Monday, August 9, 2010

JFCOM Cut

Did you see the news that Secretary Gates has decided to eliminate Joint Forces Command?

Well, the Associated Press says:

The plan was to be announced at a Pentagon press conference on Monday. It is part of a broader effort to trim $100 billion from the military's mammoth budget in the next five years, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan begin to wind down and Congress turns its attention more to domestic priorities.

The Associated Press has learned that Joint Forces Command will be eliminated and its role absorbed elsewhere within the Defense Department. Gates has long said the Pentagon needs to reduce waste and duplication.

You'll recall that General Odierno had been named to command JFCOM (his predecessor, General Mattis, moved to CENTCOM).

I've had pretty wide interaction with JFCOM and I thought they did pretty good work. Where do you all think some of those functions will end up? Is it a good thing?

4 comments:

  1. I'm curious to hear what some possibly negative "side-effects" may come from shutting down JFCOM...? Any ideas?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anon--I've been wondering about that too. I was involved with some of their consultations for various commander handbooks. I was impressed with the people they brought in, the discussions had, and the thoroughness of the work. I don't know whether the handbooks were actually distributed and used. I wonder who will do this kind of thing now. Over at AM, someone commented that a lot of the work had been done by contractors. That was my impression working with them. I also wonder, how much of this work will be absorbed by NATO. The J9 types I worked with seemed to work pretty closely with their NATO colleagues.

    So that doesn't answer your question at all. Sorry!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Best thing Bob could do is: (A TQM or bench marking survey on all DOD contractor positions: the importance / need for those positions and the contractors' performance should be on a rating scale. Just like the "Two Bob's" from the movie Office Space, all contractor's positions should be evaluated: No matter what the Contractor's position or job, their security clearance or what service they provide. No Contractor should be protected!

    Gates should keep most or all of the super-smart Contractors working at DARPA.

    A small percentage of the other's, could be brought on as full time employees: GS modest salary, (a reduced salary!) with normal health and retirement benefits. If they have already retired once from the DoD, no additional health or retirement benefits will be paid. If you've already put money into the kitty for your Thrift Saving Plan once, you can no longer be a participant in TSP, if you're already retired once from Government Service.

    TSP is the BIG KILLER! Rehiring: double- dipping employees should be avoided if at all possible. Also, individuals who are on Personal Services Contractors or Without Actual Employment drain so much money out of our current U.S. Government Budget its unbelievable. It's literally in the hundreds of trillions of dollars.

    Most LM, GD, SAIC and NG Contractors are being paid too much (over double), the amount of money they should actually receive. In fact, most of these contractor's are retired DoD employees or they are the son, daughter or spouse of an U.S. Government Employee. There's a lot of nepotism going in many of these contractor positions and it's flat out disgusting. I think a lot of the American public would be shocked if they knew how much nepotism was going on.

    What I find most interesting about this survey is in the numbers.

    http://hamptonroads.com/2010/08/what-work-carried-out-joint-forces-comma...

    The most glaring being SAIC, which was included in the Engineering and Technical Services portion of this survey, but no where else below in the figures. Why is that?

    If you look at the Rank / Company and Number of Contractor Positions in lines 2 through 10 you don't see SAIC – do you?

    Now compare the salary and number of contractors: in positions listed in lines 2 through 10 with row number One (1).

    Why are we spending over one trillion dollars on Row Number One?

    Obviously SAIC employees / contractors are receiving the highest paying salaries in the U.S. Federal Government. It would probably be prudent to evaluate and re-engineer these positions immediately, world wide! If they can't reduce SAIC contractor's salaries, the DoD should bring them on as GS, at a reduced salary or simply terminate their positions. In the end, this will save taxpayers hundreds of billions, I would guess tens of trillions of dollars.

    With 186 JIFFY-COM Contractors in row #1 and SAIC being listed as the highest paid of all those contractors, it only makes sense to trim the fat now! Our government can't afford to continue paying contractors like SAIC outrageous salaries for work that could be done for ½ the price!

    Take action now Secretary Gates! More fat trimming is required!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Best thing Bob could do is: (A TQM or bench marking survey on all DOD contractor positions: the importance / need for those positions and the contractors' performance should be on a rating scale. Just like the "Two Bob's" from the movie Office Space, all contractor's positions should be evaluated: No matter what the Contractor's position or job, their security clearance or what service they provide. No Contractor should be protected!

    Gates should keep most or all of the super-smart Contractors working at DARPA.

    A small percentage of the other's, could be brought on as full time employees: GS modest salary, (a reduced salary!) with normal health and retirement benefits. If they have already retired once from the DoD, no additional health or retirement benefits will be paid. If you've already put money into the kitty for your Thrift Saving Plan once, you can no longer be a participant in TSP, if you're already retired once from Government Service.

    TSP is the BIG KILLER! Rehiring: double- dipping employees should be avoided if at all possible. Also, individuals who are on Personal Services Contractors or Without Actual Employment drain so much money out of our current U.S. Government Budget its unbelievable. It's literally in the hundreds of trillions of dollars.

    Most LM, GD, SAIC and NG Contractors are being paid too much (over double), the amount of money they should actually receive. In fact, most of these contractor's are retired DoD employees or they are the son, daughter or spouse of an U.S. Government Employee. There's a lot of nepotism going in many of these contractor positions and it's flat out disgusting. I think a lot of the American public would be shocked if they knew how much nepotism was going on.

    What I find most interesting about this survey is in the numbers.

    The most glaring being SAIC, which was included in the Engineering and Technical Services portion of this survey, but no where else below in the figures. Why is that?

    If you look at the Rank / Company and Number of Contractor Positions in lines 2 through 10 you don't see SAIC – do you?

    Now compare the salary and number of contractors: in positions listed in lines 2 through 10 with row number One (1).

    Why are we spending over one trillion dollars on Row Number One?

    Obviously SAIC employees / contractors are receiving the highest paying salaries in the U.S. Federal Government. It would probably be prudent to evaluate and re-engineer these positions immediately, world wide! If they can't reduce SAIC contractor's salaries, the DoD should bring them on as GS, at a reduced salary or simply terminate their positions. In the end, this will save taxpayers hundreds of billions, I would guess tens of trillions of dollars.

    With 186 JIFFY-COM Contractors in row #1 and SAIC being listed as the highest paid of all those contractors, it only makes sense to trim the fat now! Our government can't afford to continue paying contractors like SAIC outrageous salaries for work that could be done for ½ the price!

    Take action now Secretary Gates! More fat trimming is required!

    ReplyDelete

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