Business board: Close (DoD) JFCOM, freeze hiring

[unhappycamper]

Business board: Close JFCOM, freeze hiring
By John T. Bennett - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Jul 22, 2010 17:39:17 EDT

An influential Pentagon advisory board is poised to recommend Defense Secretary Robert Gates close contractor-heavy U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) and rid his office and the Joint Staff of redundant functions, moves that could save billions of dollars.

As part of work ordered by Gates under his war on overhead and inefficiencies, a Defense Business Board study group is urging him to also shutter its Networks and Information Integration directorate. NII, as it’s known in the defense community, resides within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD).

The Defense Business Board task force also is recommending Gates initiate a hiring freeze for OSD, all Joint Staff directorates and all combatant commands.

Those recommendations are part of a set of preliminary recommendations the board unanimously approved July 22. The board expects to submit these initial findings to Gates soon in an informational memo, followed in October by a broader set of longer-term cost-cutting proposals.

The board also will advise Gates to seek to “eliminate organizational duplication and overlap” across the department. A fourth proposal will advise an immediately effective directive to “seriously curtail all indirect spending” on things like “duty station moves, travel conferences,” states the preliminary DBB report. This recommendation also calls for Gates to modify the so-called “use it or lose it policy” on such funds, “which only promotes wastes,” the report states.

[jmowreader]

1. The Special Operations community is another place to save money

Right now, you have:

US Special Operations Command
Joint Special Operations Command
US Army Special Operations Command
US Army Special Forces Command
US Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School
US Air Force Special Operations Command
US Marine Corps Forces Special Operations Command
US Naval Special Operations Command

There should be no reason why they can't run the Army SF and Rangers, Navy SEALs, Marine Force Recon and Air Force Combat Controllers out of one compound at Macdill AFB more effectively than they can run all those separate headquarters--and it would cut down dramatically on the number of snake-eater generals.