Posted on Dec 14, 2014
How can we still afford all of the contract cleaning and other contracts while cutting the fighting force??
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It makes no sense to me to be taking the fighting force down to under 500k and still pay people to cut the grass, clean the offices, etc. I remember cutting grass, painting, cleaning and all of the other chores that it takes to keep facilities up.
Posted 10 y ago
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Chris when we did all that stuff we had 18 divisions and a much heavier Echelon above division footprint. At the end of the day, I think we should be cleaning our own buildings and bathrooms (ownership). Got issues with cutting grass and other tasks as red cycle has grown to near METL proportions , especially where we guard gates where we did not before. I disagree with puttering with our buildings. Having owned a DPW, we frequently incurred the long term cost when we'll meaning people modified their buildings without talking to anyone first.
The other battle you will be in is with contract law. The contractors that do cleaning and lawn care are almost always Ability One aka Javits Walker ODay Act (JWOD). I reduced one of these due to sequestration and got called by everybody and their brother about why I did it. I then could not use another contractor without risk of being sued. In the grand scheme, these contracts are a pittance. As an example, my largest tenant unit had a 3 Billion dollar budget. My budget was under 58 million to run the installation he sat on. I was a rounding error in comparison. A chunk of that was utility payments. Another chunk was payroll. 9 million was to maintain facilities for 1000 structures, 84 miles of road, two federal dams, 12 bridges, 4 access control points, numerous operational test areas, and 6500 acres. These seem like huge numbers but they are really not.
Plowing snow is another area that either DPW or a contractor need to do. The road damage costs from amateurs far out weighs any perceived savings....and you can charge a contractor for damage. Even if you FLIPL a soldier for gross negligence you will never see anything close to recovering the cost.
In the wake of sequestration those types of services were cut drastically and some of those tasks handed back to the senior commander for red cycle and BMM. That low hanging fruit is pretty much been picked.
The other battle you will be in is with contract law. The contractors that do cleaning and lawn care are almost always Ability One aka Javits Walker ODay Act (JWOD). I reduced one of these due to sequestration and got called by everybody and their brother about why I did it. I then could not use another contractor without risk of being sued. In the grand scheme, these contracts are a pittance. As an example, my largest tenant unit had a 3 Billion dollar budget. My budget was under 58 million to run the installation he sat on. I was a rounding error in comparison. A chunk of that was utility payments. Another chunk was payroll. 9 million was to maintain facilities for 1000 structures, 84 miles of road, two federal dams, 12 bridges, 4 access control points, numerous operational test areas, and 6500 acres. These seem like huge numbers but they are really not.
Plowing snow is another area that either DPW or a contractor need to do. The road damage costs from amateurs far out weighs any perceived savings....and you can charge a contractor for damage. Even if you FLIPL a soldier for gross negligence you will never see anything close to recovering the cost.
In the wake of sequestration those types of services were cut drastically and some of those tasks handed back to the senior commander for red cycle and BMM. That low hanging fruit is pretty much been picked.
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SSgt (Join to see)
Wow! I never realized it was that way now. We mowed our own grass in FMS but never in Weather.
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LTC (Join to see), I think you have a good point, but it seems like the other post on RallyPoint about the GOs/FOs getting $35K to maintain (upgrade) their quarters: https://www.rallypoint.com/answers/go-fo-entitlements
In the grand scheme of things, it's probably small potatoes. The challenge is, as LTC Jason Strickland (and you) said, that somebody has to make the tough decisions to cut things, because a lot of small potatoes are tucked away in the defense budget.
In the grand scheme of things, it's probably small potatoes. The challenge is, as LTC Jason Strickland (and you) said, that somebody has to make the tough decisions to cut things, because a lot of small potatoes are tucked away in the defense budget.
GO/FO Entitlements | RallyPoint
Hypocrisy of our General Officers/Flag Officers needs to be reeled in! They each get up to $35K to remodel their "base house" every time they move (which is about every year) and yet are so quick to cut our benefits. I didn't hear or read ONE report to have their base housing "entitlement" reduced or cut. I'm not saying that these men and woman have it easy, but when they boldly sit before our congress and report that service members can do...
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LTC (Join to see) - it doesn't make any sense. Someone has to make the hard decisions, and it seems everyone is looking to someone else to make that decision! Let's do the right thing and cut some services in order to maintain our fighting force...
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