A state of uncertainty hangs over Goodfellow Air Force Base. Last week the Department of Defense (DoD) announced it was going to cut 5-8% of its civilian workforce. How this impacts Goodfellow’s workforce no one, not even the Base Commander, knows.
The initial reports that reached the Base of a mass layoff by the end of last week did not materialize. But that only leaves the employees and their families in a more stressful and uncertain situation. What will happen next? No one seems to know.
The 17th Training Wing declined to comment on how many civilian employees work on base, or will be impacted by the coming layoffs.
Defense Cuts Recommendation Due by March 13
The latest is that the DoD, along with all other agencies, have been ordered to submit a report on their plan for reductions by March 13.
How do you accomplish that in two weeks for an agency with over 600,000 employees all over the world? Not very well. But Duck Dynasty’s Jase Robertson nailed it on the head.
“If you don’t know what you’re doing you might as well do it quickly.”
Base Commanders Have Little Information and No Answers
Reports from the base are that commanders are being kept in the dark. When asked by base employees whether they should start looking for a job, all base leadership can say is, “I don’t know.”
They have not been informed how many base employees they will have to cut. The Pentagon has not, or perhaps cannot, tell commanders who, if any, employees accepted the administration’s offer to resign in return for guaranteed pay through September. Commanders also do not know what positions they will be able to replace because of the hiring freeze.
To those who want government run like a business, this is what it looks like. This is the government of Wall Street and the corporate board room. Maximize revenue to your billionaire investors by cutting people, products, and whole lines of business.
It cares nothing for the working people, and the dedicated, career public servants who make this country run.
Of course the government is not a business. It exists for different reasons and has different priorities and interests than a business.
More DOGE Emails Coming Monday
Base employees were informed Friday that they would be receiving another email Monday requiring them to list five things they have accomplished the prior week.
It will be similar to the email they received last weekend from the Office of Personnel Management, (in reality DOGE) except it will be DoD specific. The base is holding townhalls weekly which have all been packed with people desperate to find out if they will still have a job.
There have always been changes and new priorities with new administrations. That is true. Budget cuts are not new and cuts to the defense budget are not new. But this is different. What is unprecedented is the size, scope, speed and volatile nature of these haphazard pronouncements.
You can’t call them decisions because a decision requires some sort of deliberation. There is nothing deliberate about this administration.
Defense Layoffs Are Just The Tip Of The Iceberg
The layoffs would be bad enough, but there is more bad news to come.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, responding to orders from DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), has called for an eight percent reduction in the nation’s defense budget each of the next five years. Current annual defense spending is around $143.2 Billion. An eight percent cut would be around $11.5 Billion each year. Over five years that would be a cut of over $50 Billion. That is a third of the current defense budget.
While Hegseth claims to want to, “cut the fat and build the muscle, ” the administration’s actions raise legitimate concerns about the impact on military readiness.
The Pentagon published a fact sheet about readiness when it was facing a temporary shut down of the government during a budget fight. It laid out how cuts during sequestration would negatively impact military readiness. The Pentagon explained:
To manage readiness, the department must balance the supply and demand of deployable forces around the world. The readiness of an individual unit is the result of a series of time-intensive programs that train qualified people and prepare working equipment to be deployed, operate, and ultimately recovered. While individual unit readiness decreases as individuals rotate to other assignments, training qualifications expire, and equipment breaks, the goal for planners is to ensure that there is another unit that can fall in behind and ensure the United States can still respond to a crisis.
. . .
For example, it takes three to six months for the United States Air Force to regain lapsed proficiency qualifications. Should training gaps persist for a long period of time, it will take years for each service to return to a high readiness state. In the meantime, those forces will be more vulnerable should they be required to deploy.
It is hard to imagine how cuts this deep will not impact military readiness. It is also hard to believe that Goodfellow will escape unscathed over the next four or five years.
San Angelo Sleeps, Rep. Pfluger Is AWOL
San Angelo’s leaders must not be following what is going on at Goodfellow. We hope so, because the other explanation is that they do not care. Or, perhaps they are just uncertain and afraid. After all, fear seems to be the new coin of the realm.
Despite repeated requests, Congressman August Pfluger’s Office has provided no comment or information about the coming layoffs or budget cuts.
City, County and Chamber of Commerce officials have said they do not know anything about any coming layoffs at Goodfellow. That is probably true. Even the Base Commander does not know what is going on.
In years past any threat to the Base or its missions would have been considered a major emergency by local leaders and covered heavily by local media. Not anymore. It appears to either be of no interest, or squelched by the fear of raw power – keep your head down, do not oppose anything, say nothing. Sounds like Russia.
Although he has no control over the situation at the base, State Representative Drew Darby did respond to us. He said.
Goodfellow Air Force Base is a key employer of San Angelo and House District 72. It is also staffed by some of the hardest working, dedicated civilian personnel I have ever met. While I agree with the stated goal of the Trump Administration to reduce waste and improve efficiency in our federal Department of Defense, I would also urge the department to take a holistic view of communities like San Angelo and ensure that such civilian layoffs are targeted, data-driven, and not done in with broad strokes or a haphazard manner that jeopardizes our rural Texas communities. I believe it is important to listen to the service members and their families regarding their time and employment at Goodfellow Air Force Base and not indulge in mass layoffs to reduce the workforce randomly.”
We could not have said it better ourselves. It would be nice if our local Congressman would say something similar.
A huge reduction in force is coming. But the cuts to Goodfellow will likely will not end there.
City and community leadership needs to wake up and start paying attention to what is going on at the base.
Some will say we are overreacting, sensationalizing what is normal, and fear mongering. I hope we are too. But I doubt it.
1 Comment
Thank you for your editorial. As a retired civil servant these cut backs are unprecedented. I can only hope that local, state and federal servants (they were elected to be – servants to their people and the country) will step up and do their jobs. Not take away the jobs of the people they serve not only at Goodfellow but at all locations in our great country.