Minus supplemental funding, cuts loom for Army
By Kelly Kennedy
Times staff writer
If Congress doesn’t pass the emergency supplemental funding bill by the end of June, the Army plans to cut recruiting and re-enlistment bonuses, lay off some civilian employees, freeze promotions and cancel nonessential travel.
“These are painful actions, but they are absolutely necessary in order to continue operations during the month of June,” Gen. Richard Cody, vice chief of staff, wrote in a May 26 memo to senior officials that outlined the cuts. “We expect the supplemental eventually will provide the Army more than $36 billion in additional resources to continue the [global war on terrorism].”
The cuts, some of which were to begin May 26, began after lawmakers missed a Memorial Day deadline to work out differences on the emergency bill. Both the Senate and the House have approved their own $100-billion versions of the bill, but issues unrelated to the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan — such as illegal immigration control and hurricane relief — have slowed the process of creating a bill that is satisfactory to both houses.
Last year, President Bush signed the Iraq emergency supplemental bill May 11. This year, lawmakers were expected to begin negotiating the bill again June 5.
“We must progressively restrict spending over the next month,” Cody wrote, while asking commanders to be prepared for sharp cuts until the bill passes. “Although we anticipate that Congress will finish the bill in June, we need to take action now to control spending in the Operation and Maintenance, Army appropriation and stay within the law.”
Cody’s memo directs that:
• Beginning May 26: No one order noncritical parts or supplies, unless the unit is deployed or has a published deployment date; postpone or cancel all nonessential travel, training and conferences, and stop shipment of goods unless necessary to support deployed or deploying forces.
• Beginning June 6: Hold civilian hiring actions and postpone summer hires until receipt of the supplemental.
• Beginning June 15: Release temporary civilian employees funded with OMA or performing OMA-funded work — including depot operations where workers perform maintenance on weapons and vehicles — and freeze contract awards and new task orders on existing contracts.
• Beginning June 26: Release service contract employees who are not mission-essential; come up with a plan to trim personnel expenditures including a cessation in recruiting, deferment of re-enlistments, cancellation of permanent change of station moves and a promotion freeze.
“The priority is to continue critical support to ongoing operations and to readiness activities for units and personnel identified for the OIF/OEF 06-08 rotation,” Cody wrote.
The services spent $3.1 billion in 2005 on recruiting and $1.5 billion on retention bonuses. The government spends $1 billion a month on the war in Afghanistan and $6 billion a month in Iraq.
An Army spokesman who confirmed the memo said the Army’s top priority is to “support the global war on terror, while remaining committed to the well-being of soldiers and their families, and to everything possible to continue providing vital services.”