OPENING STATEMENT OF U.S. SENATOR JACK REED

RANKING MEMBER, SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

 

SD-G50

DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

 

To receive testimony on Department of Defense personnel reform

and strengthening the All-Volunteer Force

(As Prepared for Delivery)

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.  I’d like to join you in thanking our witnesses for their willingness to appear before us today to provide their thoughts on personnel reform and strengthening the All-Volunteer Force.   It is clear from the past work and prepared testimony that each of our witnesses brings a unique and valuable perspective on these issues.

This Committee has held a series of hearings to review the organizational structure of the Department.  Experts have testified on the importance of streamlining our defense acquisition processes; re-evaluating the roles and missions of the Services; ensuring effective management of the Department; and on the formulation of our defense strategy and future force structure. 

I believe today’s hearing may be among the most important this Committee will convene during our review.  The men and women who make up the All-Volunteer Force remain this Committee’s top concern.  Any changes we recommend to the processes, structure, and organization of the Department of Defense, or to the benefit structure, will not matter if we don’t provide the nation with a sufficiently sized, trained, and equipped military, of the necessary quality of character and talent, to meet national defense requirements.

To that end, Congress has for several years considered various proposals for changes in compensation and health care to slow the growth of personnel costs so that those savings could be redirected to buy back readiness and modernization shortfalls.   The Department has consistently, over the past several decades, proposed a budget in which military personnel costs comprised roughly 33 percent, or a third, of that total budget.  In 1980, this third devoted to military personnel bought an active-duty force of over 2.1 million.  Today, with a total DOD budget that is hundreds of billions of dollars higher, that third only buys 1.2 million active-duty members, and that figure continues to fall and will likely drop further if rising personnel costs are not constrained. 

In my view, hard choices will need to be made, especially in the budget environment we find ourselves.  We made some difficult choices this year, including the enactment of a new retirement benefit for tomorrow’s force, but we need to do more.  I am concerned, frankly, that we are pricing ourselves out of a military that is sufficiently sized and trained to accomplish national defense objectives.  I look forward to any recommendations the witnesses may have for addressing the increase in personnel costs.

With regard to the management of military personnel, it is time to re-evaluate whether the Defense Officer Personnel Management System, commonly referred to as DOPMA, continues to meet the needs of our military services.  The up-or-out promotion system is 70 years old, and in many respects it has worked and continues to work well.  It ensures promotion opportunity for talented young service members as they progress in their careers.  But it also has its weaknesses.  In some circumstances, it requires divesture of talent at its peak. It may not be the right system for highly technical occupations, such as cyber experts, pilots, doctors, or special operators, in whom we may have invested millions of dollars in training.    It relies on a cohort-based system that may be outdated.  Joint professional education requirements, a signature element of Goldwater-Nichols, may, in some cases, be so substantial that service members have difficulty fitting in all the required training, joint assignments, and command assignments needed for professional development.

I hope that our witnesses can, first and foremost, identify what problems exist within the military personnel management and compensation systems, and offer propose solutions to these problems that Congress and the Department of Defense should consider to bring our military personnel system up to date.  I thank you all for your time and your expertise, and look forward to your testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.