ADC Recap- Washington DC April 8-10 2024

 

ADC Recap:  Economics, Resiliency, and Creative Partnerships

 

At the Defense Communities Summit in Washington DC this week—what resonated with me as I watched the various presentations was the impetus for DoD to be nimble and adaptable. Be it to an economy that is changing, climate that is changing, or budgeting realities that are changing and necessitate innovative approaches.

I attended this event on behalf of the BCC along with a delegation of elected representatives and area business leaders, and I could not help but see some of these challenges presented as being the very same issues we face in Escambia County and Pensacola. We were fortunate to have an private audience with members of Congressman Matt Gaetz’s office, as well as a face to face meeting with the Commander of Naval Installations—where we were able to express our need for funding for a hangar and NAS Pensacola for the Blue Angels as well as funding for a CDC for NAS Whiting Field.  But we were equally fortunate to attend the breakout sessions presented featuring leaders from communities around the nation that are facing similar challenges---to hear from them directly what is working and what is not working so we can (hopefully) model best practices here locally.

Conferences like this one are not simply networking events:  they are learning opportunities.

One of the first presentations I attended was a really engaging economic presentation by Dr. Anirban Basu, Economist, founder, and CEO of the Sage Policy Group. His engaging and entertaining presentation was thematically named the “Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” in reference to a 1960’s western film starring Clint Eastwood. 

Dr. Anirban Basu, 4-8-2024

But the theme was strangely fitting to our nation’s current economic circumstance. Mr. Basu started out with the “good” which is the housing market—with home prices maintaining their values, despite interest rates that have climbed. Also, a positive in the current market is the low overall unemployment rate—which has been low since the nation recovered from the 2020 COVID 19 recession. The “bad” refers to our current predicament—with inflation at an alarming rate over the last four years and consumer spending on credit at an all-time high. The “ugly”—our national debt and the uncertainty of the future. Mr. Basu, who himself professed to the crowd that he is pessimistic---finished his remarks with his prediction that the nation is headed for recession sometime in 2024.

Resiliency, Infrastructure, and the need for Installations to foster creative partnerships was the theme of the next several panel discussions. The first panel was comprised of the Commander, Naval Installations Command Vice Admiral Scott Gray, Commander, Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command, Rear Admiral Dean Vanderley, and Mr. James Balocki, Executive Director of the Marine Corps Installations Command. These gentlemen each gave opening remarks and then took questions from the audience. Admiral Gray provided a grim, candid assessment of the state of Naval facilities currently. “The majority of our facilities will be in poor or failing condition by 2027.”  He went on to elaborate on why this is the case, but years and years of deferred maintenance was identified as a main culprit. 

Vice Admiral Scott Gray speaks at ADC 24.  4-8-2024

An audience member asked how this could be, given record debt and historically high budgets for the DoD, to which Admiral Scott replied “We have too much Navy to fund. It is like a family with ten children on a constrained budget—which three kids of the ten are we going to starve?” he mused. “So, we haven’t funded these repairs and this maintenance as we needed to.”  Admiral Vanderley described the challenges with getting contracts pushed out and executed. “We did 500 1391’s [DoD planning and budgeting document for large projects] last year but only moved fifty of them” he stated. Mr. Balocki described the Marine Corps Installations’ priorities, investing in talent, right-sizing unaccompanied housing (40% currently vacant), sustaining force readiness, and maintaining resiliency. A large thrust of this panel’s priority centered around finding creative partnerships with private providers to utilize the private sector to operate and maintain inherently non-governmental functions like water systems and utilities systems—which in many instances and on many installations are failing and/or are unreliable with large numbers of unplanned outages. With respect to being in utilities, Admiral Gray was blunt: “I don’t want to be in your (utility) business.”

Resiliency—Maintaining Mission Readiness with CIRPA

Another interesting session went through the processes by which DoD and CISA (Cybersecurity Infrastructure and Security Agency) are working with state and local governments and FEMA to maintain the continuity of vital services that support the military and are national security priorities after major incidents. CIRPA (Critical Infrastructure Resilience Planning Areas) are intended to “be a force-multiplier to achieve strategic national defense and national preparedness/resilience objectives in the 2024-2027 timeframe so that critical infrastructure is ready” when the nation is faced with a crisis. “CIRPA focuses on resilience at the intersection of a subset of critical infrastructure and a subset of National Essential Functions (NEF’s) which are the primary focus of the Federal Government and Small, local, territorial, and tribal governments before, during, and after major national emergencies like pandemics, large-scale terrorist or cyber-attacks, or military conflicts abroad.”

Quality of Life for the Military:  A Big Push Needed

Another panel featured Mrs. Sharene Brown, the wife of the 21^st Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Charles Q. Brown, Jr. Mrs. Brown has been a strong advocate for the military family as a military spouse for three + decades.   She advocates for resilient communities via a program called five and thrive. This program seeks to improve quality of life for military families in five key areas:  Childcare, education, healthcare, housing, and spouse employment. These five are the biggest challenges to military families and communities as reported by surveys of this community. Creating stronger communities and focusing on these five areas will make such communities better for the military members that serve but also for the civilians in communities that face these same challenges. Red more about five and thrive here.

Houlahan and Bacon, 4-9-2024

Representative Don Bacon (R) Nebraska and Representative Chrissy Houlahan (D) Pennsylvania shared a fireside chat on their collaboration on the House Armed Services Quality of Life panel. Bacon and Houlihan, both military veterans themselves, each shared their views on the situation at hand. “Right now, 1 out of 8 military members is on [snap] food stamps—and that is unacceptable.” Said Bacon. “Our nation’s barracks are failing according to the GAO, housing allowances are insufficient, and military members are reporting difficulties finding appropriate, affordable childcare.”  He continued “2/3 of military members would NOT recommend military service for their children, and this is a problem.”  Houlahan recounted her service and the challenges she faced. “I was a young mother in the military and finding childcare was incredibly difficult where I was stationed. It became one of the reasons I left the active service.”  Both members lauded the work of their bi-partisan subcommittee, and they felt the work was continued in a civil, non-partisan manner. Bacon expressed a desire and a hope to continue the bipartisanship going forward in budget talks, which he expressed to the audience would be challenging. “70% of the Federal Budget is mandatory expenditures, 30% is discretionary—but half of the discretionary is for military expenditures. So, it is going to be challenging to fix the discrepancies and fund the military appropriately” he concluded.

There were various other presentations on ancillary topics—but the lion’s share of the conference centered on how to keep our military mission ready, correct deficiencies with insufficient budgets, while also improving critical infrastructure while making quality of life better for military members and families. Daunting tasks indeed.