About 1,000 civilian employees with the Arkansas National Guard, 860 workers at the Pine Bluff Arsenal and 650 employees at the Little Rock Air Force Base at Jacksonville are still waiting to hear when the Pentagon will order the start of furloughs mandated by automatic federal spending cuts.
The cuts - known as sequestration - are mandated by the Budget Control Act of 2011. The act said that if congressional leaders couldn’t develop a deficit reduction plan, automatic spending cuts, split equally between defense and non-defense programs, would be implemented.
President Barack Obama and Congress failed in their budget negotiations before a January deadline set by the act, but lawmakers approved a three-month extension. When they failed to meet the new deadline on March 1, automatic cuts were implemented.
Base commanders and military spokesmen say they’re in a waiting game until they receive further instructions from the Pentagon. Analysts predict this year’s defense budget debate over 2014 finances to be even more complicated, as the military is already making plans for automatic cuts triggered by sequestration.
In the meantime, civilian workers don’t know when their pay cuts will come.
Initially, the Department of Defense said more than 700,000 defense department employees would be furloughed for 22 days beginning in April until the 2013 fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.
On March 28, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced that the number of furlough days had been changed to 14 and they would start in June, according to the American Forces Press service, an arm of the Defense Department. The furloughs were delayed when Congress passed a defense appropriations bill in March that prevented an additional $6 billion in cuts that were ordered under sequestration from taking affect, said Mackenzie Eaglen, a defense analyst with American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in Washington D.C.
“It doesn’t change the amount of funding, but it allows [the military] to reach into different accounts,” said U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin, R-Ark., who said he supported the defense appropriations bill.
“I think it will provide a little relief,” Griffin said. “I know some folks will still have to deal with furloughs.”
Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., in a prepared statement, saidthe furloughs are a downside of sequestration.
“These across-the-board cuts do not take into account merit, effectiveness, or cost efficiency,” Pryor said. “These Arkansas men and women in uniform are vital to our state’s security and economy, and I will continue to look for ways to support them and their families.”
Eaglen said Defense Department officials are waiting to send furlough notices until they determine which employees are exempt. She said the department will work for exemptions for those deemed essential to operations and the readiness of the military.
“Any civilian who is helping to maintain or build readiness [for combat] are in theory going to be more protected under this policy, but it doesn’t mean they are going to be untouched,” Eaglen said.
Maj. Chris Heathscott said the Arkansas National Guard sent initial notices in March to those who are likely to be furloughed. He said he is waiting to send official notifications until he is sure the furloughs will happen.
“We’re still planing on it happening,” he said. “We’re still waiting on the final word.”
He said the National Guard sent notices early so it could prepare for and minimize the effects of the cuts. Employees will be furloughed one day per week, Heathscott said.
Many of the workers who will to take unpaid leave are dual-status technicians - civilian employees who also have active military status, such as officers who prepare training plans for drill weekends.
The Arkansas National Guard had an operational budget of about $503.7 million in fiscal year 2012. That does not include about $30.4 million that was allocated for construction projects. The service’s operational budget for fiscal 2013 is not known,said Maj. Matt Snead, the legislative liaison for the Arkansas National Guard.
The Arkansas Air National Guard has already cancelled flyovers at events and its 188th Fighter Wing is prepared to trade its A-10 jets for two remote-control missions as the result of budget cuts that are not part of the sequester. The guard does not know when the change in missions will occur, Heathscott said.
The defense appropriations bill that passed last month provided full fiscal year 2013 funding for the Department of Defense, according to the National Guard Bureau Office of Legislative Liaison.
“The difficult thing … is translating to see what that is going to mean for the Arkansas National Guard,” Snead said.
As the result of sequestration, the Little Rock Air Force Base in Jacksonville this year will have to cut $2 million from its base operational budget and cut additional spending by $1.8 million.
The budget cuts have already resulted in a decrease in aircrew temporary duty travel, such as travel for training, and the 19th Airlift Wing cut flying hours by 35 percent. The base began slowing down spending in January to help it meet the cuts.
The base has already curtailed minor purchases, such as furniture, and has frozen civilian hiring for all nonmission-critical positions.
Col. Brian Robinson, the airbase commander, said he is trying to make cuts “smartly” and “where it makes good military sense.”
The base is expected to reduce the number of active duty C-130s by 28 in the next few years, but at the same time the Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard are scheduled to gain C-130s.
Civilian employees at the Air Force base have not yet been given furlough notices, base spokesman Arlo Taylor said.
“This whole process has been a bit of uncertainty,” he said. “There’s anticipation, not good or bad, we just want to know.”
The furloughs are expected to affect several different jobs at the base, including child care, maintenance work on aircraft, secretaries and some civil engineers. Spokesman with the U.S. Air Force did not know how many days per week the civilian employees would be furloughed.
“We’re well aware that there are things that we can’t do because civilian employees will be gone,” he said.
Jacksonville Mayor Gary Fletcher said the city is expecting a decline in sales tax revenue once the furloughs take place, because workers earning less are going to spend less.
“If they don’t have money they aren’t going to buy, whether it be hamburgers or houses,” he said. “It’s hard to swallow being a military community here, knowing the sacrifices they make.”
In 2012, the city received $7.3 million in sales tax revenue, which goes into the general fund or for other capital projects. Fletcher said it is too early to know how big the decrease will be this year.
He said the city is looking at ways to help Little Rock Air Force Base reduce its expenses.
Pine Bluff Arsenal spokesman Cheryl Avery has been told all civilian employees at the facility would have to take unpaid leave. Workers at the arsenal perform testing, certification and training of chemical and biological defense systems. There is a hiring freeze in place and travel and overtime have been reduced, Avery said.
She said the arsenal does not know how operations will be affected.
“We really don’t know until [the furlough] actually goes in to effect,” she said. “We’re just in a wait mode like the Air Force and the rest of the DOD.”
Lockheed Martin, a security and aerospace company based in Maryland, said it is still waiting to see how sequestration will affect operations at its facility in Camden.
The company employees about 270 at the facility, which produces missile and artillery systems for the U.S. Army.
“Lockheed Martin’s employees in the Camden area remain focused on vital national security projects,” Amanda Wiley, the company’s spokesman, said in a prepared statement. “The automatic across-the-board cuts weaken virtually all government programs and operations, damage our national security, and adversely affect our industry. Until we receive specific guidance from our government customers, we cannot speculate on how significantly sequestration will impact our programs or facilities.”
Analysts say President Barack Obama’s defense budget proposal for 2014 will make it more difficult for the military to know how to operate because it will extend the budget debate later this year.
Obama proposed a defense budget of $526.6 billion, which would keep military spending relatively stable in 2014. But analysts said the proposal is written as though the automatic budget cuts ordered under sequestration would somehow be avoided before Sept. 30 when the 2013 fiscal year ends.
Business, Pages 67 on 04/21/2013