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.
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| 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.
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| 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 21st 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.
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| 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.
