Defense Communities 360 Headlines

The Fort Bragg Regional Alliance has led a multi-pronged effort involving military and civilian healthcare providers and other agencies to meet the behavioral health needs of veterans living in an 11-county area surrounding Fort Bragg, N.C. The Alliance has focused on several key human infrastructure issues, including service members’ transition from the Army to the Veterans Affairs Department and third-party providers in the community. After first identifying gaps in the availability of healthcare and mental health services as part of the regional growth plan it completed in 2007 …

Ten states will account for a little more than half of the 680,000 DOD civilians that will be forced to take up to 11 days of unpaid leave over the last three months of the fiscal year, according to data provided by the Defense Department. Virginia would have the most workers affected, 72,000, followed by California (57,000), Texas (45,000) and Maryland (41,500), reported Bloomberg News. The rest of the top 10 are: Georgia — 32,000 civilian employees; Florida — 28,500; Alabama — 22,600; Ohio — 22,000; Oklahoma — 22,000; and Pennsylvania — 21,600. The combined economic impact of the furloughs — 11 days for most workers — in the 10 most affected states is $1.2 billion in lost wages, based on an average of $3,300 per worker. The furloughs are expected to save the Pentagon a total of $1.8 billion.

When it comes to installation issues, energy has become the most important watchword over the past decade. Each of the military services has embraced bold goals for increasing its reliance on renewable energy and is racing to achieve them. In short, the services are making news at a rapid pace as they announce new power purchase agreements, strive to meet net zero targets for their installations and enhance energy security …

The fiscal 2014 defense authorization bill that the House Armed Services Committee is scheduled to mark up next week ignores the spending caps set in current budget laws, setting up the Pentagon for a second year of across-the-board budget cuts. If Congress ultimately clears a defense authorization bill and defense spending bills that bust the spending limits, funding levels would need to be significantly trimmed through another sequester …

The Defense Department’s strategic choices and management review will miss Friday’s deadline, but should be completed in several weeks, a DOD spokesman said Thursday. The review, chaired by Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter and Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will guide the department’s fiscal 2015 budget request as well as some decisions regarding FY 2014 spending. The review was formed to provide leaders with strategic options facing the department given current fiscal realities and to take a broad look at both DOD’s current budget situation and the out-years …

The Army has sent the necessary documents to the Virginia attorney general’s office to convey 313 acres at the former Fort Monroe to the commonwealth, but the transfer won’t occur until Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) signs off on it. Since a surprise announcement two months ago, the Army has been pointing to May 28 to complete the transfer. The Army created a 60-day transition period “to make sure buildings are maintained, and to provide a smooth and orderly transition to state of Virginia’s management …

The House is expected to take up the fiscal 2014 appropriations bill for military construction and veterans affairs next week, one of the few spending measures expected to make it to the floor this year. The House Appropriations Committee approved the bill, H.R. 2216, on May 21. The committee recommended $10.0 billion for military construction and family housing programs in FY 2014, a figure which falls $1.1 billion short of the Pentagon’s request …

The leadership at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., has been the driving force behind a series of partnerships with its neighbors designed to bolster the skills of its workforce and increase the commitment to education in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) in public schools. Last month’s opening of the Army STEM Education Outreach Center at APG represents the installation leadership’s most recent initiative to further science and technology education throughout the Chesapeake Corridor …

With the Army already slated to cut its active-duty end strength by 72,000 troops to 490,000 by 2020 and the looming prospect of further personnel reductions if sequestration continues, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno warned against making the wrong bet about the nation’s future combat needs. “The thing I worry about is that in everybody’s declaration that there’s going to be no more ground wars, we need no more ground forces, that we’re going to make the Army too small …

Four Washington think tanks faced with the challenge of preparing 10-year defense budgets under sequestration included funding to carry out additional base closures despite the lack of a short-term payoff. “At some point, it begins to get even too silly for Congress not to do BRAC,” said Clark Murdock, who led the team from the Center for Strategic and International Studies …