09/10 Budget Impact on PRes - Unit stand-downs, Class B Freeze, and so on!
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I'm really confused now... what happens to the
new MLVW,rucksacks and rainjacket now?
new MLVW,rucksacks and rainjacket now?
Jarnhamar
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recceguy said:
I'm shocked, wow. I really didn't expect that. So much for my credibility!
Not only will that really hurt the young soldiers who depend on those training nights and week-end ex's for money but what about the units over all level of training? Makes all those nights of scrambling to get IBTS out of the way seem futile.
Is there that much of a difference between regiments that one can have 1 half day a month until april and in another regiment soldiers preparing for live fire platoon attacks for 2 full platoons worth of soldiers on a weekend ex?
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multihobbist said:
That would be money already spent........
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In Germany, in the 70’s, we had Tank Trains that would transport us and our tanks to various bases and exercise areas. Most of these were within a few hours by normal train. There were a number of ‘priorities’ for trains on the, Deutsche Bahn, 37 seems to ring a bell. Tank trains sometimes took over 24 hrs to get somewhere else in Germany because we would pull into a siding and wait hours while a garbage train had to go by. The Tank Train had the lowest priority on the rail system.popnfresh said:
The PRes is the Tank Train of the Canadian Army.
Yes, we’ve gone through this before, about every fifteen years. It is feast or famine. During the good times, no one seems to have the foresight to squirrel away a few seeds and nuts for those cold famine days, when the sun won’t come out. So here we are again. There is nothing to be gained by trying to assign blame.
An option that has been used in previous times was ‘pink’ or ‘green’ pay sheets. These were, basically, a pay sheet that was signed and handed into the unit. It provided a backup if you got hurt while parading. It was nothing more than a Unit IOU. “IF, and WHEN, times get better, IF and WHEN, the money comes in and IF and When we can afford to pay you, we’ll try pay you back for some of your time.” Not perfect, and I’m not even sure if it was legal, but it allowed a few more parade days to keep people interested and stopped them from drifting away.
What people have to remember is, whether you think it is fair or equitable, the higher ups are not doing this because they are bored and want to jerk your chain. There is a crisis and sacrifices need to be made. All the bitching and moaning is not going to make one iota of difference to the plan. Its set, it won’t change, so you might as well sit down and think it through and try come up with viable and doable alternatives to tied you through this mess. Use your indignation energy for good ideas. We will not get out of this unscathed. We will, again, lose equipment, skills, people and in some circles, respect, amongst other things. Someone has to be low man.
Get used to hearing BOHICA (google is your friend). You are the Tank Train.
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Like I mentioned earlier, I've been on ex and course for the last while and have missed those regular points that get passed down.
What exactly has happend? Not just to the reserves, but reg force as well. Were budgets massively slashed? Is money being re-directed for some reason? What brought all this on?
Is there a thread discussing this?
Like I said, I'm a little behind on all of this. Just heard rumours....
What exactly has happend? Not just to the reserves, but reg force as well. Were budgets massively slashed? Is money being re-directed for some reason? What brought all this on?
Is there a thread discussing this?
Like I said, I'm a little behind on all of this. Just heard rumours....
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DirtyDog said:
I think the higher ups just realized that 9 (ok almost 9) years of war has drained the coffers.....
My :2c: ..... your milage may vary......
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DirtyDog said:
CLS stated at a recent townhall that the Ops and Trg portion of the budget has been stretched thin, due to ops in Afghanistan, but you can probably bet a big chunk of it is gone because of the Olympics. According to him, we haven't lost a cent in the budget, but there are a lot of ancillary costs to doing business overseas that can creep up and zap a budget pretty fast. I'm not sure how much of the costs he outlined to us are public knowledge, but I'd be happy to drop the few figures the CLS dropped and that I remember in a PM to anyone interested.
Flawed Design said:
Flawed-
Different CBGs have dealt with their budget shortfalls differently. Ours (33CBG for anyone else), fortunately, has only shut 'er down until January 21st or thereabouts. 31CBG and 32CBG are, from what I hear, much worse off, including some units not parading until April 1st. Probably cause of all those gucci courses 31 and 32 brigades always get to spend money on. ;D
But yeah, crappy deal all around. Telling my troops they're unemployed for two months wasn't the highlight of my training year.
Haggis
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Flawed/Brihard: Most 33 CBG units are in far better shape financially than many others.
Recceguy: Yeah, I've seen this cycle, too, in the past thirty years. but never, ever this bad.
Notwithstanding the CLS's remarks at the town halls, one must ask the obvious question: How in the Hell did the Army get to this stage without anyone in the puzzle palace seeing and heeding the warning signs?
There are untold negative second and third order effects to this whole mess.
The Army Reserve will lose credibility as a national institiution and a stable employer. Soliders will seek replacement sources of income elsewhere. Potential recruits will say "no, I'm not working for an orgainzation that unreliable".
Soldiers will leave, either through CTs or releases, and this will impact the Army Reserve's capability to meet force generation requirements. (G20, TFA etc.)
I really, really hope this is just a financial "flinch" and someone sees a better way to do business.
Recceguy: Yeah, I've seen this cycle, too, in the past thirty years. but never, ever this bad.
Notwithstanding the CLS's remarks at the town halls, one must ask the obvious question: How in the Hell did the Army get to this stage without anyone in the puzzle palace seeing and heeding the warning signs?
There are untold negative second and third order effects to this whole mess.
The Army Reserve will lose credibility as a national institiution and a stable employer. Soliders will seek replacement sources of income elsewhere. Potential recruits will say "no, I'm not working for an orgainzation that unreliable".
Soldiers will leave, either through CTs or releases, and this will impact the Army Reserve's capability to meet force generation requirements. (G20, TFA etc.)
I really, really hope this is just a financial "flinch" and someone sees a better way to do business.
yeah, as far as I know each regiment is in charge of their own budget, we at 763 for example still have Trg once a week
I really can't wait to see how they're going to adjust for all this (training and qualification wise) I really hope this means we'll see a summer BMQ here, because restarting in April conflicts with my life guarding course and exams, but such is life, I guess I'll just have to wait for October most likely.
I really can't wait to see how they're going to adjust for all this (training and qualification wise) I really hope this means we'll see a summer BMQ here, because restarting in April conflicts with my life guarding course and exams, but such is life, I guess I'll just have to wait for October most likely.
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Here is a question from a guy who hasn't been in the Militia for over 20 years: do they still do the pink sign in sheets? I recall that there were times when we went on Tuesday Nights to play floor hockey (aka "PT") and sign in to be covered. Other times, on the parade nights, due to budget cuts, we signed them as well. When the money flooded back in, we got paid for those times that we signed them.
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We're doing alright in the west at the moment. We were told to expect some training to drop off, and have been on 3 nights a week in the time since I was sworn in in October, but so far no major shortages have been announced. This is for us on the island, not sure about the rest of 39CBG though. We have our Soldiers Christmas Dinner tonight, followed by a short leave until the 10th of Jan. My BMQ is supposed to start the weekend of the 22nd, will post up here if anything changes.
To those of you who are affected by all this, I'm sorry to hear about it. Hope you guys can get by without the extra cash alright. I don't have a primary job right now due to a layoff, and I'd be downright screwed if my little reserve cash flow dried up altogether. Though I was warned right off the bat not to rely on this money, sometimes life throws curveballs at you.
To those of you who are affected by all this, I'm sorry to hear about it. Hope you guys can get by without the extra cash alright. I don't have a primary job right now due to a layoff, and I'd be downright screwed if my little reserve cash flow dried up altogether. Though I was warned right off the bat not to rely on this money, sometimes life throws curveballs at you.
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"What happened?" is a simple question with many complex parts to the answer.
The big "STOP" being felt right now is due to timing. While the Olympics and ongoing deployed operations have some impact, another big piece of the puzzle is the way DND's finances are run.
The fiscal year runs from 01 April through 31 March. Funds allocated by the government must be spent within that window (there are some ways to carry forward money or reserve funds for future payments in future years, but those are mostly corporate, not at the unit level, and not relevant to this discussion).
DND gets money from the Main Estimates and the Supplementary Estimates, votes in Parliament. Those have gone mostly as expected.
However, in this fiscal year (FY 09/10) there were a number of DND issues that had significant impacts that were not properly planned out. (issue #1). As the various organizations in DND fed up their plans for 09/10 to the top level, they too had new demands beyond available resources (issue #2).
Deciding what to do and what not to do requires tradeoffs and decisions at the top level - and that's not the CDS. The CDS commands the Forces, but it's the Deputy Minister (a public servant) who is responsible for the Department's finances. This year, working with the CDS and other senior staff the DM delayed approval of the budgets for the Navy, Army, Air Force and other top-level organizations in DND (delay is issue #3).
The Army went forward with its plan for 09/10, pending its approval. Unfortunately, the approval arrived in late August, with 5/12 of the fiscal year already gone. Meaning the opportunities to change the plan were extremely limited - projects were already launched; for the Reserves, summer training already conducted. The summer training period (June-August) represents roughly 45% of overall Reserve pay expenditures for the Army (it's been a few years since I monitored this, but that should be roughly correct). Plus April and May before the summer - say another 10-15% of pay spent.
So: late approval of the plan. And some of the things the Army wanted to do were not supported - meaning no funding for them. And some things being done elsewhere in the department were more expensive - meaning some cuts to the Army's allocation to fund those "corporate pressures".
So, a perfect storm: Told late that there was less money than expected, and some activities not supported, but the year was already 5/12 gone, and nearly 60% of the Reserve pay was already spent. Add time for staff to analyze the situation (Sept); time to communicate that to lower levels (Oct) and time for those lower levels (Area and CBG) to make their own plans and react (Nov) and the impact becomes more and more pronounced - less and less time to make the same sized reductions.
Each Land Force Area (LFA) and each CBG (or other formation) in each LFA will be hit to differing extents, depending on how they are running things; some are cutting large collective training exercises from Jan/Feb or Mar, but regular unit training will continue; others are scaling back to varying degrees to meet the reductions. Individual Training, such as BMQ, DP1, Driver courses and PLQ are all funded out of the Land Force Training System in Kingston; they too are seeing reductions and are pulling the plug on some courses to remain within their allocation.
Next year? The Army is going to be more conservative in its planning at all levels. This will probably mean (initially) less funding available, but through the year some additional funds may be released to pursue activities. I suspect many units will add planned but unfunded exercises to their calendars, ready to be activated should the funds come available. However, given that the plan will be more conservative to begin with, any reductions won't sting as badly ,as they'll be spread over the full year, and not concentrated in the last three months of the fiscal year.
Just my 2c; take it for what it's worth.
The big "STOP" being felt right now is due to timing. While the Olympics and ongoing deployed operations have some impact, another big piece of the puzzle is the way DND's finances are run.
The fiscal year runs from 01 April through 31 March. Funds allocated by the government must be spent within that window (there are some ways to carry forward money or reserve funds for future payments in future years, but those are mostly corporate, not at the unit level, and not relevant to this discussion).
DND gets money from the Main Estimates and the Supplementary Estimates, votes in Parliament. Those have gone mostly as expected.
However, in this fiscal year (FY 09/10) there were a number of DND issues that had significant impacts that were not properly planned out. (issue #1). As the various organizations in DND fed up their plans for 09/10 to the top level, they too had new demands beyond available resources (issue #2).
Deciding what to do and what not to do requires tradeoffs and decisions at the top level - and that's not the CDS. The CDS commands the Forces, but it's the Deputy Minister (a public servant) who is responsible for the Department's finances. This year, working with the CDS and other senior staff the DM delayed approval of the budgets for the Navy, Army, Air Force and other top-level organizations in DND (delay is issue #3).
The Army went forward with its plan for 09/10, pending its approval. Unfortunately, the approval arrived in late August, with 5/12 of the fiscal year already gone. Meaning the opportunities to change the plan were extremely limited - projects were already launched; for the Reserves, summer training already conducted. The summer training period (June-August) represents roughly 45% of overall Reserve pay expenditures for the Army (it's been a few years since I monitored this, but that should be roughly correct). Plus April and May before the summer - say another 10-15% of pay spent.
So: late approval of the plan. And some of the things the Army wanted to do were not supported - meaning no funding for them. And some things being done elsewhere in the department were more expensive - meaning some cuts to the Army's allocation to fund those "corporate pressures".
So, a perfect storm: Told late that there was less money than expected, and some activities not supported, but the year was already 5/12 gone, and nearly 60% of the Reserve pay was already spent. Add time for staff to analyze the situation (Sept); time to communicate that to lower levels (Oct) and time for those lower levels (Area and CBG) to make their own plans and react (Nov) and the impact becomes more and more pronounced - less and less time to make the same sized reductions.
Each Land Force Area (LFA) and each CBG (or other formation) in each LFA will be hit to differing extents, depending on how they are running things; some are cutting large collective training exercises from Jan/Feb or Mar, but regular unit training will continue; others are scaling back to varying degrees to meet the reductions. Individual Training, such as BMQ, DP1, Driver courses and PLQ are all funded out of the Land Force Training System in Kingston; they too are seeing reductions and are pulling the plug on some courses to remain within their allocation.
Next year? The Army is going to be more conservative in its planning at all levels. This will probably mean (initially) less funding available, but through the year some additional funds may be released to pursue activities. I suspect many units will add planned but unfunded exercises to their calendars, ready to be activated should the funds come available. However, given that the plan will be more conservative to begin with, any reductions won't sting as badly ,as they'll be spread over the full year, and not concentrated in the last three months of the fiscal year.
Just my 2c; take it for what it's worth.
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Here in the Army of the East (well reserve army that is ;D ) with the cancellation of Maritime Raider 10 and I suspect SouthBound Trooper X that monies are being reallocated in order to fun training until the new fiscal year (or so I have been told our Oops Cell)
So take this with a grain of salt........
EDITED TO FIX ROMAN NUMERALS
So take this with a grain of salt........
EDITED TO FIX ROMAN NUMERALS
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Now would be a good time for the Navy to recruit. Put a couple recruiters at every armoury...
"Do you guys like to get paid?"
:2c:
"Do you guys like to get paid?"
:2c:
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