washingtonscene
How Safe Are Commissaries? Potential threats seem constant.
T \\ COLA News //
Low Gas, Low COLA The Consumer Price Index fell sharply again in December 2015, to 1.5 percent below the FY 2014 baseline. Because there was not a positive COLA in FY 2015, the FY 2014 baseline is used. Fol- low the trends at www
.moaa.org/colawatch.
he FY 2016 Defense Budget proposed privatizing the military commissary system over several
years. The Pentagon’s main goal was to eliminate the $1.3 billion annual DoD sub- sidy for the commissary system. The House version of the FY 2016 Na- tional Defense Authorization Bill didn’t include the proposed budget cut or the privatization concept. But the Senate version did — cutting the
FY 2016 commissary budget by $322 million and requiring DoD to submit two reports to Congress. The first, due by Feb. 1, was to be on the viability of privatizing the system. If viable, and validated by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a second re- port was to provide a plan to do so. The threat to this high-value benefit caused understandable uproar among military beneficiaries. Multiple studies have concluded priva- tization would lead to higher prices; lower patronage not only at commissaries but also at exchanges and other base facilities that benefit from commissary traffic; eventual closure of commissaries; and adverse effects on exchange revenues, which are needed to fund base gyms, libraries, and other morale, welfare, and recreation activities. MOAA, The Military Coalition, and oth- ers articulated these concerns to House and Senate leaders and generated grass- roots input from commissary patrons. In the end, the House and Senate com-
promised, and the final FY 2016 National Defense Authorization Act: reduced the FY 2016 commissary bud- get cut from $322 million to a far more manageable $30 million;
32 MILITARY OFFICER MARCH 2016
required a DoD plan to make delivery of commissary and exchange benefits “budget neutral” (i.e., no cost to DoD) by the end of FY 2018, also to be validated by the GAO; authorized DoD to conduct pilot pro- grams to evaluate ways to achieve com- missary/exchange budget neutrality; and most important, specified that such initiatives must (a) maintain high levels of customer satisfaction, (b) provide high- quality products, and (c) sustain the cur- rent level of savings for customers. MOAA and The Military Coalition sup- ported these provisions in full knowledge that making the program budget-neutral while still achieving the same levels of pa- tron savings and satisfaction and product quality is functionally impossible. Subsequently, the new deputy chief management officer for DoD acknowl- edged this reality. He also acknowledged previous DoD proposals were aimed at simply cutting the budget, regardless of the risk to the commissary program. Further, he pledged that the department
now has accepted the first priority must be maintaining the current level of benefit. Rather than seeking any specific savings
target, he said future initiatives would be aimed at seeking possible business-practice efficiencies that still would sustain the same benefit level, and DoD would accept whatever level of budget savings might be realized within that mandate. Refreshing words, to be sure. But it’s not as if we’ve never heard them before. During the George W. Bush adminis-
tration, there were numerous Pentagon proposals to cut commissary funding in various ways. After being rebuffed mul- tiple times, those officials also pledged not to do so again. The reality is there have been dozens of
proposals to curtail, privatize, or eliminate the commissary benefit going back more than 40 years.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124