Should the military give contractors the boot? What about DA civilians?

2015-08-03T10:33:06-04:00

With the current force downsizing I see even less a use for contractors in positions Soldiers can and should fill. Cooks, MPs, Commo positions... They all need to be purged and filled with uniformed, MOS holding, service members. This would reduce cost, bull up the force and get rid of some dead weight. I bet everyone here can think of a few DA civilians that should never have had a job in the first place. No better time to cut sling load.
Let's hear your thoughts.

Response by SCPO David Lockwood made Aug 3 at 2015 10:37 AM

2015-08-03T10:37:03-04:00

It's called stimulating the local economy. Every politician who has a base in their districts fight to keep the bases open. By doing this they pretty much are guaranteeing themselves votes. To get the votes he also has to provide jobs for the locals. Its a sad fact but this is just the way it is. My thoughts.

Response by Cpl Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 3 at 2015 10:39 AM

2015-08-03T10:39:14-04:00

I imagine all of those contract companies are all lobbying to cut the military so they can provide more of those extremely lucrative contracts for the jobs being cut. How much longer before they contract out drone pilots?

Response by Sgt Aaron Kennedy, MS made Aug 3 at 2015 10:45 AM

2015-08-03T10:45:39-04:00

It's counter-intuitive, but it actually won't reduce costs.

Contractors are cheaper in the short and long term than military. First off, Military at the grade of E4~ when you account for housing & other benefits make "median" US income. Contractors filling similar positions, like Cooks, Gate Guards, etc don't. There's about a 20% savings. Additionally there's "overhead" which we don't have to pay. For every 3x E3, we need an E4, for ever 11x E3-E4 we need and E5, etc. We absorb the cost of that when it is a uniformed service member. When you shift that to a contract, that financial burden is shifted to the management company, as well as the personnel burden (just needing bodies).

As it stands now, the most "efficient" way to downsize our military is to shift functions that can be into a combination of Government Civilians, and Government Contracts. Military is expensive. It's effective, no doubt, but that doesn't make it the most efficient.

Then when we get into long term savings, we have to deal with retirement, and disability which frankly is a "sustainability" issue. It just doesn't work if everyone is uniformed.

Response by CSM David Heidke made Aug 3 at 2015 10:48 AM

2015-08-03T10:48:54-04:00

It's a game of smoke and mirrors, downsize the military and hire contractors to replace the downsized troops and they make more money to boot.

Shameful.

A citizen joins the Army (or other service) to do a job often at pennies on the dollar of someone on the outside. Then they outsource that job to a civilian and pay them twice the money and get half the work. It should be a crime. If a company did this to snow it's stockholders, people would go to jail.

Response by MSgt Curtis Ellis made Aug 3 at 2015 12:26 PM

2015-08-03T12:26:57-04:00

To ensure I understand your question, your question references Contractors, Civilians or both? Contractors and Civilians are not the same animal...

Response by SSG Warren Swan made Aug 3 at 2015 1:40 PM

2015-08-03T13:40:02-04:00

MSG, I used to think that, but after dealing with contractors and working with the government, using contractors and civilians is a boost for the military. Yes the argument would be that they are more expensive to have around, and that DA civilians don't do anything yet get paid; my argument to the contrary would be that 1. Contractors are SME's in a specific area, and are required by the contract to be already trained (minus certain local quirks that get resolved). You're never going to get a Soldier as trained as said contractor in the same manner; there isn't enough in ANY BN/BDE training budget to support the number of certifications required. If and when you do, most are going to jump ship and become that contractor working for considerably more money probably in the same place. Get rid of them totally? So the Army is pushing troops out at an alarming rate, many of them turn to contracting to make ends meet; so we punish them twice? Now I'm specifically speaking from the technical area of the Army. I can't speak of any other MOS outside of the 25 series. The solution is already here with us when used wisely; have the Soldiers shadow the contractors and civilians asking questions on how to do things, learn how to do them and implement actions. So when something goes down, the Soldiers can fix it within reason. 2. DA civilians are very useful being most understand the requirements of the troop and won't hold the troop accountable when Big Army has them doing something else (deploying, APFT, REUPs, or the litany of other things that take troops out of the office). So when you or others call these troops out to do details, and whatever that comes up, who is left manning the consoles, ensuring the connections are stable, computers are still up, and the commander can still check his email, it's the contractors and civilians that we employ. Have to say they are part of the team.

Response by COL Jean (John) F. B. made Aug 3 at 2015 1:47 PM

2015-08-03T13:47:36-04:00

CSM Private RallyPoint Member - I have mixed opinions about this. First, in full disclosure, I work for a government contractor, so I am not unbiased.

When I was an active duty MP officer, I fought the idea of using contractors to provide security/law enforcement services on military installations. I wanted MPs, not contractors and not DA/DOD Police. The law was on my side in that use of contractors to provide security/law enforcement was unlawful. However, with the Military Police being subjected to never-ending deployments, something had to be done, so Congress passed a law that allowed for the use of contractors to perform security functions (not law enforcement) on military installations. It was not open-ended and was only good for a few years (three, as I recall, with the ability to get an extension, if necessary and approved by Congress).

Prior to this, when an active duty MP unit deployed, for example, if there were not enough remaining MPs on the installation to perform the missions, the Army had to bring in MPs form other installations or from the National Guard. For example, when my battalion at Fort Riley deployed to Desert Storm, a National Guard battalion was brought in to pick up the security/LE mission at Ft Riley. Also, when I was at the USAREUR Provost Marshal Office, we deployed 78% of the MPs in Europe to Hungary/Croatia and had to bring in several National Guard MP battalions to Europe to continue the security/LE mission. This system caused the deployment of double the units (double the cost, double the family separations, etc.).

With the advent of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the increased reliance of Reserve Component units, who, in many cases (MP units, for example), deployed as much as their active duty brothers, the Guard MP units were simply not available to replace deploying units. Hence, the change in the law to allow contractors to assume the security mission.

That was working very well until the Government Employees Union pitched a fit with Congress to do away with contractors and use only DA/DOD Police (at a much higher cost). It was all about picking up the positions and the union dues they generated, not about what was best for the government. Ask anybody who has lived this ... Most would much prefer to have a contractor over a government employee (easier to get rid of under-performing individuals).

While I agree with you in a period of stability (no deployments), the fact is that most of the missions continue at home base, even if the troops are gone. While the headcount in dining facilities may go down, many MP calls actually increase (prowlers, family issues, burglaries, juvenile incidents, etc.).

It is not cost-effective to maintain a very large military to fulfill the responsibilities of running a garrison when troops are deployed, nor of having twice the number needed if all are home.

Contrary to what you stated, it is clearly more cost-effective/less expensive to use contractors than active duty military personnel to accomplish many of the support tasks.

I would still rather have military personnel than civilians/contractors, but it is much more expensive to do so and would only result in much more severe budget issues.

Response by SPC Nathan Freeman made Aug 3 at 2015 2:00 PM

2015-08-03T14:00:59-04:00

We had a contractor come in to train us up on some equipment. He was late everyday except the last day and left early without notifying anyone. Had he been in the army, he wouldn't get away with that.

Response by SSG Ray Strenkowski made Aug 3 at 2015 2:16 PM

2015-08-03T14:16:11-04:00

Sounds good - but doesn't work out that way...

Soldiers PCS, Contractors and the companies they work for are local to the area... This provides continuity in areas like IT, where honestly you don't have many CCNP/CCIE types (as one example).

Using networks as the example, Military Enterprise Networks are becoming complex and it's awful hard to hold a SGT - MSG accountable for day to day O&M for a strategic network without those skill sets.

High turnover (less than 5 years) almost spells certain death for the health of an enterprise network and almost certainly means you will 1. not address all vulnerabilities 2. be too busy playing catch up (training new soldiers, or learning the network yourself) to improve/advance your network architecture. The soldiers who PCS into your unit are a mixed bag - you could get great soldiers will undeniable knowledge or not - Contracts are written with the required skills/certifications to fit the FTE.

I had some of the same feelings while I was in the military, it's sometimes hard to see both sides until you have a new perspective. Also, if they are maintaining those networks at home, what happens when they deploy - that's what we are trained for anyway, right?

Just my .02 cents...

Response by TSgt Scott Hurley made Aug 3 at 2015 2:32 PM

2015-08-03T14:32:47-04:00

I agree with you on all these points. The civilian side of the military has expanded while the active military has shrunk. This should also, I do not know if they have it, get the unions if applicable off base as well.

Response by SMSgt Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 3 at 2015 5:52 PM

2015-08-03T17:52:17-04:00

So I am not sure that your cost savings argument holds water. In my functional area the production rate for uniformed members is 39%, for Civil Service it is 68% and for foreign nationals it is 74%. This is the amount of their time spent on direct hours (actual work stuff) compared to indirect hours (leave, appointments, readiness training, etc.) I don't have the data for contract work but I would venture to say it is somewhere in the civil service range and probably higher. So you get essentially twice as much work out of a civilian compared to a uniformed member meaning you need twice as many military members to perform the same mission as if it is contracted out. I am sure it doesn't seem that way sometimes but it is reality. We see it all the time in places where our work is contracted out. It is common to take a 34 military member shop and fill it with 20ish contractors performing the same mission. Plus if you have contractors, you don't have to maintain the chow-hall, fitness center, clinic, etc. Sad, but true.

Response by PO3 Sherry Thornburg made Aug 3 at 2015 10:43 PM

2015-08-03T22:43:16-04:00

As I recall, the reason for all the contractors was the lack of uniform manpower due to personnel draw downs to cover all those support positions. Some were there because it was literally faster, less expensive and easier to hire civilian people who were already trained in a skill rather than take the time to send military members to industry schools.

I agree cooks, drivers, postal and shipping personnel and other things could have been done by service personnel, but think about how many thousands of civilians were called up to take those jobs and how many bases would have had to be emptied of personnel to do that work when the Gulf War and other missions first began.

Today, lots of civilian contractors have been pulled back home as lots of the bases have been closed, so I wouldn't know how many are still there to be bugging you.

Response by SGT Private RallyPoint Member made Aug 4 at 2015 9:09 PM

2015-08-04T21:09:21-04:00

Since contractors make a hell of a LOT MORE money than service members, they should be down-sized... It would save a lot more money on the defense budget... Soldiers could be trained to do what contractors do and still be paid at the current rate they get... or given a modest raise for the job they do...