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98–889 2016

[H.A.S.C. No. 114–80] 

EFFECTS OF REDUCED INFRASTRUCTURE 

AND BASE OPERATING SUPPORT 

INVESTMENTS ON AIR FORCE READINESS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JANUARY 13, 2016 
(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia, Chairman 

ROB BISHOP, Utah 

VICKY HARTZLER, Missouri 

AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia 

ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

MIKE ROGERS, Alabama 

CHRISTOPHER P. GIBSON, New York 

RICHARD B. NUGENT, Florida 

BRAD R. WENSTRUP, Ohio 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

STEVE RUSSELL, Oklahoma 

MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, Guam 

SUSAN A. DAVIS, California 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois 

SCOTT H. PETERS, California 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

BETO O’ROURKE, Texas 

RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona 

MICHAEL MILLER, Professional Staff Member 

BRIAN GARRETT, Professional Staff Member 

KATHERINE REMBER, Clerk 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Bordallo, Hon. Madeleine Z., a Delegate from Guam, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Readiness ...................................................................................... 2 

Wittman, Hon. Robert J., a Representative from Virginia, Chairman, Subcommittee on Readiness ............................................................................................. 1 

WITNESSES 

Green, Maj Gen Timothy S., USAF, Director of Civil Engineers, Deputy 

Chief of Staff for Logistics, Engineering, and Force Protection, Headquarters, U.S. Air Force; accompanied by Maj Gen Jerry D. Harris, Jr., USAF, 

Vice Commander, Air Combat Command, Langley Air Force Base, and 

Brig Gen Christopher P. Azzano, USAF, Commander, 96th Test Wing, 

Air Force Materiel Command, Eglin Air Force Base ........................................ 3 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Green, Maj Gen Timothy S. ............................................................................. 28 

Wittman, Hon. Robert J. .................................................................................. 27 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

Mr. Scott ............................................................................................................ 43 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

Ms. Bordallo ...................................................................................................... 51 

Mr. Wittman ..................................................................................................... 47 

(1) 

EFFECTS OF REDUCED INFRASTRUCTURE AND BASE 

OPERATING SUPPORT INVESTMENTS ON AIR FORCE 

READINESS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS, Washington, DC, Wednesday, January 13, 2016. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 9:03 a.m., in room 

2212, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Robert J. Wittman 

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ROBERT J. WITTMAN, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM VIRGINIA, CHAIRMAN, SUBCOMMITTEE 

ON READINESS 

Mr. WITTMAN. I call to order the House Armed Services Committee Subcommittee on Readiness. 

I want to wish everybody a good morning and thank you all for 

being here today for our Readiness hearing on the effects of reduced infrastructure and base operating support investments on 

Air Force readiness. 

This is our third hearing on this topic. The Army, the Marine 

Corps, and the Navy have previously testified on this topic, and I 

look forward to hearing the views of the Air Force today. 

This morning, we have with us Major General Timothy Green, 

U.S. Air Force, Director of Civil Engineers, Deputy Chief of Staff 

for Logistics, Engineering, and Force Protection, Headquarters, 

U.S. Air Force; Major General Jerry D. Harris, U.S. Air Force, Vice 

Commander, Air Combat Command, Langley Air Force Base in the 

great State of Virginia; Brigadier General Christopher Azzano, U.S. 

Air Force, Commander, 96th Test Wing, Air Force Materiel, Eglin 

Air Force Base, Florida. 

During the last several years, the subcommittee has largely focused on operational readiness recovery since the drawdown of 

forces in the Middle East. The Department of Defense has implemented plans to correct readiness trends, but those plans have assumed risk in infrastructure investments and reduced mission support services to redirect funds from installation programs to other 

operational and training budget priorities. 

The purpose of this hearing is to clarify the Air Force’s choices 

for infrastructure and installation services, to address funding priorities and mitigation strategies, and to gather more detail on the 

current and future impacts of these decisions on operations and 

training. 

As the witnesses testify today, I would ask you to address existing risks being taken in installation investments and impacts to op-
2 

erations and training. How will the recent 2-year budget reshape 

those risks and impacts? And what will be the level of risk and impacts over the next 10 years if budget levels remain constant or return to sequestration levels? 

I would now like to turn to our ranking member, Madeleine 

Bordallo, for any remarks that she may have. 

Thank you, Madeleine. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wittman can be found in the Appendix on page 27.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. MADELEINE Z. BORDALLO, A DELEGATE 

FROM GUAM, RANKING MEMBER, SUBCOMMITTEE ON READINESS 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for arranging this hearing. And I want to thank our witnesses for being here 

this morning. 

This hearing concludes the first series of hearings we are conducting to look into how reduced infrastructure investments affect 

the readiness of our force. However, I am sure that this discussion 

will continue. 

And, to the witnesses, again, thank you for all your service and 

for being here today. 

Over the years, this subcommittee has closely examined issues 

affecting the state of our military’s readiness and the devastating 

impacts that sequestration and unpredictable funding have had. 

Although the Air Force is the last service to be examined in this 

series of hearings, it is clear that it is far from immune to the fiscal 

challenges that have required you to balance competing requirements with limited funds. And to that end, it is in these subcommittee hearings that we are attempting to understand the impact that budget decisions regarding military infrastructure and installation support are having and will have on training and readiness. 

Now, we have heard evidence from several military installations 

that is indicative of adverse impacts to training and operations due 

to degraded infrastructure and installation support. If this is the 

case and there are indications of a broader trend, the subcommittee 

needs to understand what the impacts are and what needs to be 

done to address the situation. 

Since fiscal year 2013, when the Air Force cut facilities 

sustainment funding by nearly $1.2 billion, we have seen FSRM 

[facilities, sustainment, restoration, and modernization] funding 

consistently below the OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] 

model of 90 percent. And we will hope to get more information on 

what these figures actually are. As a result of significantly degraded infrastructure and as previous witnesses have testified, our 

full-spectrum readiness recovery timelines now extend beyond 

2020, and even that can be accomplished only with stable funding. 

I hope that today our witnesses will provide specific examples of 

how risk in the infrastructure enterprise has affected the Air Force 

readiness or could affect the readiness in the future. For example, 

we need to know if training opportunities are being lost, scaled 

down, deferred, or canceled because range safety and training functions are not adequately funded. We need to know if training en-
3 

gagements are no longer realistic or adequate to meet current operational needs because the facilities in which such training is conducted are no longer serviceable. Furthermore, we need to understand the investments in money and manpower which are lost with 

each affected exercise. 

Without fully equipped, functioning, and well-maintained installations, we cannot generate the readiness that is needed. And our 

men and women in uniform, as well as our civilian personnel, performing their duties around the country and the world deserve 

that. 

So, again, thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this hearing. This concludes the last of the hearings that we will be conducting, and I 

look forward to hearing from our witnesses. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Madeleine. 

General Green, I have been told you will be making one opening 

statement on behalf of all the witnesses, so please proceed. And as 

a reminder, your written testimony has already been made available to our members and will be part of the official record. 

General Green. 

STATEMENT OF MAJ GEN TIMOTHY S. GREEN, USAF, DIRECTOR OF CIVIL ENGINEERS, DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR 

LOGISTICS, ENGINEERING, AND FORCE PROTECTION, HEADQUARTERS, U.S. AIR FORCE; ACCOMPANIED BY MAJ GEN 

JERRY D. HARRIS, JR., USAF, VICE COMMANDER, AIR COMBAT COMMAND, LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, AND BRIG GEN 

CHRISTOPHER P. AZZANO, USAF, COMMANDER, 96TH TEST 

WING, AIR FORCE MATERIEL COMMAND, EGLIN AIR FORCE 

BASE 

General GREEN. Thank you, and good morning. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Good morning. 

General GREEN. Chairman Wittman, Ranking Member Bordallo, 

distinguished members of the subcommittee, we are honored to represent America’s airmen as we testify before you today on the effects of reduced infrastructure and base operating support investments on Air Force readiness. 

For the Air Force, air bases, both enduring and expeditionary, 

serve as foundational platforms from which we project power 

through air, space, and cyberspace. The reliability, redundancy, 

and resiliency of our installation infrastructure are keys to enabling global vigilance, global reach, and global power and, therefore, are critical to deter and defeat those who wish to do us harm. 

Recent Air Force budgets have been rooted in necessity and 

based upon our long-term strategy and vision supporting the Air 

Force’s three priorities of taking care of our people, balancing today’s readiness and tomorrow’s modernization, and making every 

dollar count to help ensure that we can field, operate, and maintain 

a credible and affordable future force. 

Ready and resilient installations are an important part of the Air 

Force vision, but it is only one part. The Air Force’s fiscal year 

2016 budget sustains current warfighting efforts and places the Air 

Force on a path toward balancing readiness with necessary modernization in order to meet evolving threats. It funds vital military 
4 

construction and aircraft beddown projects, addresses facilities 

sustainment shortfalls, and sustains critical base operating services, albeit at increased risk. 

We make every dollar count by targeting limited installation resources for requirements which have the highest consequence on 

the mission coupled with the highest probability of failure. 

Importantly, the Air Force recently stood up the Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center to provide an enterprise view of 

our installations, leverage lessons learned from across all of our 

major commands, and constantly strive to improve our core business processes in order to make the best installation investment 

decisions possible, balanced against maintaining combat effectiveness. 

Finally, a key component to help us close the funding gap is to 

leverage third-party financing where it makes sense. Our current 

third-party financing efforts are focused on areas that include 

housing and utilities privatization, energy savings performance 

contracts, and enhanced-use leases. 

Your Air Force was born of innovation. From the first time pioneers of the Army Air Corps found ways to go over and not 

through, the Air Force has embraced new ways of thinking, taken 

prudent risks to accomplish the mission, and encouraged innovation to solve hard problems. And we continue to do so today as we 

concentrate on effectively and efficiently using limited installation 

resources to ensure mission success. 

Sir, as you mentioned, joining me today is Major General J.D. 

Harris, the Vice Commander of Air Combat Command, who can 

give you a warfighter’s perspective on our infrastructure. Notably, 

he is also the former Wing Commander of the 56th Fighter Wing 

at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona and the 8th Fighter Wing at 

Kunsan Air Force Base in Korea. 

You mentioned Brigadier General Chris Azzano. He is the Test 

Wing Commander at Eglin Air Force Base today. He is also the 

former Air Base Wing Commander at Tinker Air Force Base in 

Oklahoma. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today and for 

your continued support of our total force airmen and their families. 

We look forward to your questions. 

[The prepared statement of General Green can be found in the 

Appendix on page 28.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, General Green. 

I want to thank General Azzano also for his efforts there and 

want to make sure, too, that we recognize all the great efforts that 

go on at our Air Force installations around the world. 

So I want to begin with this just to kind of get it laid out; then 

I want to make sure that we go to other members. As we look at 

the categories of facilities and the types of installations that the 

Air Force has in its inventory, can you give us a perspective about 

which ones are most important in raising and sustaining Air Force 

readiness? 

And I want to begin with General Harris to get his perspective 

as Vice Commander there at ACC [Air Combat Command] at Langley. 
5 

Give us your perspective, General Harris, as you look through 

the slate of things that you have to do there at Langley—and I 

have visited there a number of times—looking at some of the challenges that are there, whether it is hangars, whether it is, you 

know, the lighting systems on the tarmac there. Kind of give us 

your perspective on how you prioritize. Because, obviously, we are 

in situation where resources sometimes are short, so you have to 

figure out, you know, where do you prioritize. And so give us your 

perspective, as we begin, about what categories of facilities and 

types of installation services are most important. 

General HARRIS. Yes, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. 

When we look at the money that we are given and how we 

prioritize that, we have to look at the entire spectrum, as you have 

rightly pointed out. So it is the facilities and the infrastructure 

from our platforms, being our air bases, that we concentrate on 

when it comes to keeping the installation ready. 

But it is much more than that. We also need the training ranges, 

whether it is an air range over Nevada or Utah or any of the many 

States that we are flying over the top of, to our space ranges that 

are off the coast near Cape Canaveral and near Vandenberg. It is 

very important to us. 

And we have also added in the last decade the cyber training 

areas that we have to work on, which is all infrastructure-based. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Sure. 

General HARRIS. It is a balance. We have to be ready and win 

today’s fight but also modernize, prepare, and be ready in the future. 

And we are constantly making tradeoffs as best we can, using, 

as General Green had highlighted, the ‘‘what is probably going to 

fail next,’’ the highest probability, and the consequences of those 

failures. So we have some things that are just so high in consequences—in our nuclear mission, for example—we can’t let those 

fail. So we continue to put emphasis there and on our priority missions. 

And that has been our approach, sir. It is: Look at what is probably going to fail next. If we had additional resources, we would get 

into more of the maintenance to extend and get the preventative 

work done, but right now we are limited on that. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. Thank you. 

Ms. Bordallo. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General Green, we have heard from previous witnesses that fiscal constraints have required commanders at the Pentagon and in 

the field to prioritize immediate operational readiness and limited 

critical maintenance needs over less-pressing infrastructure investments but that this comes with some degree of risk. 

So, in your written testimony, you stated that, and I quote, ‘‘We 

are already seeing the effects of this risk at many Air Force installations,’’ and that ‘‘failing infrastructure has had a direct impact on 

mission capabilities.’’ 

Could you elaborate on this comment and provide specific examples of these impacts on training and operations and how the Air 

Force is trying to mitigate these impacts? 

General GREEN. Yes, ma’am. Thank you for the question. 
6 

I think I would like to tell a little bit of a longer story for this 

one that will relate many aspects, from training to operations. 

So, as General Harris mentioned, we have forces today that operate from the continental United States, so it is more than just 

training for us, although that is an important component. 

When we looked at the nuclear enterprise a few years ago and 

we began to do some analysis and some work in that area, led by 

Secretary James, we found that we had a significant underfunding 

or a significant gap in where our capabilities were and infrastructure in that area. And so, as we looked to recapitalize the nuclear 

infrastructure, a part of that was the nuclear weapons storage 

areas, and we found that we needed to recapitalize four and also 

build a new one, so five facilities. And that is going to be over a 

13-year period and at a cost of roughly $1.3 billion. 

So we can’t fix everything all at once. We have to look forward. 

What has been the impact of that? As we go forward, the committee approved and Congress appropriated funds for fiscal year 

2016 for the weapons storage facility at F.E. Warren, which is 

going to be a pathfinder for us. But when I look at Malmstrom Air 

Force Base, which I just visited last month, the missile maintenance facility there was built in 1957. And so local engineers began 

planning for new construction all the way back in 1991. We are going to be able to do that. It is a $95 million MILCON 

[military construction] that we have currently planned for fiscal 

year 2019. But in the interim, in the last 6 years, we have already 

spent $9 million trying to fix emergency problems that we have 

had and gaps, and we expect to spend another $11 million in the 

next 2 years, just to get to where we can have the next MILCON 

project. 

So what is the impact of that? We have had fire suppression systems that have released. We have had water pipes break. We have 

had floor failures. And so, when we do that in a missile maintenance facility like that, they are not able to do all the training that 

they are required to do. We suspended training and certification, 

so the certification of nuclear missile maintenance technicians, for 

6 months while we made a repair last year. When those certifications are suspended, fewer airmen—you know, as you go out of 

certification, other airmen have to come in and do that maintenance. So other airmen were working more shifts, longer hours, 

while we had this training gap. 

That, in turn, kind of gets at some third-order effects. Over the 

past 5 years, they have seen the retention of those airmen, those 

maintainers, drop from 75 percent to 20 percent. There is a myriad 

of reasons. We have a nuclear force improvement plan in place to 

do that. But, certainly, the infrastructure and the quality of your 

life, where you work, is a part of that price tag. 

So it is not just the dollars that we invest trying to get there. 

We have difficulty immediately going in and making a fix, so the 

fixes will often take years. In this case, it is going to be a 13-year 

fix, an investment plan. And there will be other things that will 

break and fail in the interim, getting to that fix, and we don’t need 

to spend millions of dollars. 

So that is kind of how these things can snowball, in effect, to go 

forward. 
7 

Ms. BORDALLO. A key element of the 2014 facilities sustainment 

and recapitalization policy memo is the requirement that the services fund sustainment programs at 90 percent or higher. 

So could you provide information on Air Force budget request as 

well at enacted levels for FSRM funding compared to the OSD 

model since 2013? And what steps is the Air Force taking to meet 

that OSD requirement? 

General GREEN. Yes, ma’am. We have prioritized within the Air 

Force the sustainment funding and the model funding at a high 

rate. So we have been at 80 percent, on average, over the years. 

I think we got up to 81 percent. 

And we managed that by taking an asset management approach 

to it. So, again, getting back to what General Harris said, rather 

than having a straight investment portfolio, we are trying to understand the condition of our facilities and make that next investment. 

So we believe 80 percent has allowed us to be successful from the 

sustainment perspective. We recognize 90 percent would be desirable, but, again, as we have balanced the risk, we have found that 

to be an acceptable alternative. 

And we have maintained funding in the sustainment of facilities 

at the expense of military construction in previous years and at the 

expense of our restoration and modernization accounts, because it 

is easier to keep good facilities good, to take care of the oil changes, 

to do the things that we need to do with them. That is a better investment, we believe, than simply trying to fix things on the other 

end all the time and neglecting the day-to-day sustainment required. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, General. 

And I will yield back. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Ms. Bordallo. 

We will now go to Mrs. Hartzler. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, gentlemen. I have Whiteman Air Force Base in 

my district, so I very much appreciate all the good work that the 

Air Force does and I understand the challenges. Of course, we have 

the nuclear mission there. 

And I appreciate the investments that have been made and also 

your comments about how you have been creative and innovative 

and trying to find ways to make the most with the amount of 

money that you have had. 

I appreciated the example that you gave of some of the shortfalls. 

The purpose of the hearing is to determine if there has been a decrease in our readiness due to the lack of investment at the installations and how it has affected our missions. 

So, I guess, first of all, do you have any other specific examples? 

So as we are advocating for more money for our military to help 

meet some of these shortfalls, do you have anything else that you 

could share besides the fire suppression systems that released and 

some of those things? 

Mr. GREEN. Yes, ma’am. Since I have talked a lot, I will see if 

General Azzano has anything he would like to add. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Okay. Great. 

General AZZANO. Yes, ma’am. Thank you for the question. 
8 

I think probably the best way for me to start is to give a little 

bit of framework for some of the challenges that we have been facing. I have been an installation commander now for 21⁄2 years, first 

at Tinker Air Force Base and now at Eglin Air Force Base. 

Tinker Air Force Base is a large and diverse installation that is 

absolutely critical to our ability to wield national power. There are 

about 460 buildings there, a workforce of 26,000 people. There are 

seven large military units, wing-level units. Three of those are flying units, and that includes one command and control unit that is 

Air Force and a nuclear command and control unit that is United 

States Navy. 

Seventy-five percent of the 460 facilities at Tinker are more than 

40 years old. We broke ground in Tinker back in 1941, just before 

World War II took off. 

Eglin Air Force Base is the largest installation in the Department of Defense. There are over 3,200 buildings across 724 square 

miles of that installation. Twenty one percent of those buildings 

are greater than 40 years old. There is a $10.8 billion infrastructure value of Eglin Air Force Base, a 20,000-strong workforce, 8 

wings. And we conduct daily combat operations, research and development [R&D], test and training out of Eglin Air Force Base. 

Eglin also—in fact, Eglin is a pre-World War II installation. 

Some of the challenges we are seeing as this infrastructure ages 

are probably best relayed through some stories of things that we 

have seen over the last few years that have gone wrong with our 

installations. 

In early 2014, a fire suppression system at an Eglin hangar inadvertently activated, dumping 17 feet of foam across a 90,000- 

square-foot hangar. Five aircraft were impacted, and the hangar 

was unusable for 83 days as a result of cleanup and an investigation that followed. 

The cause of this inadvertent activation was an insufficient heating in the hangar in cold temperatures. Now, as a workaround, we 

must drain the foam suppression system anytime that there are 

forecasted to be very cold temperatures down at Eglin, which, fortunately, is not that often, although we had that happen again this 

week. 

By draining that system, it reduces our ability to protect the assets inside the hangar. We still have a water system that can be 

used in the event of a fire, but the foam suppression system is 

much more effective. 

In the year that that system was built, we had a choice. We 

could afford to include, to install a fire suppression system that included foam, or we could afford to upgrade the heating system for 

the hangar. We could not afford to do both. So we chose the item 

that we thought was going to have greater payback over the long 

term, which was the suppression system. 

Over at Tinker Air Force Base, a little over a year ago, in the 

middle of the night, one of the electrical substations that powers 

the largest Air Force depot facility achieved meltdown temperatures in the middle of the night. And I am told that you could see 

the meltdown from space, it was so bright. 

As a result, we lost power to the largest building, Building 3001, 

at Tinker Air Force Base and many other buildings along the east 
9 

side of the complex. That resulted in the loss of three shifts of work 

at the depot complex, which cost the American taxpayer $1 million 

in productivity for those three shifts. And it also resulted in at 

least a day slip in the depot-level maintenance and repair on dozens of aircraft that were residing in the building at that time. 

The total cost to bring in and replace the new substation was 

about $6 million. And the interesting side story to that, we had a 

contractor whose expertise is in power generation come in and take 

a look and do an assessment of the substation, and the parts of the 

substation were so old that the contractor didn’t even recognize 

them. So here is somebody whose expertise is in power generation; 

they did not recognize some of the infrastructure that we were 

using to support that very critical facility. 

Another example from Tinker Air Force Base. We had a water 

main break under a B–52 that was in depot-level maintenance and 

repair. It lifted a large concrete slab that came very close to the 

airplane. It did not damage the airplane, but it could have. And, 

certainly, if there had been workers there at the time, it could have 

resulted in injury to the workers. 

When the civil engineers at Tinker were trying to turn off the 

water supply and then troubleshoot, it became clear that the systems, the water systems, underneath the hangars were so old that 

they didn’t even have schematics to determine where the pipes 

were running. 

So those are three stories about some of the challenges we are 

facing with World War II-era infrastructure. I have others also. 

Mrs. HARTZLER. Thank you very much. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mrs. Hartzler. 

We will now go to Mr. Courtney. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you to the witnesses. 

General, checking back home with the Air Guard in Connecticut, 

obviously, you know, at your level and at the frontline level, everyone has been struggling with the budget instability over the last 

2 or 3 years. The feedback we were getting is that the sustainment/ 

repair/modernization funds was kind of a place that they could sort 

of mitigate some of the sequestration challenges that are out there. 

And I think that is kind of what you were referring to earlier. 

I just want to make sure—and maybe not. But maybe you could 

just sort of help me sort of understand whether that is still going 

to be a strategy that folks are going to have to continue to look towards, or, you know, is the omnibus going to create, hopefully, 

maybe a different type of stability in terms of going forward. 

General GREEN. Yes, sir. So thanks for the question. 

When I was alluding to how we use sustainment dollars, we essentially have three accounts or three sets of funds that we try to 

focus our efforts on: military construction, which are line-item appropriated; FSRM—and we have restoration and modernization, 

which we think of as repair. It is about putting the new tow bar 

on your vehicle, it is about improving it and taking care of things. 

And then we have sustainment dollars, which are more your oil 

changes and taking care of things consistently. 
10 

So we have chosen to take less risk in sustainment over time and 

more risk in military construction and restoration and modernization. 

But we have not migrated dollars out of the FSRM account to 

support other activities within the Air Force. We still use the dollars for which they were appropriated by Congress. We treat that 

as a floor. And we make sure that at the end of the fiscal year we 

have used every dollar as you intended with the appropriation for 

our sustainment and modernization. 

Mr. COURTNEY. So the ink is barely dry on the omnibus that just 

passed. I mean, clearly, that was preferable to having a CR [continuing resolution] for 2016. And, hopefully, with the lifting of the 

caps in the budget resolution, the 2-year budget resolution, can you 

just sort of share with us whether or not—again, the omnibus and, 

you know, the hoped-for relief from the sequestration, you know, 

what does that mean in terms of your job compared to about a year 

or so ago? 

General GREEN. Well, it really means the ability to plan, which 

is very, very important for us. As we try to balance the risk, we 

try to build a good plan within the budget that we expect to be able 

to have, balance the risk across it. 

And then the things that emerge late, such as an incident when 

the—if you think about the Tinker hangar, when the water came 

up through there—we will go ahead and take care of those, and it 

just takes money away from whatever we had planned. 

But if we don’t have a number with which we can plan against, 

then everything we are doing, work and rework and rework, trying 

to adjust ourselves to the number. So the omnibus is very important for us to be able to plan. It doesn’t always necessarily give us 

additional funding, but the planning is significant for us. 

Mr. COURTNEY. And if we had had a CR for the rest of the year, 

I mean, using, I guess, 2015 as the top line, what would have been 

the—would that have aggravated your situation, as opposed to 

passing an omnibus? 

General GREEN. So if we had multiple continuing resolutions, it 

gives us challenges, where we have to put in place bridge contracts. 

We have obligation timelines. We have to obligate 80 percent of our 

funds by a certain point in the year, and the money comes late. So 

I would say the omnibus certainly helps us avoid those kinds of activities. 

For example, we may have to not award a contract for the full 

period of the year, if we were going to work something for an entire 

year, because we didn’t have the funding for the year. So our contracting officers have to go in and adjust the performance period, 

have a set of negotiations. And then, when we get the next CR, we 

have to go through and have the same thing. We negotiate with a 

contractor for the next performance period. 

So continuing resolutions provide a lot of difficulty for us across 

the entire portfolio. It can be a range contract where we are doing 

range support. It is not just infrastructure. It is across every area 

where we have contracting and we have dollars. 

So we move the dollars around to account for funding, say, for 

the first quarter or the first 2 months, and then we have the same 

challenge again the next 2 months. So it is a lot of additional work. 
11 

General HARRIS. Sir, if you didn’t mind, I would add to that. 

Part of the time, if it delays for a continuing resolution, then we 

end up with a period of time where some of the workers we could 

be using are laid idle while they are waiting on that information. 

And at a place such as Guam, where we have a fairly small population, if they are all working hard as they can for 6 months but 

then we have to wait again for this 1 October, this new fiscal year, 

we can actually reduce the time that we can get the work done that 

we are working on. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Well, thank you. That is a very helpful perspective, that, you know, CR versus omnibus, it is not just a sort of parlor game in Washington; it has real-life consequences. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

General AZZANO. Sir, would it be possible to add one other 

thought to that? 

Mr. WITTMAN. Sure. Go ahead. 

General AZZANO. So we have a very busy and relatively limited 

engineering staff at each of our large installations, and the challenge is to divide their time between designing and fixing issues as 

they arise, real-time, or planning for projects that have programmed funding. And with the uncertainty of funding that is 

brought about by the continuing resolution, the challenge for me is, 

where do I allocate that manpower. 

So if at the start of the year there is a lot of uncertainty, and 

then I have to have 80 percent of my funds obligated such that I 

have 20 percent at the end of the year to expend, what we find frequently is that prioritizing manpower on the most important 

projects becomes a challenge, because we often don’t know whether 

we are going to get the funding or when we will get the funding. 

And what we would hate to have happen is projects that are the 

highest priority that don’t get funded because they don’t have the 

adequate design work in time. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Very good. Thank you, Mr. Courtney. 

Mr. Gibson. 

Mr. GIBSON. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate the witnesses. Thank you for your leadership, for 

your sacrifices, and for those of your family, as well. 

I want to pick up on something that Representative Bordallo 

mentioned in her opening remarks. And, particularly, I want to 

focus in on joint readiness, with the emphasis on the Global Response Force [GRF]. You know, to me, I think it is really important 

that we fully restore this capability. I think it plays a key role in 

peace through strength. And, obviously, the Air Force is a major 

player in this—electronic warfare, fighters, bombers, air mobility, 

including delivering airborne forces, and then any kind of resupply 

operation. 

And so, as we look at base operations and even some impacts on 

SRM [sustainment, restoration, and maintenance] and MILCON, 

please assess for me where you think the reduction in funding has 

impacted your ability to support joint readiness, including the 

Global Response Force. If you need to do that for the record, that 

is fine too. 
12 

But then I am interested not only in that but also your assessment on where we are today, given the realities of where we are 

today, your assessment, and your ability to support joint training 

and joint operations. 

General HARRIS. Well, sir, thank you for that opportunity to talk 

about some of the best units that we have in our military, such as 

the 82nd, and what they do for that airborne force. 

We have made choices as we are getting smaller as an Air Force 

and pulling back or consolidating some of our forces. You see that 

in Europe. We are also doing that in the continental U.S.—for example, at Pope. 

One of the things that have we made our commitment to is that 

we will not step away from the joint training, and that is one of 

our highest priorities. And as our Secretary continues to say, it is 

the airmen first. They are the ones who are getting the work done, 

with everything that we are putting on their shoulders. 

Their approach to it is to make sure that, if the unit that is local 

or has just changed can’t support it, then, as you see at Pope, C– 

17s fly in and do much of that heavy lift from that joint readiness 

and training, just the way we would do it in combat. So we do 

share across, and we have a fantastic organization in our airlift 

community that takes care of that. 

Part of that joint readiness is to make sure that we are meeting 

that mission team. So, for example, when we put in a major repair 

to a runway like at Andrews, because we are reduced on the 

amount of money that we have, we will probably fix the runway 

and then any other emergency items that pop up, but we won’t do 

everything that probably should be done on that routine maintenance, such as looking at the airfield drainage. And we have several of our runways that have truly been flooded or have additional 

damage to them because we didn’t have the funds to get to fixing 

things that were built in the 1950s or designed in the 1950s and 

installed at that time that may or may not be suitable for the conditions that we see now. 

Mr. GIBSON. Thank you for that, General. 

The next area has to do with impacts on retention. I appreciate 

the quality of our Air Force. That is certainly something we share, 

to make sure that that is sustained going forward. 

So I am interested in your assessments on impacts on housing, 

child development, MWR [Morale, Welfare, and Recreation], and 

the panoply of support network that we have and whether or not 

you have any data that the impacts on the budget has impacted retention. 

General GREEN. Thank you. I will start, and then I will probably 

hand it to Chris to see if he has anything to add from the installation perspective. 

But I think how we manage the quality of life in the force is 

much like we described earlier with the Global Response Force. We 

focus our resources on those priorities that are most important to 

the mission and also then to our airmen. 

And so, if you think from a services perspective, you mention 

child development centers and MWR facilities. We are investing in 

those things that we believe are most important more than those 

that are less important. 
13 

So, for example, over the past few years, with our child development centers, working with the Family Child Care and School Age 

programs and the off-base partners, we have increased the number 

and the availability of child care for our men and women and our 

airmen by 41 percent from fiscal year 2010 to 2014. We have expanded operating hours through the expanded child-care program 

over the same time period. 

If we look at dining facilities, we have expanded the operations 

through our what we call FTI, Food Transformation Initiative, 

where we have partnered—and if you think of a traditional dining 

hall at an installation, that is operated about 56 hours per week. 

But by linking them together with Transformation and having a 

vendor come in and help us, they not only operate the dining hall 

but they may operate the bowling alley, they may operate the club. 

And then our airmen, who used to only be able to take their meal 

card to that dining hall, can go to any of those facilities. And so 

their hours of operation greatly expand. 

And then the last one there is fitness centers. We believe that 

is core. 

And so we focus on the core. We have maintained the services 

in those core areas to a higher degree, but we have also closed 40 

MWR facilities in fiscal year 2014. And so there are activities that 

we have sacrificed in order to ensure that we preserve those things 

that are most important. 

And that gets to the quality of life. Yes, when we make those 

other sacrifices and those changes, it affects our quality of life, but, 

again, we are focused on those things that provide the greatest return for our airmen on their quality of life overall. 

So it is on the margins. I don’t think I have data today that 

would suggest what quality-of-life factors are driving a retention 

issue, because I think we are doing a pretty good job of trying to 

focus on those areas that are the greatest impact. 

General Azzano. 

General AZZANO. Congressman Gibson, you have hit on a very 

important question there, and I appreciate that. 

We are constantly struggling with the balance between executing 

the mission, between joint readiness, and quality of life for our airmen and our soldiers and our sailors and their families. 

I have a list, an integrated priority list, that encompasses the inputs of all the commanders on Eglin Air Force Base. And there are 

dozens of items that need work, that need funding, that are either 

related to infrastructure, to test and training, to research and development, to technology development, or to quality-of-life issues. 

And, as you might imagine, when we go through and we prioritize 

and the cut line for those items ends up being much higher on the 

list than we would like, frequently the quality-of-life items do not 

make the cut. 

Some examples of that are we have needed a new fitness center 

at Eglin Air Force Base for a number of years. Tinker is the same 

way. And that has gone unfunded. A way that we have helped mitigate that is by going to 24/7 access, where with the proper authentication you can actually enter the building and make use of the 

fitness centers. 
14 

The challenge there, of course, is upkeep of the facility, and there 

is some risk to people using the facilities in the middle of the night. 

If they have an issue, then there may not be anybody there to help 

them. We try to work around that with proper training and instruction, and so far we have been very successful. 

Other quality-of-life issues: HVAC [heating, ventilation, and air 

conditioning] systems that are old. Very humid environment in 

Florida. Lots of people in the middle of the summer working in 

very warm and damp buildings, despite our best efforts. 

We actually closed a dormitory a number of years ago, 280 people, because of an HVAC system that was so old we couldn’t find 

parts for it. There was mold growing in the facility. And, for a time, 

we had asked the airmen that were living there to use a diluted 

bleach solution and wipe down their walls regularly to prevent the 

mold from growing. 

So absolutely unacceptable conditions, and we ended up closing 

that. But what that meant was that 288 airmen had to then go and 

live on the economy. These are 288 airmen that were given to us 

by their mothers and fathers to care for them, to train them, to 

help them with those first few years of transition into the military 

life, which can be difficult for many people, and we were unable to 

fulfill that. It also cost us extra money because we had to issue 

BAH [Base Allowance for Housing] to the airmen that normally 

would have lived in the dorms. So by no means a situation we want 

to be in. 

The replacement dormitory for that is scheduled to be funded 

sometime in the next 5 years. So a high-priority item that has still 

not made the cut list over the last few years. 

We need a new training and education center. 

And believe it or not, we have even prioritized to the point where 

roof repairs, roof leaks, are either structural and could cause potential damage to equipment and cause a threat to people who are 

working in the facilities or they are cosmetic. So there are roof 

leaks that we are aware of that we have not fixed. And to be working in an environment where you have to put buckets under the 

drips certainly is not helping retention. 

Mr. GIBSON. And I know my time has expired here. 

Gentlemen, thank you for that testimony. I have listened and 

taken good notes here. I know it is not easy. You are balancing 

risk, and you are making hard decisions. And I appreciate this testimony here today, which will, I think, be helpful to us. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Gibson. 

I want to remind our witnesses, in fairness to all of our members 

here that would like to ask questions, if you will keep up with the 

clock, and when it turns red, if you will look for the closest opportunity to wrap up your questions. 

We will provide a second opportunity for our panelists here to 

ask questions, so you will be able to get back to that, so don’t be 

worried about missing that opportunity. 

Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, gentlemen, thank you for being here. 
15 

I represent Robins Air Force Base and Moody Air Force Base in 

Georgia. And I have several friends who are contractors, and one 

of the things that I hope we are able to deal with is this issue of 

forcing things to the lowest bid short-term and that we will soon 

find a way to give you a way to accept the bid that is the best value 

long-term instead of what meets a short-term parameter. 

But I want to speak to you specifically about the Air Force, in 

2014, said they would shift away from the longstanding model of 

decentralized control and execution for providing installation support and that you were going to stand up a new command. What 

progress has been made in standing up the Installation and Mission Support Center? 

General GREEN. Yes, sir. Thank you. 

Great progress. We already have—it is up, and it is operational. 

We call it the initial operation capability. And so they have gone 

through and they have taken responsibility for prioritizing our 

projects, for example, our programs. They are running all of our 

service programs for the Air Force. The engineering programs are 

the same way. 

And so they are already learning lessons from across the enterprise and able to apply that, to the benefit of the entire Air Force. 

So I think they are well on their way and they are making good 

decisions today. They are setting their processes, but I am very 

comfortable in saying it is accomplishing already the things that 

we intended for it to do. 

Mr. SCOTT. So the goal was a reduction in duplication and efficiencies. Are you seeing any cost savings yet from the new system? 

General GREEN. So I don’t know that we can say there is cost 

savings at the installation impacts, because those are budget-driven decisions. So I would say that the impact, in that case, is really 

about the effectiveness or the appropriateness of the decisions that 

they are making within the construct of the AFIMSC [Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center]. 

We certainly have significantly reduced the number of personnel 

who are performing this work across the Air Force, and so roughly 

about 920 folks fewer are doing that work today than they were 

previously. And, again, it gets to that decentralized versus centralized look that we are able to make now with technology and the 

tools that we have in place today that we didn’t before. 

Mr. SCOTT. Okay. 

So with regard to working capital fund organizations like the depots, do you have enough flexibility in the sustainment and restoration and modernization accounts and the base operations for 

programs, or is there a need for more flexibility there? 

General GREEN. I believe we have enough flexibility today. I have 

not gone back and looked at the depot funding specifically in light 

of your question, so I can do that. But, today, nobody has come to 

suggest to us, at my level at least, that they need more flexibility. 

We try to make that balance. So I will check on that. 

[The information referred to can be found in the Appendix on 

page 43.] 

Mr. SCOTT. And the conditions at the depots—General, you spoke 

a lot about the conditions at one of the depots. The best depot in 

the United States is Robins. Could you just speak to what efforts 
16 

are being made to improve the facilities at the depots across the 

country? 

General AZZANO. Yes, sir. I am happy to give you my perspective 

on that. 

Obviously, the best thing to do for our depots would be to completely recapitalize the infrastructure. And when we have a new 

platform, like the KC–46, that requires a significant amount of 

space and manpower to sustain that weapons system over its lifecycle, that is exactly what we are doing. We are devoting MILCON 

funds to that program to make that happen. 

For our aging fleet, for our B–1s, B–52s, and some of the other 

older aircraft, F–15s, those are being maintained, sustained, many 

of them, in World War II-era facilities. Those facilities are large. 

The recapitalization bill for something like that would be tremendous. 

So what we find ourselves frequently doing is doing the best preventive maintenance we can and then waiting for things to break. 

And when I say ‘‘waiting,’’ I mean, expecting that they are going 

to break while we are busy doing preventive maintenance and 

working some of the sustainment projects that have actually been 

funded. We try to get ahead in the design and the management of 

some of our sustainment projects in the event there is fallout 

money. 

So I think we are doing a good job there, but the long-term challenge is having that 911 capability, if you will—we had a water 

main break, we had a roof cave in—that we can address real-time, 

and at the same time looking ahead to very large and complicated 

facilities and saying, where do we look next? What is the next most 

important project? Where will we spend the next dollar that we 

have? And we have a fairly robust priority process that we go 

through to achieve that. 

Mr. SCOTT. Well, gentlemen, thank you for your service. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Mr. Scott. 

General Azzano, I want to go back to the response you gave a 

couple of questions ago and ask, from your perspective—I understand that at the corporate Air Force level there are directives on 

infrastructure and on installation support decisions. And we know 

that those filter down and then, from that standpoint, there are decisions that are made at the base level. And you talked about how 

those decisions are made, where the shortfalls are, and how you try 

to cobble together both resources and decisions to do that. 

Give me your perspective on how it affects the mission support 

and operations there at Eglin. And then if you can provide some 

additional examples. You started on some, with the barracks there, 

with some of the older hangars, with water mains, those kinds of 

things. But give us your perspective on how those facility problems 

that may not be in the direct funding stream or may only get funded if there is an emergency affect overall operational readiness. 

Because what you are doing is listing them. When you are saying, these things are tiered and we are going to do those in order, 

a number of those at the bottom of the list are not going to be funded anytime soon. The other way they jump to the top of the list 

is for there to be an emergency. Obviously, at some point, as that 

list grows, the impact on readiness continues to grow. 
17 

Give me your perspective. And you laid out some examples, but 

I would like to hear maybe a few more that are down on the list 

that may not even come to fruition because they don’t reach an 

emergency situation. But give us your perspective about how that 

affects operational readiness. 

General AZZANO. Chairman Wittman, thank you for the question. 

You really hit on one of my key day-to-day challenges and concerns, and that is that at some point the aging infrastructure will 

begin to fail at a rate that, whereas today I can handle the emergency requirements that support day-to-day mission operations, 

they are going to fail to a rate at some point where I will no longer 

be able to do that. 

My sense as an installation commander now for 21⁄2 years is we 

are not there yet, but I would be—I guess I am unwilling to hazard 

a guess at this point, but we are not that far off. And that is based 

on, I guess, a gut feeling of watching things over the last 2 years 

at a very close perspective of the risk that we are taking in some 

key areas. 

There are a number of base operations support examples of 

things that fell below the cut line. One of them, a number of years 

ago we canceled our grounds maintenance contract at Eglin Air 

Force Base. And we canceled that because the $3 million contract, 

we needed it for a higher priority, to sustain a facility that was in 

bad need of repairs. 

As a result, to offset that, we went and got some help from the 

local Federal penitentiary, so we have inmates come in and do the 

grounds work now. It is not the same quality as the contract would 

have been. They require us to provide supervision. These are the 

same people that we have in very limited numbers that we could 

be applying to other tasks. And so it has taken its toll on us. 

Another example that concerns me that really illustrates the balance between risk that we take in each of our investments is force 

protection. So I have a very large installation, and there are a lot 

of ways to gain access to that installation. In the aftermath of 

Chattanooga and the events in Paris, we are obviously concerned 

about anti-terrorism and our ability to protect the people that live 

and work there. 

We have a very long list of items that could benefit from focused 

anti-terrorism funding. And as a result, I, as the installation commander, am taking risk. What is more important today; is it more 

important to repair that airfield or more important to install a serpentine entryway into one of my gates? So those are the kinds of 

questions that I am grappling with. 

Another key investment area that I hadn’t mentioned yet is information technology infrastructure. So we have a lot of aging network architecture. We have a lot of old copper wire for our communication systems. In 2017, the existing communication infrastructure will reach its useful life. The plan is for us to transition over 

to Voice over Internet Protocol. We have not achieved the level of 

investment that we need yet to make that happen by 2017, by the 

time it ages out. So ongoing challenges there. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Gotcha. Very good. Thanks for that perspective. 

General Green, I want to maybe take a step up, as far as from 

the base level to the overall Air Force perspective, on where we are 
18 

in restoring full-spectrum readiness and the association that it has 

with infrastructure and installations and facilities support. 

Give me your perspective based on where we are right now. We 

now have the Bipartisan Budget Agreement of 2015, which lays out 

for both 2015 and 2016 the top-line spending elements, so there is 

some certainty there about what that number is. Give me your 

thoughts about how that affects the rate of ascendence in getting 

back to full-spectrum readiness. 

So if you can give us, you know, a date about when you expect 

to get it back to full-spectrum readiness, the impact that this new 

budget agreement has on being able to put in place or either keep 

status quo, accelerate, or possibly in some instances maybe even 

losing ground on your infrastructure projects and your facilities 

and installation support as it relates to the effort to establish fullspectrum readiness, or re-establish it. 

General GREEN. Thank you. 

So, from a facility perspective, what we believe is that the current agreement and certainly the fiscal year 2016 budget has really 

arrested the decline that we were experiencing. The challenge will 

be sustained investment over time. As I alluded to earlier, we are 

not going to get well in a year or in 2 years. We can’t afford it, we 

couldn’t execute it. And so it is about an ability to project sustained 

investment over a longer period of time. 

For us on the installation side of the business, to be comfortable 

that we are delivering the capabilities that we need so that we are 

not waiting for things to break unexpectedly, we believe we need 

about a consistent investment that would equal to about 2 percent 

of our plant replacement value. So if the plant replacement is $100 

million, then about 2 percent of that a year should go into our 

FSRM accounts, our maintenance and repair, and our MILCON 

and share that. 

And we think a sustained investment like that over a period of 

years could help put us back on our feet so that we weren’t worried 

about the unexpected outages and the breakages that we have 

heard described today. 

So that is what it would take for us. A 2-year budget deal gives 

me some hope, but I would say right now we are just arresting— 

I do not see us in an ascent phase and improving ourselves from 

an infrastructure perspective. 

And, again, as you noted, the infrastructure is only one aspect 

of our readiness. And so the Air Force certainly trains against all 

components of readiness to deliver capability. 

And, General Harris, I don’t know if you want to address any of 

those others or—— 

Mr. WITTMAN. General Harris, I will ask you, too, for you to 

share that perspective, but let me ask, too, not just the 2-year 

budget perspective and the risks associated with what you are 

going through to re-establish readiness, but give us a longer-term 

perspective too, because after 2016 we are back into the realm of 

sequester. 

So give me your perspective not only of where we are with the 

risks that you will assume under a 2-year budget plan that is 

known, but, if you would, if you will give us some conjecture about 

two scenarios past that: level funding or back to sequester. 
19 

General HARRIS. Well, thank you, sir, for the opportunity to respond to that. 

Readiness is complicated, and we use several different levers to 

make sure that we have the right balance of readiness. Because if 

we fully funded the flying hours associated with that, that would 

come out of our other modernization or installation accounts. So we 

are reducing each one of those to try and maximize that capability 

so that we get at what the Secretary and the Chief—is their second 

priority, is balancing readiness now versus modernization in the future. 

Having that steady plan allows our engineers and our teams to 

go out and budget everything that we can for the next year and a 

half, 2 years, at the levels that we have and draw that cut line, 

having been in that Air Force cooperation that drew that. We took 

from the installation commanders; we prioritized that. We are now 

able to do that with one voice through IMSC, discussed earlier. 

And that is a benefit for us because then it looks across all portfolios, not just mine and the combat, but it covers transportation, 

the cyber, the space, all of the domains that we work in. And that 

is a huge help for us that will come to fruition over the next several 

years. 

Having that, we draw that line, but then the emergencies that 

you hear about—the flooding at Laughlin that closes the base for 

3 days—there are second- and third-order effects for that, but then 

we have to unfund something that was above the line and go put 

the money in that position. So that always changes our plan, but 

being able to plan at least gives us a starting point and allows us 

to talk about the priorities that are important for that readiness. 

Once we have those portions of the conditions set, we also need 

to slow down on our deployment and our combat operations tempo. 

And right now the Air Force, we are not being asked today do less; 

we are being asked to go more, to push harder, to make sure that 

our enemy knows that not only are they not able to continue attacking but their time on this Earth is going to be reduced with 

the way we are taking the fight to them. That has impacts, then, 

on our weapons systems sustainment and our ability to acquire the 

munitions for that. Again, that is all balanced on that funding. 

But once the conditions are set, deployment ratio, probably about 

a 1-to-4 OPSTEMPO [operations tempo], we have the ranges, the 

infrastructure that we need, with the threats, the emitters. We 

have the talent pool in our maintenance to turn and make sure 

that the equipment is ready to go. Then we start building that 8- 

to 10-year readiness that is going to take us a long time, that 8 

to 10 years. 

If any one of those aren’t met, we are still holding that 8 to 10 

years further down the road, so instead of being ready by 2023, if 

it is a delay of another year or two or, as you say, sir, if we go back 

to sequestration after the 2-year budget deal that we have, it will 

further delay that readiness picture. 

Mr. WITTMAN. You are on track to re-establish full-spectrum 

readiness in 2023. Does the Bipartisan Budget Agreement of 2015 

make any impact on that? Does it move that number to the left? 

Or does it just help you sustain the course to 2023? 
20 

General HARRIS. I would say, sir, at the PB-level [President’s 

budget] funding, 2023 is within sight. But, again, we are not being 

asked to do less. So, right now, if you were to look at our warfighters and the installations, we still have so many airmen downrange; they are not available for the training, and that is a part 

of that full-spectrum readiness. 

So we are on track, but we are right on that razor’s edge. If we 

are funded less or we don’t get relief from the deployments doing 

our Nation’s business, then it will push past 2023. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Gotcha. Thank you. I understand the world gets 

a vote in that too. 

Ms. Bordallo. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I have just a single question here for General Green. 

In your testimony, you mentioned several examples of leveraging 

partnerships with local communities to address infrastructure 

needs at the Air Force installations. 

Now, how are you determining priorities, deciding which projects 

are appropriate for funding through these partnerships and whether they are truly in the government’s best interest to accept, operate, and maintain? Can you describe the controls that are in place 

so that the Air Force’s requirements are being effectively met? 

General GREEN. Yes, ma’am. Thank you for that question. 

So who decides really depends on the level or the scope of the 

partnership with the community. So there are many agreements 

that the communities are able to make a partnership or have an 

agreement with the installation that they can execute at a local 

level, and so there would not be an Air Force enterprise look at 

that. 

In other cases, where there are legal authorities involved, we are 

evolving toward prioritizing those kinds of efforts as well. But, initially, as we began exploring this, our wing commanders really had 

a lot of flexibility to work with our staff so we could learn what 

the art of the possible was. And now that we have experienced 

that, we recognize we have a better understanding and we need to 

begin prioritizing because we have limited staff. And so I think you 

will see over the next few years we will begin prioritizing those efforts. 

One example would be, at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in 

North Carolina, there is a partnership agreement that is being developed right now. I am not sure if it has been finally signed. But 

the community will use some installation land, some land that belongs to Seymour Johnson, and they will build a multi-field sports 

complex of eight fields, do different things. 

And so the community will get to use that the majority of the 

time, the installation will get to use it for their rec [recreation] 

leagues, their youth leagues, some fitness training in the mornings, 

and some weekend tournaments. But that is about a $6 million to 

$8 million investment that the community will make on Air Force 

property that the Air Force will then be able to take advantage of 

those services. So it is a real win-win. 

Other people are involved because it is an enhanced-use lease. 

There are authorities and agreements that have to be put in place. 

But as we get to those larger-scale agreements, I think we will 
21 

begin prioritizing those that today we are not. Today, we are learning what the art of the possible is, and then we are going forward 

with the prioritization. 

Other agreements can be done locally. They can reach an agreement to have our medical personnel trained in the local emergency 

room and get some time down there. That does not require the Air 

Force to devote resources or identify all those requirements outside. 

So it just depends on the scope and the scale as to who will be 

making some of those decisions, ma’am. 

Ms. BORDALLO. So, because of less funding now, are the partnership agreements—are there more now or less or—— 

General GREEN. There is certainly a great deal of interest now. 

And so, at many of our wings, I would even say today probably 

most of our wings, there is an effort, there are groups that are 

working between the installation and the local community to identify those areas where we can have partnerships and then spread 

those around. 

So I believe it is the majority of our installations today that have 

a partnership program, and they are exploring those opportunities. 

Ms. BORDALLO. In your opinion, General, would you say they are 

successful in most cases, or all cases, or—— 

General GREEN. Yes, ma’am, I think they are successful, because 

the process today that we are asking the community and the wing 

leadership to go through is to define the art of the possible and understand our limits. And so we want to go in with a pretty big aperture to see and think, but before we reach those specific agreements, we want to make sure they are win-win. 

So I think by the time we are getting to the nuts and bolts, I 

think we really are having more win-win scenarios. And, again, 

they are not all big dollar, but I think we have more success than 

we have failures, because we will identify the obstacles along the 

way. 

Ms. BORDALLO. And I feel it is good public relations when you 

are working with the community. I support this. 

So I want to thank you very much for your testimonies. 

And, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Thank you, Ms. Bordallo. 

And, General Green, General Harris, General Azzano, thank you 

so much for your testimony today, and we appreciate your perspective on this. 

This is very important as go into this year’s National Defense 

Authorization Act [NDAA] to make sure that we address readiness 

from an infrastructure, installations, and facilities support perspective, because many times we get somewhat myopic in how we see 

the element of readiness. And we understand that, in order to generate readiness, you have to have that foundation to create that 

readiness. So to be able to get your perspective and make sure we 

reflect that in this year’s NDAA is going to be very important. 

So, again, we thank you for your time today. 

And, with that, our subcommittee is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 10:03 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

A P P E N D I X 

JANUARY 13, 2016 

PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD 

JANUARY 13, 2016 

(27) 
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29 
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31 
32 
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34 
35 
36 
37 
38 
39 
40 
WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING 

THE HEARING 

JANUARY 13, 2016 

(43) 

RESPONSE TO QUESTION SUBMITTED BY MR. SCOTT 

General GREEN. Commanders at Air Force depots have sufficient flexibility within 

the Working Capital Fund (WCF) to fund needed Facility Sustainment, Restoration, 

and Modernization (FSRM). However, requirements have increased significantly. 

One contributing factor is the difficulty to obtain needed current mission Military 

Construction (MILCON) funding as the Air Force has been forced to prioritize force 

readiness and modernization and take risks in installation support. Budgets for 

FSRM continue to rise as the facilities get older and the depots develop long range 

plans to provide flexible and responsive facilities. Increases in FSRM spending can 

increase the WCF rates and drive greater costs to the warfighter. [See page 15.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING 

JANUARY 13, 2016 

(47) 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WITTMAN 

Mr. WITTMAN. To what extent do the reported readiness levels of installations 

take into consideration the condition of their facilities? Are there other metrics or 

data points used to assess the effect of facility condition on readiness? 

General GREEN. Installation and mission commanders report and track facility 

issues that affect mission readiness. This reporting ensures attention and appropriate resource prioritization to correct deficiencies. However, formal AF readiness 

metrics do not include facility condition as a measure. The primary metric used for 

facility condition, the Facility Condition Index, assesses the remaining service life 

of facilities, but not readiness impact. Faced with constrained resources and an environment where budget decisions involve picking the best of bad choices, we aim to 

make every dollar count by targeting limited installations resources toward requirements which have the highest consequence to the mission coupled with the highest 

probability of infrastructure failure. 

Mr. WITTMAN. How has the Air Force attempted to quantify the risks they are 

taking by perennially reducing their investments in base support services and infrastructure, if at all? 

General GREEN. The Air Force uses AFCOLS (Air Force Common Output Level 

Standards) as the system to determine levels of service such as law enforcement and 

physical security protection; fire and emergency services; installation food services 

and Morale, Welfare and Recreation and other Sub Activity Group Z funded services 

reported in the PB J-Books. AFCOLS helps us understand risk, informs Commanders of the appropriate levels of service needed to support their mission, and 

provides a method from which to make resource decisions. For facilities, the Air 

Force plans to use Facility Condition assessments to assess risk and inform prioritization of funding; we are on track to meet OSD’s Sep 2017 deadline for Facilities, 

Airfield Pavements, and Rail Systems; however, other Pavements and Utilities won’t 

be done until Sep 2019. 

The Air Force prioritizes infrastructure and facility investment requirements 

based on risk within an asset management construct. The program evaluates facility 

investment requirements based on risk to mission and personnel by examining the 

probability and consequence of failure of an asset or system (e.g. facility, pavements, 

utility, etc.) Our methodology incorporates mission assurance criteria including a 

mission dependency index and Commander mission-criticality input. The prioritization process ensures the Air Force allocates resources to the right assets, at the 

right time, which reduces long-term deferred maintenance costs, allows limited resources to be applied to the highest mission priorities and retains visibility on deferred priorities for potential future funding. The Air Force continues to mature 

risk-based investment within a constrained resource environment, targeting mission 

assurance and posturing resilient installations. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Given consecutive years of funding below the targeted sustainment 

model and recapitalization requirements, how is funding prioritized in terms of 

which facility investments, both in terms of FSRM and MILCON, will be supported 

at a given installation? How have those decisions impacted military readiness and 

operation or training requirements? 

General GREEN. The Air Force (AF) creates an Integrated Priority List of facility 

requirements which begin by using scoring models for both the MILCON and O&M 

programs. The models capture Commanders’ prioritization, combined with facility 

condition and mission dependency to focus the score on probability and consequence 

of failure. Air Force personnel then evaluate the lists using military judgement to 

make any final adjustments to what will be funded based upon our understanding 

of mission requirements. The AF treats many areas of BOS as a must pay bill and 

takes risk where it can with decreased levels of service; however, we expect an increase in FSRM costs over time due to reduced levels of service. 

The Air Force’s Base Operations Support and Facilities Investment strategy is 

aligned with the Defense Strategic Guidance, as well as the OSD Fiscal Guidance. 

In spite of fiscal pressures, we requested, and Congress authorized and appropriated 

$2.9 billion in Facilities, Sustainment, Restoration and Modernization (FSRM), $1.6 

billion in Military Construction (MILCON), and $6.1 billion in Base Operating Sup-
48 

port (BOS) funding for FY 2016. This level of resourcing slowly buys down the $22.6 

billion in backlogged maintenance, repair and recapitalization MILCON requirements exacerbated by Sequestration in 2013, keeps Facilities Sustainment at 81 

percent of projected needs in FY2016 and provides the minimum municipal-type 

services covered under BOS which is necessary to keep our installations running 

like the small cities they are. 

Mr. WITTMAN. What is the impact of funding sustainment, restoration and modernization and military construction below requirements over the long term? What 

level of investment and over what period of time do you think will be necessary to 

fully restore the readiness of our installations and facilities? 

General GREEN. When we defer recapitalization of existing facilities, we don’t just 

delay the bill, we bring on increased maintenance and sustainment costs, until we 

eventually pay the deferred recapitalization bill—often at a higher cost. The delay 

increases costs in the long run. A return to investment at 2% of plant replacement 

value across the maintenance and repair portfolio, as baselined with leading industries, will over time stem the deterioration of infrastructure. The length of time to 

recover will depend upon how many years underfunding continues. 

Mr. WITTMAN. What impact has the substantial reduction in MILCON spending 

had on the ability of installations to support readiness and serve as power-projection 

platforms? How has significant new mission beddown requirements impacted ability 

to recapitalize existing mission facilities? 

General GREEN. The reduction in MILCON spending has forced the Air Force to 

prioritize and fund more mission critical projects, to include many new mission beddown projects, at the expense of projects with less immediate mission impact and 

support facilities. By prioritizing in this manner, there is less impact on readiness 

and power projection and more impact on quality of life and support facilities. The 

impact of large new mission programs has been to essentially replace current mission MILCON projects. When I think of the available funding for the MILCON program as a pie plate, the new mission pieces simply fill space on the pie plate that 

could have been used for current mission. 

The Air Force has experienced mission impacts when unexpected facility failures 

occurred during the period in which the Air Force accepted ‘‘risk.’’ For example, as 

the Air Force delayed recapitalizing the weapon storage and missile maintenance 

area at Malmstrom Air Force Base currently projected in the FY19 MILCON program, the impacts have been significant. In the last 5 years day-to-day Operations 

and Maintenance and labor costs have increased 280 percent and, due to security 

system inadequacies, an additional 3,000 man-hours of human surveillance are required annually. Recent flooding and fire suppression failures have also cancelled 

training and certification operations for six months. Consequently, munitions experts are expected to work extra shifts, likely contributing to a drop in retention 

from 75 percent to 20 percent in the last 5 years. While engineers continued to implement Band-Aid fixes, the acceptance of risk toward infrastructure reached a tipping point, and the failing facility negatively affected nuclear mission readiness and 

resulted in tens of millions of dollars in repair costs in order to continue operations. 

Last year one of the choices the Air Force made was to request the Cape Canaveral Range Communications Facility that is critical to NRO, NASA and commercial 

launches on the Eastern Range and eliminates a single point of failure. The project 

was authorized and appropriated in the FY16 budget. Only time will tell if the new 

project is completed before a failure occurs such as we have experienced at the 

Minot Combat Arms Facility and the Malmstrom Missile Maintenance Facility. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Why has the Air Force slowed their implementation of Utilities Privatization efforts? Does the Air Force plan to continue the program on their remaining utility systems? If not, why? 

General GREEN. The Air Force slowed implementation of Utilities Privatization 

(UP) efforts as a result of the effects of constrained funding anticipated from the 

Budget Control Act and budget sequestration in FY13. Good-faith contracting practices required us to refrain from starting new UP solicitations until funding could 

be sourced and identified in specific appropriations. Our foresight proved correct; we 

would have been issuing new requests for proposal without sufficient resources to 

fund contracts. The Air Force plans to continue the program and steps have been 

taken to source and restore funding for the UP program across the FYDP. This will 

permit us ensure proper analysis of each project’s business case and privatize each 

system where it makes sense to do so. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Are there any legislative gaps or impediments that hinder implementation of Utilities Privatization? Does the Air Force need specific funding authority for UP contracts or other changes in authorities to allow program implementation to be more efficient? 
49 

General GREEN. As currently written, 10 USC § 2688 provides useful tools for 

Utilities Privatization (UP). One area that could streamline and enhance Energy Resiliency efforts is inclusion of specific language that would authorize the military 

services to include the provision of renewable energy systems and facilities in new 

and existing utility services contracts, where mission appropriate. Current authorities for renewable energy projects do not enable the services to leverage potential 

efficiencies associated with obtaining renewable energy from an existing electric system owner located on an installation. The authority at 10 U.S.C. § 2922a generally 

contemplates a separate contract for new facilities requiring Secretary of Defense 

approval. This authority is typically used to contract with third party renewable energy companies to construct free standing renewable energy production facilities 

both on and outside of installations. Significant efficiencies could be leveraged if the 

services could contract directly with the installation’s privatized electric utility services provider, who already owns the electric generation and distribution facilities on 

the installation. Express provisions in § 2688 for including renewable energy 

projects in UP contracts would significantly improve the military services’ ability to 

seamlessly implement renewable energy within existing and newly awarded utility 

services contracts. 

The Air Force recommends and requests statutory authority within 10 USC § 2688 

to allow the use of UP funds across fiscal years for the monthly Utility Services portion of the contract. Often the period of performance for UP contracts does not align 

with the fiscal year, and service contracts which are severable, may not cross fiscal 

years. Authority to use funds across FYs for UP contracts would help reduce or minimize contract modifications, quarterly spending authority constraints, and delays in 

system owners receiving funds for services. 

Mr. WITTMAN. How has the Air Force attempted to quantify the risks they are 

taking by perennially reducing their investments in base support services and infrastructure, if at all? 

General HARRIS. [No answer was available at the time of printing.] 

Mr. WITTMAN. Have reductions in civilian- or contract-provided services for utility 

system operations; installation equipment maintenance; engineering services including fire protection, crash rescue, custodial, refuse collection, snow removal, and lease 

of real property; security protection and law enforcement; and motor pool transportation operations impacted availability of facilities that support operations and 

training? 

General HARRIS. Yes, in many instances, reduced funding for government civilian 

and contract provided services have impacted facilities across the Air Force. Despite 

Air Force and installation commander efforts to mitigate impacts, reduced funding 

for these services has affected the availability of facilities that support operations 

and training. 

Utility System Operations 

Reductions in contract provided utility systems support have impacted operations 

at Fairchild AFB. The reduction of civilians maintaining the utility systems and infrastructure, combined with the aging and weathering of facilities, have caused a 

multitude of issues including: ventilation leaks, roof leaks, and outdated electrical 

systems. This has resulted in a problem within the 1940s-era maintenance facility 

where a sand blast booth has become inoperable due to water leaks. Additionally, 

water leaking in an air handler above the Engine Shop has caused a whole work 

center to have to move to an alternate location. 

At Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, the base electrical system is still pole 

mounted with aging components. Funding cuts for craftsmen have slowed the initiatives to replace the aging infrastructure with newer and more resilient underground 

systems. In the last six months, there have been two significant outages affecting 

the area which supports the 108th National Guard. On one, an old transformer 

failed causing a major outage to the area, impacting a drill weekend. In the second, 

a pole failed supporting the same area causing a 4 hour power outage impacting 

training and requiring an 8 hour scheduled outage to complete the repairs. 

Lakehurst Naval Air Station, part of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, has the 

worst rated electrical system in Air Mobility Command. Some of the facilities, still 

used today, pre-date the Hindenburg which crashed at Lakehurst on 6 May 1937. 

The main lighter-than-air hangar is still used today and is a Historical Facility. 

However, some of the infrastructure systems are just as old. Current electric shop 

staffing and funding is insufficient to maintain the old system. There are routinely 

major power outages across Lakehurst due to the age of the main substation, 

switchgear, and feeder lines. The impacts on the R&D mission at NAVAIR, and the 

retrofit of carrier launch systems, are significant when power goes out. One recent 

example was in August 2015, when a damaged feeder switch caused a power outage 
50 

for a few days, resulting in a day-for-day slip for the electro-magnetic catapult and 

advanced arresting system test schedule. 

Installation Equipment Maintenance Engineering Services 

Also at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, the Army CERDEC is using an old hangar from 1941. They have over $1.2B worth of assets in the hangar. Reductions 

in contracted maintenance have resulted in the hangar doors sagging and jamming. 

The south end is locked closed and recently the north end failed. Other facility 

maintenance issues have required that overhead netting be installed to prevent falling pieces of ceiling from damaging the aircraft and injuring people. 

Fire Protection and Crash Rescue 

Hurlburt Field lost one fire truck mechanic and one heavy-duty mechanic position 

in 2013, which contributed to a loss of operations capacity. These personnel provided 

operations continuity for special purpose vehicles, training to new Airmen, and 

steady production levels at home station during active duty military deployments. 

The non-availability of special purpose vehicle mechanics has impacted the capability to perform recurring maintenance and repairs contributing to a work order 

backlog and extending the time and cost to complete in-service projects. 

Snow Removal 

At Fairchild AFB, reductions in contract services for street and parking lot snow 

removal have slowed to focus on airfield support. Where there were once 3 to 4 operators working to keep base streets plowed, budget cuts now only allow for 1 or 2 

operators. This has directly affected first responder response time to reported emergencies and has affected Alert Crew response from various base locations when trying to get back to aircraft upon being alerted. Budget cuts now only allow for the 

contractor to be called out in the event of snowfalls of 2 inches or greater. This 

means that any snowfall less than 2 inches is the responsibility of in-house forces. 

Time spent for snow removal detracts from performing operations and training. 

Mr. WITTMAN. What is the impact of funding sustainment, restoration and modernization and military construction below requirements over the long term? What 

level of investment and over what period of time do you think will be necessary to 

fully restore the readiness of our installations and facilities? 

General HARRIS. When we defer recapitalization of existing facilities, we don’t just 

delay the bill, we bring on increased maintenance and sustainment costs, until we 

eventually pay the deferred recapitalization bill—often at a higher cost. The delay 

increases costs in the long run. A return to investment at 2% of plant replacement 

value across the maintenance and repair portfolio, as baselined with leading industries, will over time stem the deterioration of infrastructure. The length of time to 

recover will depend upon how many years underfunding continues. 

Mr. WITTMAN. Have reductions in civilian- or contract-provided services for utility 

system operations; installation equipment maintenance; engineering services including fire protection, crash rescue, custodial, refuse collection, snow removal, and lease 

of real property; security protection and law enforcement; and motor pool transportation operations impacted availability of facilities that support operations and 

training? 

General AZZANO. Yes, in many instances, reduced funding for government civilian 

and contract provided services have impacted facilities across the Air Force. Despite 

Air Force and installation commander efforts to mitigate impacts, reduced funding 

for these services has affected the availability of facilities that support operations 

and training. 

Utility System Operations 

Reductions in contract provided utility systems support have impacted operations 

at Fairchild AFB. The reduction of civilians maintaining the utility systems and infrastructure, combined with the aging and weathering of facilities, have caused a 

multitude of issues including: ventilation leaks, roof leaks, and outdated electrical 

systems. This has resulted in a problem within the 1940s-era maintenance facility 

where a sand blast booth has become inoperable due to water leaks. Additionally, 

water leaking in an air handler above the Engine Shop has caused a whole work 

center to have to move to an alternate location. 

At Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, the base electrical system is still pole 

mounted with aging components. Funding cuts for craftsmen have slowed the initiatives to replace the aging infrastructure with newer and more resilient underground 

systems. In the last six months, there have been two significant outages affecting 

the area which supports the 108th National Guard. On one, an old transformer 

failed causing a major outage to the area, impacting a drill weekend. In the second, 

a pole failed supporting the same area causing a 4 hour power outage impacting 

training and requiring an 8 hour scheduled outage to complete the repairs. 
51 

Lakehurst Naval Air Station, part of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, has the 

worst rated electrical system in Air Mobility Command. Some of the facilities, still 

used today, pre-date the Hindenburg which crashed at Lakehurst on 6 May 1937. 

The main lighter-than-air hangar is still used today and is a Historical Facility. 

However, some of the infrastructure systems are just as old. Current electric shop 

staffing and funding is insufficient to maintain the old system. There are routinely 

major power outages across Lakehurst due to the age of the main substation, 

switchgear, and feeder lines. The impacts on the R&D mission at NAVAIR, and the 

retrofit of carrier launch systems, are significant when power goes out. One recent 

example was in August 2015, when a damaged feeder switch caused a power outage 

for a few days, resulting in a day-for-day slip for the electro-magnetic catapult and 

advanced arresting system test schedule. 

Installation Equipment Maintenance Engineering Services 

Also at Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, the Army CERDEC is using an old hangar from 1941. They have over $1.2B worth of assets in the hangar. Reductions 

in contracted maintenance have resulted in the hangar doors sagging and jamming. 

The south end is locked closed and recently the north end failed. Other facility 

maintenance issues have required that overhead netting be installed to prevent falling pieces of ceiling from damaging the aircraft and injuring people. 

Fire Protection and Crash Rescue 

Hurlburt Field lost one fire truck mechanic and one heavy-duty mechanic position 

in 2013, which contributed to a loss of operations capacity. These personnel provided 

operations continuity for special purpose vehicles, training to new Airmen, and 

steady production levels at home station during active duty military deployments. 

The non-availability of special purpose vehicle mechanics has impacted the capability to perform recurring maintenance and repairs contributing to a work order 

backlog and extending the time and cost to complete in-service projects. 

Snow Removal 

At Fairchild AFB, reductions in contract services for street and parking lot snow 

removal have slowed to focus on airfield support. Where there were once 3 to 4 operators working to keep base streets plowed, budget cuts now only allow for 1 or 2 

operators. This has directly affected first responder response time to reported emergencies and has affected Alert Crew response from various base locations when trying to get back to aircraft upon being alerted. Budget cuts now only allow for the 

contractor to be called out in the event of snowfalls of 2 inches or greater. This 

means that any snowfall less than 2 inches is the responsibility of in-house forces. 

Time spent for snow removal detracts from performing operations and training. 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MS. BORDALLO 

Ms. BORDALLO. How are you ensuring that there is effective oversight of local 

community partnerships which extend beyond utilities, housing, food, and other general services, that these partnerships are in the government’s best interest, and that 

Air Force requirements are being effectively met? 

General GREEN. In the ‘‘make every dollar count,’’ campaign the Air Force has put 

a concentrated effort to cultivate partnerships between our installations and the 

local communities. Subject matter experts (e.g., legal, contracting, financial management) at the installation, Air Force Installation and Mission Support Center, and 

Headquarter Air Force levels are actively involved in partnership initiative development and implementation. Additionally, Headquarters Air Force has established an 

Executive Steering Group (ESG) comprised of cross-functional Air Force senior leaders to review and provide unified direction, guidance, and leadership to efficiently 

and effectively manage the overall Air Force Community Partnership (AFCP) program and appropriate initiatives. The ESG leverages the knowledge and expertise 

of its cross-functional membership to develop/modify AFCP policy and to make informed and sound decisions on large, Air Force-wide initiatives or individual initiatives that may have implications beyond a single installation. The ESG ensures 

partnerships are in the government’s best interest and that Air Force requirements 

are being met. 

Ms. BORDALLO. In your testimony you referred to not just primary impacts, but 

also second and third degree effects on readiness of reduced infrastructure investment, especially in Base Operations Support. Could you provide several notable examples and their resource costs, financial as well as time and manpower? 

General GREEN. Reduced infrastructure investment has tangible impacts on installation readiness and Base Operations Support, despite Air Force and installation 

commander’s best efforts to mitigate impacts. Some notable examples include: 
52 

For example, the Non Commissioned Officer (NCO) Academy at Keesler AFB, 

where we prepare NCOs to assume increased front line leadership responsibilities, 

continually experiences flooding from water line breaks, power outages, and mold 

growth from a failing heating and air conditioning system. In the last year the facility, which was constructed in 1941, was closed 3 times for a total of 2.5 months, 

which impacted 175 students and required 2,800 man-hours to complete restoration 

activities. These closures hamper NCO training and education and directly impact 

NCOs growth as leaders in every organization supported by the school, including 

aircraft maintainers responsible for sortie generation. 

At Laughlin AFB, the 1953 vintage airfield storm drainage system has exceeded 

its useful life and no longer performs as needed. Heavy storms flood the airfield several times a year, terminating pilot training for up to 3 days until flood waters recede. Each flood event typically results in the loss of 375 sorties directly impacting 

pilot training, which in turn can impact overall course length. 

Another example of failing storm drainage infrastructure is at Keesler AFB, 

where the piping and manholes were installed in the 1940s. The system has exceeded its 50 year life expectancy by 25 years and no longer provides adequate drainage. 

At Keesler we find areas of rapid erosion, surface damage and sinkholes and our 

deferred maintenance increased repair costs 40%. Personnel monitor 60 sinkholes 

each week, spending 800 manhours and over $56K per year on the effort. Phase I 

to repair the drainage system was awarded in FY15 for $3.9M, but phase 2 fell 

below the funding line in FY16 and is competing again in FY17. 

Æ