09/10 Budget Impact on PRes - Unit stand-downs, Class B Freeze, and so on!

[dapaterson]

I will admit, that there probably are some Class B posns out there that are unnecessary, but I can't think of any.  I know that Class B Reservists are filling a good majority of posns in CFRCs, NDHQ, the various Dot.Coms, operational units, as well as many similar posns as civilians working for DND and its various Agencies.  Class B and Class C Reservists can be found in almost every CF organization, right up to the top.

Read the NDA for the definition of Res vs Reg - "other than continuing full-time service".  We "deem" reservists to be Reg F after 5 years for pension purposes - admitting that we're essentially breaking the law.

Many reserve positions are created because none of our "leaders" have the balls to say "No.".  "No - I lack the Reg F PYs to accomplish that." And others lack the balls to say "Do what you are ordered to do with your resources, not that other dumb-ass crap that you're doing."  (And don't try to use creative accounting to get around your superior's orders. (Cough trying to transfer money from CF national level funding to pay for your local initiatives that were refused by higher then acting surprised that you had no authority to take the money and got caught and have to repay it cough)

In reality, this Class B freeze is a Red Herring.  The CF has had it's budget cut.  The Army has a High Tempo and is overspending.  In past years, the end year surpluses in the other two elements have offset any major budget concerns.  This year those surpluses are not likely to be there.  The Army is looking for money.  I needs to find it somewhere.  Class B seemed to be an instant fix; but not a long term one.  Saving a nickel today, but costing thousands tomorrow was the knee jerk reaction.

There has been no CF budget cut.  For FY 09/10 the Army's Reserve pay budget has increased.  For 06/07 and 07/08 the Army handed back money at the end of the fiscal year - in the tens of millions (though admittedly it was not all vote 1); 08/09 the Army barely broke even (under 1/2 % overspent).  This FY there are some exceptional circumstances, but the Army still has more funds compared to last year (next FY will be much more austere - not driven by funding cuts but by the DND/CF plan for post A'stan that sees much of the Army's temporary increments going away - despite the delusions of some in the Army that the current funding levels are the new normal).

Always lots of rumors and innuendo; unfortunately, far too often good info does not get passed down, or commanders fail to provide the context for their orders - that foolish thing called "Commander's intent".

 

[corp_express]

There has been no CF budget cut. 

Granted, but isn't this relative?
I have one car. I fill it with oil it takes 4 L.
I have two cars. But I only get 6 L's to fill both leaving me 2 L's short....

My oil went up, but so did my consumption...    did I gain anything?
The reality, I maybe have to go with a smaller car for my second one. Or even get rid of one car.

Not get rid of both of my cars. The whole shut down units, amalgamate them...  that leads to burnt bridges.
We just spent millions on force generation...  for what? So that we can close the doors and destroy the progress that has been made?

Oh and, hopefully the "freeze is coming to an end rumour is true," it was a ridiculous flinch on the part of a leadership team somewhere to try and get the information they didn't have.

Hiring does not need to stop, that is why SOU's have a 30 days notice of termination. "Both ways" They just need better control on what positions exist. Trim the fat by all means, but the freeze serves no purpose other than inconveniencing the guys down here at the pointy end.

 

[dapaterson]

We just spent millions on force generation...  for what? So that we can close the doors and destroy the progress that has been made?

Destroy progress?  No.  Scale back since the Army will not be deployed to the same degree and can resume a more peacetime, static posture?  Of course.  Newsflash:  Come 2011 the number of class Bs in the CF will reduce significantly as the Reg F returns in great numbers, so replacements will not be needed.  The indiv trg backfill throughout LFDTS will be pruned, as with folks not in pre-deployment training, deployed, or in their post-deployment period there will be thousands more Reg F pers aval for incremental taskings.

There shall be a component of the Canadian Forces, called the regular force, that consists of officers and non-commissioned members who are enrolled for continuing, full-time military service.

There shall be a component of the Canadian Forces, called the reserve force, that consists of officers and non-commissioned members who are enrolled for other than continuing, full-time military service when not on active service.

The Reserve Force is not on active service.  Therefore, you are not enrolled for continuing, full-time military service.  If that's what you want, there's an option for that.  If, on the other hand, you want the pay, but not the commitment (30 days notice) or a willingness to relocate for the needs of the service...

 

[ArmyRick]

My take is this.

We do not know that ops will be scaled back in 2011. Thats not a wise assumption to make.
I am in a unit with about 20-25% Class B. And we need more. Our tempo is very busy and without the class B, there would be a whole lot of soldiers still not progressing to there battalions.

The Class B are still very much needed, in the army anyways, I can not speak for the Navy or the Air Force.

 

[corp_express]

I agree, SOME class B's should go the way of the dinosaur as the Army reestablishes it self, they are meant as temporary fulfillment of a need in manpower.

My argument is simply that someone is currently experiencing an extreme lapse in judgement wrt administrating them.

That being said, I strongly disagree that we need to start scaling back on force generation "Take up a static peace time posture!?!?" Ideas like that are what put us in this damn mess in the first place. "I thought we learned our lesson in the 70's-90's. International deployments WILL continue to occur. Be it Afghanistan, Africa or wherever, the BG pulling out of Kandahar simply signals a welcome shift in pace. I'm sure that other organizations within that AO are CURRENTLY building themselves up to take some of that extra man power becoming available. POMLT, OMLT, PRT...

Yes, the BG leaving will give us a needed breath, but we are currently operating outside our own capcity. We still need to Force Generate. The whole house of cards resides in fresh bodies. Why have a standing army, if it's ineffective at the 2700 pers deployed mark. It's not a lack of skills, expertise, its the common sense one "Man power", we should take the current situation and learn from it. We need a bigger leaner "less top heavy" army. Scaling back on recruiting would not fix anything  , it costs us twice as much to try and get soldiers after the fact. Lets keep the "progress we have" and bolster ourselves "as best we can".

Honestly, with a country of our population as far as manpower goes...  we are pathetic right now. We need to fix that.

Class B's and the reserves play a major role in Force Generation and always will. Trim the fat on the Class B's that are useless, "there are some" but don't Scale anything back... 

I'm sure we can find tons of useless stuff to cut budgets on I.E. How many copies of the Maple Leaf do we really need out there sitting in our OR's...  I don't need three copies to myself.

 

[COBRA-6]

Why not a freeze on standing up more HQs?

Ding Ding Ding!! We have a winner.

When the issue of saving money/reducing budgets comes up it seems that the knee jerk reaction is to threaten to cut the low-hanging fruit, Reg or Reserve.

Res = "If you cut my budget I'll have to fire/freeze Class B's, or cut training"
Reg = "If you cut my budget I'll have to chop x Battalion, stop hiring etc"

What about the massive overhead the Army/CF/DND has to run our tiny field force? How many layers of HQ do we need to run the field force? How many bases should we spread our Div(-) worth of units across? How many 24/7 Op Centers do we need accross the country? What about trg? Does each area need an ATC or could it be centralized like the CTC? How much time (paid man-hours) and effort do we spend moving staff/troops/eqpt around the country to justify CMTC? 

Does the PRes structure make any sense? Regiment/Battalion HQ for a Coy sized manouvre element? 2 Inf units in the same armoury with separte structures? A CBG HQ with a separate TBG HQ? Also a separate CBG Battle School HQ structure?

I propose a new HQ or Task Force be stood up to look into the above. It will only require about 12-15 Class B posns to staff it...

 

[Redeye]

And if I can be a WSE Captain for the duration of the contract, I'll step up and fill one of those positions.  I can be the staff coffee consultant.

I propose a new HQ or Task Force be stood up to look into the above. It will only require about 12-15 Class B posns to staff it...

 

[ltmaverick25]

For those who were inquiring, the Class B freeze order came from the CLS himself.  Notice was given approx 3 weeks ago.  The explanation for the funding cuts was that some room in the army budget had to be made to accomodate all the new equipment purchases recently announced.

 

[dapaterson]

That being said, I strongly disagree that we need to start scaling back on force generation "Take up a static peace time posture!?!?" Ideas like that are what put us in this damn mess in the first place. "I thought we learned our lesson in the 70's-90's. International deployments WILL continue to occur. Be it Afghanistan, Africa or wherever, the BG pulling out of Kandahar simply signals a welcome shift in pace. I'm sure that other organizations within that AO are CURRENTLY building themselves up to take some of that extra man power becoming available. POMLT, OMLT, PRT...

We will be resourced to meet the demands.  We cannot maintain a large standing force for every just-in-case eventuality.

We do need to rethink some things from top to bottom - build better methods of training; better TMST; better force employment (3 years, 2 tours for a formed unit makes a hell of a lot more sense than ad-hoc-ing everything and still having folks do 2 tours in 3 years anyways)

The gov't direction is that we're leaving.  That is what we have to plan with - certainly, there can be contingencies, but we can't act on them - otherwise it's that pesky disobeying orders thing.

Yes, the BG leaving will give us a needed breath, but we are currently operating outside our own capcity. We still need to Force Generate. The whole house of cards resides in fresh bodies. Why have a standing army, if it's ineffective at the 2700 pers deployed mark. It's not a lack of skills, expertise, its the common sense one "Man power", we should take the current situation and learn from it. We need a bigger leaner "less top heavy" army. Scaling back on recruiting would not fix anything  , it costs us twice as much to try and get soldiers after the fact. Lets keep the "progress we have" and bolster ourselves "as best we can".

We don't need a bigger Army.  We need to do things smarter.  In another thread I pointed out that in the Reg F we have 9 Inf, 3 Armd, 3 Arty, 3 CERs, 3 Svc Bns with about 11500 pers in them - of the 21K in the Army.  We could shrink and still get more tooth.

Honestly, with a country of our population as far as manpower goes...  we are pathetic right now. We need to fix that.

Class B's and the reserves play a major role in Force Generation and always will. Trim the fat on the Class B's that are useless, "there are some" but don't Scale anything back... 

As the guy who used to count the class Bs for the Army, I can say with some comfort that we could reduce the number by a significant portion with no/minimal impact.  Some of it would have to be made up from the Reg F - see above for the "Where are those 10K people?" question - but other functions are useless and unnecessary; others add only to admin burdens, and many others are tied to "Seventy three people is a regiment, so we need six full-time people.  So does the other regiment of eighty nine across the hall."  Fix the Reserve structure and there's a lot of full-timers freed up - some to reinvest, some to sned to higher priority tasks.

I'm sure we can find tons of useless stuff to cut budgets on I.E. How many copies of the Maple Leaf do we really need out there sitting in our OR's...  I don't need three copies to myself.

NDHQ is another ripe area for cuts - with over 10% of the Reg F trained strength something is wrong, wrong, wrong.  And with 28? Level 1 organizations (each considered the equivalent of the Navy, Army and Air Force) there's ample room to whittle away.  But that's a whole other set of rants...

 

[Stoker]

I figured I would wade in and give you a snapshot on the Navy side of things. Right now there a budget shortfall, that has affected our budgets, but no freeze on Class B or C. In fact we lots lots of billets open both for B and C. We're also seeing lots of persons are being hired on Class B and C for the Olympics.
We have had in the past a freeze on hiring, but not to the extent as the Army has had.

 

[dapaterson]

Like the Air Force, the Navy ignores the NDA and its definitions about Reg and Res.  We've sufficiently corrupted our methods of employment with little thought about the ability of the institution to generate and sustain the Reserve pers we want.

Of course, the large number of senior folks in NDHQ double-dipping means the full-time brigade won't go quietly into the night...

 

[Monsoon]

Like the Air Force, the Navy ignores the NDA and its definitions about Reg and Res.

Regular force

15. (1) There shall be a component of the Canadian Forces, called the regular force, that consists of officers and non-commissioned members who are enrolled for continuing, full-time military service.

...

Reserve force

(3) There shall be a component of the Canadian Forces, called the reserve force, that consists of officers and non-commissioned members who are enrolled for other than continuing, full-time military service when not on active service.


I don't see how the navy and air force uniquely violate these definitions in a way that the army doesn't. Too be honest, I don't see that any component of the CF does.

 

[Edward Campbell]

At the risk of going of topic, I wonder if the words "enrolled for" cannot be interpreted to allow for the current high levels of Class B and C service.

Regular Force members are "enrolled for" full time service, that's clear enough. Similarly, reserve force members are "enrolled for" "other than" full time service but, once enrolled and trained, there is not an apparent (to me) restriction on how that member can serve: full time, "other than full time," and so on.

The intention is clear enough but I don't see that anything "wrong" is being done - not, at least, according to that snippet of the NDA.

 

[Stoker]

Perhaps its time to overhaul the NDA and adopt a system like the US where you're in the reserves and can go from "reserve status" to "active duty" as the need requires. As well if you're "regular" you can go drop to "reserve" status if you need to.

As for the Naval Reserve its been a long time coming, however the higher ups have admitted that they need long term Class B and C personnel, from the fact we have pers who have been Class B and C for over 10 years or longer. There's no way that our ship's can sail and carry out our mission with a personnel who can only give a summer employment or less. It certainly never started out that way but that's where we're at.

 

[dapaterson]

When it's the routine business of the CF routinely being conducted by the Reserve Force we're violating the spirit of the law.

My critique of the Navy and AF is predicated primarily on the % of their pers that they employ full-time; in raw numbers, the Army definitely has them beat.

We (the CF, corporate we) need to look at what we do, how we do it - and figure out a way forward.  The uncontrolled, unrestricted expansion of full-time military pers (in some cases "because it's easier than public servants") doesn't wash.

Any revised model must be controlled - and must explicitly acknowledge what we are asking of our people.  "Give us five years - we'll give you thirty days" is absurd.

 

[Edward Campbell]

[The CF is] violating the spirit of the law ... The uncontrolled, unrestricted expansion of full-time military pers (in some cases "because it's easier than public servants") doesn't wash.
...

Both points are 100% correct.

I also agree there must be a better way, but it has to start on Parliament Hill with an explicit acknowledgment, in budgets, estimates and supply motions, of the resources we - all Canadians - authorize our "servants" (civil and armed) to use to accomplish the tasks we (same "we") assign to the military. Then the "better way" must move to 101 Colonel By Drive (AKA Fort Fumble, Disneyland sur Rideau, etc) and admirals and generals must, repeat MUST refuse tasks for which resources are not voted. Then a sensible system can start to be developed.

But, until the CDS says, "Sorry, Prime Minister, can't so that until you provide more money for more soldiers, more ships and guns, more rations and so on," and until a PM goes back to parliament and introduces an emergency motion for interim supply every time the CF is tapped out, the system will remain as it is now.

The CF is, in many cases, the author of its own misfortunes - aided and abetted by a political centre that wants to avoid hard problems. During the course of a long career, especially during the last 10 years or so, I heard admirals and generals say "We need to say 'NO!' We need to tell the government that the well is dry" and so on; but they never, ever did. Somewhere on the 13th floor all the good intentions evaporated and we resumed our march on the road that's paved with them.

 

[rocket]

My brigade just got a 10% hit, which seems to be behind the ones out east.  I guess when you hand out Class B casuals like candy, the jar is going to be empty.  I have been told that the Class B/A can't be touched, because it takes an estalishment change.  Not holding my breath.  Someone brought up ammalgamation, which my unit is actually going through.  Problem is, that the ammalgamation's proposed AER has 19 full time postion between the 2 units.

Does anyone actually know of anybody who has actually lost a job?  Class B or B/A?

 

[dapaterson]

What seems to be happening is

(1) a complete review (imagine, senior commanders finally getting engaged.  A few years too late, but still, better than nothing)

(2) new positions being canceled in the embryonic stage

(3) Open competitions being deferred until decisions are made


It's almost humorous - it's just over a year since the one person in the Army HQ who could reliably report on full-time reservists and where they are working left; and now, suddenly, they're getting religion and want information - and are engaging in a typical Army response - massive staff checks to provide information that can be more easily and reliably done by tapping in to existing national IT systems.  But why take the easy route when you can create a massive staff churn?

(Note that I'm somewhat biased on the topic at hand...)

 

[rocket]

Humourous is right!!! I had to do a report on the 14 odd people in my unit.  I asked why, the answer I got was because when they push the 'button' all they was unit X - 14 full time positions.  I laughed, god did I laugh.  Like I said when you hand out class b's like candy, the jar is going to be empty.  You would think that given the amount of class b's in canada, there should be some sort of acountabilty. 

I have been in a B/A position for more than 10 years.  I remember going through this in the mid 90s, and a whole bunch of positions (the casual ones) got axed.  Now they say that they want to cut 1000 or so positions.  Can you imagin a guy who has been on a casual contract for 5 years or so given his 30 days?  It makes me wonder if they are going to cut B/A esablished positions as well.  And what about the Reg Force back fills?  Doing more with less is the way of the future it seems.  Anyone know how long this review is going to take?  It seems to have started out east last summer. 

 

[PMedMoe]

Can you imagin a guy who has been on a casual contract for 5 years or so given his 30 days?

Guess what??  As much as it sucks, it was never meant to be a full-time job.