame and lazy?
      - gray_eagle
        
        I have no contempt for the military in the chain of command. Why should I? If you are going to take your time and answer intelligently, at least edit for spelling. Often the sick and lame are war vets, who I hold in honor far above whatever you are. I have yet to see a lazy disabled civil service war vet. Most of my chain of command are civilians with military experience. Sticks and stones, boy, sticks and stones.
Mary Anne

As a former defense contractor, government “participation” in production developed and grew to the point where quality and production records needed to be emailed daily with all quality issues and resolutions listed. To people who never spent a day in production! And this is for a consumer product, not a high tech item. They needed to do this to justify more bureaucratic jobs. Then they split jobs so that now two people do the job of one. And now there are two management teams over them instead of one. So as I see it, they grow departments, not because they cost less than military personnel, but because they need empires.
- Gary Church
  
  They breed like rats. Cube rats. You are right.
Chief P

Amazing how short sighted the writer is. We’ve done this before and it cost more money. I recommend we cut down on writers who write silly stuff without any experience or knowledge of what the heck they are writing about.
DoD Civ

My experience is with the Navy and I can tell you there was a conscious effort throughout this period to reduce the number of active military billets on staffs (mine was one of them) and put them back on ships. Generally, these military personnel were replaced with DoD civilian positions. It was a lot less costly to DoD than using active duty personnel because there is no training and PCS costs. Also, there was even a greater effort to reduce contractor positions that were in the staffs and replace them with DoD civilians. Some of these contractors had been in the same staff position for over a decade but the Navy was paying over double the cost of a DoD civilian for the same work. Contractors now do what they are designed for; that is work that has a definite beginnining, specified deliverable and an end date so they are no longer ‘permanent’ staff members. Rather than looking only and the DoD civilian growth, the statistics need to compare with the overall military, civilian and contractor positions on staffs and you will see a significant reduction. We have lots of empty buildings now that used to be filled with people on staffs. Looking at only DoD civilian manpower doesn’t provide an accurate picture of what has really happened since 2001.
- gray_eagle
  
  100% agree.
Armyavr

So when the services became more family friendly we added a lot of child care workers. When the suicide problems emerged we hired a lot of social workers and psychologists, When we needed every uniformed person to deploy to reduce the deployment turnaround we hired civilians to replace the military that were scoured out. Lots of examples like this. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. If this writer has some specific examples of functions that can be cut or are overstaffed, identify them and have the big bosses make the decisions to reduce them. Otherwise making general statements is not helpful.
Calvin38

“Mackenzie Eaglen has worked on defense issues in the U.S. Congress, both
House and Senate, and at the Pentagon in the Office of the Secretary of
Defense and on the Joint Staff.”

How convenient that she says to cut the number of DoD civilians now that she is no longer a DoD civilian. I bet she would be singing a different tune if it was her job on the line.
- Don Bacon
  
  Your job must be on the line. Too bad.
  - Calvin38
    
    No, it’s not. Of course, that wouldn’t be the first time you are completely and utterly wrong. Seems to be a habit for you, Donny.
    - Gary Church
      
      He is more often right than wrong. While you have a whole 4 comments attached to you on this forum……
      - Calvin38
        
        As opposed to your, no comments? Funny how your profile just popped up out of nowhere with no history.
        
        if being the king of internet comments actually means something to you, then you lead a pretty sad and pathetic life. Go outside and get some sunshine.
      - Gary Church
        
        I comment all the time and also get plenty of sunshine. I enjoy commenting on these issues. Sad and pathetic? No. You seem to be the one glass half full. Cheer up.
      - Gary Church
        
        I meant glass half empty. Cheer up anyway.
      - Calvin38
        
        I guess that’s why no one can see your comment history or the rest of your account. Whatever you say, cupcake. Off you go back into mommy’s basement.
Jack Everett

We don’t need to cut military troops we need to cut civilian contractors in combat zones and on Navy war ships and put military back in the military!
Gary Church

“-They needed to do this to justify more bureaucratic jobs. Then they
split jobs so that now two people do the job of one. And now there are
two management teams over them instead of one. So as I see it, they
grow departments, not because they cost less than military personnel,
but because they need empires.”

Mary Anne really hit the nail on the head. Good job!
I watched a frontline on the cell tower industry a year or so ago- really shocking. What you have is the big telecomm players insulating themselves from lawsuits with layers of contractors. Until you have the guy dangling in the air doing the work getting paid 10 dollars an hour. Civil service does the same thing by spreading the responsibility so far and wide that most of the people spend most of their time making stuff up to make it look like they are busy.

We need 20-something infantry guys with guns, not cube rats.
- Gary Church
  
  The term “cube rat” seems to have really hit a nerve. Which is why I keep using it. It’s not trolling when it is the truth.
- gray_eagle
  
  Answer my question, infantry rat.
- gray_eagle
  
  How do you come up with this nonsensical rabble?
gothicreader

Agreed. What they do make cuts through attrition or shift the worker to other areas.
David Ricca

War id a Racket. Always was, and always will be. Roman Generals hired and paid their armies, and not the State. Today we have the Pentagon Generals doing the same, and a Green Light from Congress. Game Over. Taxpayers lose.

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