This afternoon I released the following All Hands email on workforce management issues and measures:
To the Men and Women of the U.S. Coast Guard,
The Coast Guard is facing a situation in which we have more active duty military members than funded billets. As a result, we have already scaled back Selective Reenlistment Bonuses, waived up to 12 months time-in-grade requirements for retirements, reduced enlistment accessions to their lowest recorded levels, and reduced officer accessions. Even with this careful management, the active duty workforce still remains above our funded level in FY10 and, based on the President’s proposed budget for FY11, we anticipate the loss of 1,112 additional funded billets. Therefore, additional workforce management actions are necessary.
Our retention and recruitment rates are higher than any other time in recent history and current voluntary measures to reduce the impacts of high retention and the projected billet losses have not solved our body-to-billet overages. While Congress has not yet passed our final FY11 budget, we must prepare now to match the number of active duty members to the number of funded billets in the President's proposed budget. To do this, CG-PSC will consider waiving obligated service requirements for active duty members based on needs of the Service; we will create additional military billets by in-sourcing work presently conducted by contractors that is inherently governmental in nature; and we will more aggressively communicate available opportunities for active duty members to voluntarily transfer to the Coast Guard Reserve.
If additional measures are necessary to solve the body-to-billet imbalance, we will reduce opportunities of selection in officer continuation and promotion boards and conduct performance-based retention panels for the enlisted workforce.
To date, we have released the following ALCOASTs about workforce management measures:
ALCOAST 173/10: Obligated Service Requirements For Enlisted Personnel
ALCOAST 165/10: Active Duty Military Workforce Management - SITREP One
ALCOAST 621/09: Selective Reenlistment Bonus Multiples and Kickers Cancelled
ALCOAST 619/09: Critical Skills Training Bonus Program
Semper Paratus,
VADM David Pekoske
