Air Force officials want to slash amenities that aren’t making enough money to support themselves, and they’re asking airmen what they think should go.
“At the end of the day, we must be smarter about how we deliver quality programs to airmen and their families,” said Brig. Gen. Eden Murrie, director of services at Headquarters Air Force, in an email. “These are challenging times, but we have a great opportunity to shape the future of the morale, welfare and recreation programs for America’s Air Force.”
In the past few years, you have seen the slow demise of separate officers and enlisted clubs — some completely shuttered, others combined into one club for everyone. Now those cuts could go deeper, even as the Air Force calls for two new rounds of base closings starting in 2013.
That’s because the cost of maintaining the infrastructure of the Air Force’s 62 U.S. bases and 11 overseas bases is draining money that could be used for more training and flying hours, said Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz.
“We certainly do not need to expend resources, ladies and gentlemen, on infrastructure that is excess to our requirements,” Schwartz said at the Air Force Association’s annual warfare symposium in February. “If we do that, it means fewer flying hours. It means fewer child care hours. It means pressures on our investment programs that we have to sustain to deal with the fleet aging that we are all so aware of.”
Hard choices
Before bases are closed or downgraded, amenities are likely to be cut to save money. And that’s where you come in.
In September, the Air Force launched the Services Transformation Project in an effort to determine how airmen and their families use installation support services. The service asked bases for input, and the results will be reviewed this summer to help leaders decide what they can eliminate and what would benefit from more support.
Some base commanders have set up email addresses and held town hall meetings to find out what their airmen want. They’re telling airmen the time to speak up is now.
“We recognize the evolving needs of airmen and their families at installations today,” Murrie said. “As a result, we anticipate adapting our current airman and family programs portfolio to continue to provide programs that ensure combat-ready airmen and take care of their families, while at the same time leveraging municipal services and opportunities in the communities where our airmen live.”
Savings that might be found by eliminating base amenities were not included in the Air Force’s proposed 2013 budget, because the service is still gathering information, said Maj. Gen. Edward L. Bolton Jr., Air Force deputy assistant secretary for budget, at a Feb. 13 budget briefing.
But that doesn’t mean it’s not part of the conversation in the ongoing battle over the Air Force budget.
Upset by the Air Force’s plan to slash planes and people from the Air National Guard and to close an Air Reserve station in his home state, Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa., said he wants the Air Force to take a hard look at base perks.
“Some of the proposals in the Air Force’s budget request do not appear to make fiscal sense,” Casey wrote to Air Force Secretary Michael Donley on March 2. “For example, I understand that while the Air Force plans to retire 65 C-130Hs, it will continue to maintain at least 65 golf courses at bases around the world.”
Casey said in a statement to Air Force Times that he has repeatedly asked the Air Force for the complete analysis that led to the service’s proposal to close the Pittsburgh Air Reserve Station. “It appears the Air Force has proposed to close the ARS because it believes it can, not based on any serious analysis,” he said.
Taxpayer vs. airman dollars
The Air Force has more than 3,700 morale, welfare and recreation services around the world to serve the 328,871 active-duty airmen. Dependents, civilian employees and retirees also have access to the activities.
MWR services are paid for with a combination of taxpayer dollars — appropriated funds — and self-generated, nonappropriated funds that come from user fees.
To distinguish where taxpayer dollars can be used in MWR programs, Congress directed the grouping of the activities in three categories:
• Category A: 100 percent taxpayer dollars to activities that support the war-fighting mission, such as base gyms.
• Category B: At least 50 percent taxpayer dollars plus user fees for activities deemed essential to family support, such as child care centers.
• Category C: In general, these must generate enough income to support operation costs, such as golf courses.
While Air Force officials say it’s too soon to know which amenities are most at risk, those that don’t pay for themselves are more likely to be targeted, with the exception of child care centers.
And as budget pressures have intensified, the question of whether all of those services are necessary has been raised as a way to trim costs without further downsizing manpower and planes.
Even before the battle over proposed cuts in 2013, Lt. Gen. Bud Wyatt, chief of the Air National Guard, said the service would eventually need to address the infrastructure at its 1940s- and 1950s-era bases, and suggested shedding perks that are no longer needed.
“To meet these budget bogeys, we have to consider a shift in our force structure in one direction or the other,” he said at AFA’s fall conference.
‘Vote with your wallet’
Commanders at some bases aren’t waiting to see what amenities are on the chopping block.
Maj. John Ponton, commander of the 81st Force Support Squadron at Keesler Air Force Base, Miss., is one of them; he is warning his airmen to use their recreational services or risk losing them.
In a February commentary published on Keesler’s website, Ponton wrote that airman and family programs such as the golf course, outdoor recreation, youth centers, child development centers, arts and craft center, bowling alley, and wood and auto hobby shops are all under pressure to prove that they can be financially self-sustaining. Such activities enjoyed some financial support from the Air Force, but that won’t be the case in the future, he wrote.
“Traditional services functions are being scrutinized as never before, and the reality is that those activities unable to remain financially self-sustaining are in danger of being lost,” Ponton wrote.
In March, Ponton wrote another commentary that said the base’s auto shop would be open only on weekends with fewer services offered, and the wood hobby shop could close because of a lack of customers.
Ponton urged Keesler airmen to use the base’s perks, suggesting that they consider joining their officers/enlisted club, or hold group meetings at the bowling center for breakfast.
“At a time when our activities are being threatened, usage rates and profitability will be determining factors when the tough decisions are made,” he wrote. “In essence, ‘you vote with your wallet,’ and every time you spend a dollar you are making it known what facilities you wish to remain open.”
Ponton noted in March that support for the base’s golf and bowling programs — both of which receive few taxpayer dollars for operations — remain strong. The base also has received about $700,000 in funding from Air Education and Training Command to improve popular programs at the base, including repaving and extending a running path, creating a CrossFit workout area and remodeling the bowling center, according to Ponton.
At Scott Air Force Base, Ill., airmen and dependents participated in a three-hour town hall meeting about base amenities.
Col. Michael Hornitscheck, the outgoing 375th Air Mobility Wing commander at Scott, said in a commentary published on the base website that an email address had been set up to gather ideas, and that the suggestions would be incorporated into the base’s recommendations.
“We expect further guidance from the chief of staff of the Air Force on what the Air Force will consider non-negotiable, must-have services,” Hornitscheck wrote.
Competing services
Easy access to off-base activities has brought increased competition for on-base services that don’t always measure up.
Staff Sgt. Brian Waite said he would rather use the base gym at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., but it’s outdated and usually too crowded before and after work. Instead, he pays to use a gym off base.
“A lot of base gyms were built prior to the fitness movement and just weren’t designed to hold the amount of people you see in the morning or after work,” he said.
Waite said he’d use the base gym, movie theater and library more, but he prefers to use the newer, more modern amenities closer to his off-base home.
Joe Rexroad, a defense contractor and proprietor of Colorado Springs, Colo.-based Rexroad APG, a military master planning firm, said he travels to military installations worldwide and hears the same complaints — the old system of on-base services doesn’t work.
And while golf courses are nice, Rexroad said they don’t actually support the mission.
“In these trying times, I think the [Defense Department] should rethink military life. Perhaps it is time to focus only on the mission and put everything else outside the fence,” he said.
Brian Bastow, a retired chief master sergeant working at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph, has a list of things that he said should probably go. If he were doing the cutting, he’d close all on-base billeting except for students. Golf courses, bowling alleys and officers/enlisted clubs would go, too.
“Off-base hotels/motels provide a much better service and, once overhead costs are factored in, at a lower overall total cost,” he said. “Golf courses, bowling alleys and O/E clubs need to go. [They’re] very expensive and only serve a very small percent of the base population.”
Bastow said he believes the commissary, base exchange and Army and Air Force Exchange Service gas stations provide added value, but the random vitamin stores, optical shops and shipping stores don’t.
Location, location, location
What airmen choose to use on base seems to depend on where they are — bases in metropolitan areas offer more options off base, while those in remote areas or that restrict airmen to the base tend to have services that are used more.
Roberto Bilbao, who works at the Defense Contract Management Agency, said across-the-service eliminations would be impractical and that cuts should be done on a base-by-base basis.
“Bases that are located in the middle of large population centers such as March Air Reserve Base, Calif., or Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, could be better served by facilities off base,” he said in an email. “However, places like Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., which is 30 minutes from a major population center, would better benefit from on-base services.”
Frank Misaege, a civilian at Schriever Air Force Base, Colo., said there aren’t many amenities at the base near Colorado Springs, and the ones that exist aren’t very good. And while it might seem like a good idea to rely on the more extensive amenities at Peterson Air Force Base, which is just 10 miles east, he said that becomes untenable because of the harsh Colorado winters.
Senior Airman Joel Kirschenman said that as officials are looking to eliminate programs, he hopes they’ll invest some money in amenities for airmen stationed overseas. He’s based at Kunsan Air Base, South Korea, and he said airmen have little choice but to rely on whatever the Air Force provides there, which isn’t much.
Only E-7s and above can drive and because of Kunsan’s remote location, it’s impractical to walk off base, forcing airmen to rely on local taxis to go downtown, he said. Noncommissioned officers and their subordinates bunk in the same dorms, the chow hall is the only place to eat for most of the airmen, and there’s no base exchange.
“Most people didn’t volunteer to come here and they shouldn’t be punished with lackluster amenities,” he said. “This is a permanent duty station, not a deployed location. They have to stop treating it like one.”
John Cerri, who separated from the Air Force as technical sergeant nearly two years ago, said bases with large tech school populations tend to have greater use of base amenities such as clubs, community activity centers, movie theaters and the base exchange.
“The new airmen without cars, or those not allowed to leave the base, like to meet people at the club, hang out with friends at the center, watch movies for low prices and buy everything they can at the BX,” he said.
Cerri, who now works at Beale Air Force Base, Calif., said those same amenities at nontraining bases are “a giant waste.”
“The only time I have ever seen more than a few people at any of them are for commander’s calls, holiday parties, award ceremonies or some other base event,” he said.
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