Defense Communities 360 Headlines

Public universities would be required to charge, at most, in-state tuition to all veterans regardless of whether they are residents, under legislation approved Thursday by the House Veterans’ Affairs Economic Opportunity Subcommittee. H.R. 357 — introduced by the Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) and ranking member Mike Michaud (D-Maine) — is intended to expand the educational choices available to veterans taking advantage of their benefits under the Post-9/11 GI Bill …

The House Armed Services’ Readiness Subcommittee, which is responsible for BRAC policy and other installation-related matters, will mark up its portion of the fiscal 2014 defense authorization bill on May 23, the full committee announced Thursday. The committee’s other five subcommittees will mark up their sections of the annual policy bill from May 22-23. The full committee will mark up the legislation on June 5. All of the House markups will be open and streamed live on the web …

House Appropriations Chair Harold Rogers [...]

Despite pressure on the Pentagon to squeeze further savings from its budget, officials are not contemplating further reductions in overseas troops, Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told services members at Yokota Air Base Thursday. “I don’t think you will see dramatic changes in our forward situation,” Dempsey said. “I’m an advocate of having a significant portion of the force forward-stationed in places like Europe, Japan, Korea and Australia …

In addition to citing multiple reasons why it’s not the right time to go ahead with another round of base closures, the leaders of the Senate Armed Services’ Readiness Subcommittee on Wednesday indicated that the Defense Department needs to complete the review of its European footprint now under way before Congress could approve a domestic base-closing exercise. “I think it’s very difficult for this body to even consider undertaking a domestic BRAC round without a full consideration of which bases could be consolidated and/or closed overseas, given that the interest has always [been] to have domestic capacity foremost,” said the subcommittee’s ranking member, Kelly Ayotte …

Picerne Military Housing, the East Greenwich, R.I.-based firm founded in 1998 to partner with DOD to run military housing, is now Corvias Military Living. The name change announced earlier this month reinforces the corporate re-branding that began last July when the firm launched a student housing division, Corvias Campus Living. Since its founding, the company has partnered with the Army at seven posts to build, renovate and manage more than 21,000 homes. Corvias, which manages 6,500 homes at Fort Bragg, N.C., recently announced plans to expand the pilot program of apartments it built there in 2009 for single enlisted soldiers E6 and above. The company will add 120 units to the existing 312-unit Randolph Pointe complex, reported the Fayetteville Observer.

Until a deal is reached between Democrats and Republicans over topline discretionary spending for fiscal 2014, the House may consider only a small handful of individual spending bills, including defense and military construction-veterans affairs. As things stand now, House appropriators favor a government-wide spending level of $967 billion for next year, which reflects an assumption that the spending caps under sequestration will remain in effect. Senate Democrats, on the other hand, plan to set fiscal 2014 discretionary spending at the pre-sequester level of $1.058 trillion, a $91 billion difference …

Defense officials are considering approaches beyond BRAC to reduce the department’s infrastructure costs, John Conger, acting deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment, told lawmakers Wednesday. “We’re not sitting idle waiting for BRAC; that’s why we kicked off the European round already,” he told the Senate Armed Services’ Readiness Subcommittee …

The Air Force and more than a dozen of its host communities are embracing the use of partnerships to help trim base operating costs, the service’s top installations official told the Senate Armed Services’ Readiness Subcommittee Wednesday. “Installation-community partnerships are one approach to reducing operating and service costs while enhancing and retaining quality,” Kathleen Ferguson, acting assistant secretary for installations, environment and logistics, told lawmakers …

For anyone who’s followed Congress’ response to the Obama administration’s request to hold a new base closure round in 2015, Wednesday’s hearing of the Senate Armed Services’ Readiness Subcommittee must have brought on a sense of déjà vu. Like last month’s hearing on the House side, the panel’s chairman and ranking member each voiced their opposition to a new BRAC round during their opening statements. Subcommittee Chair Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) reminded the DOD witnesses that she opposed the administration’s request last year for two rounds and declared that nothing has changed since then …