The Pentagon’s plan to fix its decades-old material weaknesses — its inability to reliably track government property in the possession of contractors — is failing, a new inspector general evaluation finds.
The Pentagon IG concluded that the department’s corrective action plan — which calls on DoD components to use a software application called the Government Furnished Property Module within the Procurement Integrated Enterprise Environment — has stalled due to a lack of enforcement from the Office of the Secretary of Defense and slow adoption by the military services.
Auditors warn that if DoD components don’t implement the GFP module, the department risks missing its goal of achieving a clean audit opinion by 2028.
“The implementation of that GFP module is the key to getting this to work,” Mark Thomas, DoD IG’s supervisory auditor, told Federal News Network.
One of the technical challenges, Thomas said, is that each military service uses its own accountable property system of record, or APSR, to track government assets in the hands of contractors. The office of the secretary of defense, however, wants the services to connect their systems to the GFP module.
“That is something that the components have not been able to do yet. They’re still working to implement that. Each of the components has corrective action dates for that that are still into the future,” Thomas said.
“The goal would be to complete everything by 2028, preferably before 2028 so that the auditors, as they come in to do the work, that control environment has been established and been working before the auditors come in and start to do some of the work. That would be the best way to do it,” he added.
But some of the timelines to remediate this weakness stretch beyond the 2028 deadline.
“Unless there’s a change in those dates, then they’ll be at risk for missing the deadline,” Thomas said.
Each military service has its own reasons for lagging in implementing the department-wide solution, but most of those reasons center around the same issue — every component is grappling with its own longstanding material weakness in accounting for government property in the possession of contractors.
“They have their own systems which differ from component to component. So they have their own technical challenges and how their particular system in the Air Force functions and how it accounts for property versus how the Navy does it. Each group is kind of working on their own technical challenges and how they’re going to report this into their own APSR — they are busy doing that and they’re actively trying to clean that up so that they can all get opinions on their financial statements,” Thomas said.
But the IG found that this component-level focus has come at the expense of the broader, department-wide effort.
Thomas said the services have been receptive to adapting the department-wide solution, but each faces a number of technical challenges connecting their systems to the GFP module.
“They understand the importance of it, and they understand what this really would give us if there is a functioning GFP module across the department. This would really give the department a larger bird’s eye view of all of the property that they have in the possession of contractors. And it would provide that enterprise level look and ability to tell we have so much property at contractor x,” Thomas said.
Meanwhile, DoD leaders have not mandated the use of the GFP module, which is stalling the department’s efforts to remediate this material weakness. The audit found that the OSD could be “more forceful” in recommending and implementing the department-wide solution.
“They need to be more direct in saying that we will use this module, all the components will use this module. That was one of the areas that we thought was weak, that the department could improve their messaging, and they could improve to be more direct and require the use of this module,” Thomas said.
FILE - The Department of Defense logo is seen on the wall in the Press Briefing room at the Pentagon, Oct. 29, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File)
Tens of thousands of blue-collar Defense Department workers are slated to receive their long-delayed 2024 pay raises. The raises were stalled for nearly a year after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s purge of advisory committees halted the DoD Wage Committee’s ability to authorize new wage schedules.
The DoD Wage Committee met last week for the first time this year to approve publication of 2024 updates to about 1,600 wage schedules covering 250 wage areas.
These raises will match the General Schedule locality increases, and they will be applied retroactively according to when they should have taken effect last year. DoD workers could see the pay bump reflected in their next paychecks.
“It will probably be in the next paycheck, or possibly a separate check. It will depend on which payroll processor is being used,” Jacqueline Simon, American Federation of Government Employees’ director of public policy, told Federal News Network.
“There might be some other agencies, like the Bureau of Prisons, Social Security, even the Department of Veterans Affairs that might be more delayed. But I’m told the Defense Finance and Accounting Service says it will be the next paycheck,” she said.
For blue-collar federal employees under the Federal Wage System, the process of getting a pay raise is more complex than for most General Schedule employees. While the GS base pay schedule is adjusted annually each January with an across-the-board pay increase set by the president or Congress, FWS adjustments are based partly on that overarching raise and partly on wage surveys conducted by the DoD Wage Committee, which then votes to implement new schedules region by region throughout the year.
But in March, Hegseth launched a review of all advisory committees, requiring them to justify their existence. He instructed the committees to explain how their advice “benefited the DoD, the federal government, and the United States,” and how it aligned with President Donald Trump’s goals and the department’s priority of “restoring the warrior ethos.” Hegseth dismissed all members of the advisory committees in April.
The DoD Wage Committee — made up of three agency officials and two union leaders, and whose sole function is to approve wage schedules for FWS employees — has been unable to meet since then.
“We don’t provide advice per se. We look through all the data, at the way the calculations were done, make sure everything was done right, and then you vote that yes, this is okay. And sometimes it’s not okay. Sometimes there are errors and they’re found. But that’s what the DoD wage committee is,” Simon said.
“The surveys happened, the calculation and the new wage scales and wage rates were determined, but none of them could be actually implemented or paid because of the pause on the advisory committees. Everything was ready to go. So people who were due their raise in March and April and May, in June, July, August, September, none of them got their raises when they were supposed to,” she added.
Simon said the Office of the Secretary of Defense never offered any explanation of why the committee could not be exempted. “They just wouldn’t do it. They were not permitted to meet with us,” she said.
It appears that pressure from lawmakers eventually pushed the department to reverse its course.
“We certainly talked to a lot of lawmakers, and we talked to as many people in the administration as we possibly could and tried to put some political pressure on the secretary, and I guess he finally relented,” Simon said.
The delay, Simon said, has been deeply frustrating for workers. “Across the board, people were absolutely furious. There’s no way to overstate how angry and resentful people were that this was happening. And, of course, there was a hardship, of course there was the shutdown, and then this on top of it, and it was a terrible outrage.”
AFGE estimates that more than 118,000 DoD employees are paid through the Federal Wage System.
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email anastasia.obis@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at (301) 830-2747.
The federal offices are back open and hundreds of thousands of federal workershave returned to work after the longest shutdown in history. But nothing is back to normal — federal workers say morale and trust in leadership are at an all-time low, tensions are high between furloughed staff and those who worked through the shutdown, schedules are slipping and projects are being pushed back, and more people are accelerating their retirement plans or leaving federal service altogether.
The recent shutdown, however, has just exacerbated the existing problems and added to what federal workers described as an already extremely trying year for the federal workforce.
“As if morale wasn’t already non-existent, it sure is now. I expect a surge of people to (quiet) quit and I expect the remaining players to be bombarded with work with no support or guidance from leadership,” one employee told Federal News Network.
“The mission is dead. Operations are barely running. Morale is toast,” another federal worker said.
“Everything about being a federal employee in 2025 has destroyed workforce morale — from constant [reduction-in-force] threats, to losing colleagues to early/forced retirements and firings, to the loss of any telework to facilitate work/life balance for working parents or senior caregivers, this is the worst professional year I have experienced in nearly 20 years of service to my country. Nothing about the current [Office of Management and Budget] approach to leadership has moved our country forward,” another employee said.
A Federal News Network survey, conducted online between Nov. 17-30, asked federal workers what it has been like going back to work after the 43-day government shutdown. Survey respondents were self-selected, and they self-reported information to verify their status as current federal employees.
Federal workers described the experience as disorienting — returning to thousands of unanswered emails and scrambling to catch up with partners who kept work moving during the shutdown. There was little to no guidance from top management; they reported overwhelming backlogs and project schedules going completely awry.
Many said overloaded or outdated IT systems, lapsed system access and computer issues made even basic tasks difficult.
“IT issues as devices are set to expire and become inactive after 30 days of non-use, supervisory chain is still not back to work and others are catching up on leave. There are large gaps within the higher chain of command, tremendous amount of confusion, no clear description of how to verify back pay and related deductions are accurate, statutory deadlines did not stop during the shutdown, so crushing workload to return to,” one employee said on Nov. 24.
“It is not so simple as flipping a switch. We are still waiting on funds to arrive and are unable to work on things until those funds arrive,” another federal worker said on Nov. 18.
“I engage in very technical work. A 1.5-month shutdown has thoroughly derailed my train of thought. It will take a long time to refamiliarize myself with what issues were being sorted out, what solutions I had been pursuing, even how any of my own code works,” another employee said.
Several federal workers said their agencies could face budget cuts due to not hitting mandatory spending benchmarks — goals that are “impossible to achieve” after a 40-plus day lapse in appropriations.
In addition, many employees now have to use their “use-or-lose” annual leave before the end of the year, which will further delay progress and extend timelines.
Nearly 1,500 people responded to the survey. Out of 739 federal workers who responded to this question, nearly 47% of respondents said it would take them more than two weeks to catch up on all the work missed during the shutdown.
“My program was halted immediately, but will take two months to ramp back up,” one worker said.
“Can you really ever catch up? Some work will just be lost — deprioritized in the chaos,” another federal employee said.
And the threat of another shutdown is looming — the bill President Donald Trump signed into law keeps the government open only through Jan. 30. The uncertainty, workers say, is making people reluctant to fully dive back into work.
“With holidays coming, this will set projects back months,” one employee said.
Federal employees who worked during the shutdown also expressed “apathy and annoyance” toward furloughed employees who did not work during the shutdown, saying the resentment has led to conflicts and made collaboration difficult.
“Expect operations to be negatively affected as the furlough has driven a wedge between those furloughed employees and those who remained on the job,” one federal employee said.
Receiving back pay
Most of the federal workers worked without pay during the shutdown, missing more than four weeks of pay.
When the government reopened on Nov. 13, the Office of Personnel Management said it would take several business days for workers to get their back pay.
Out of 728 individuals, 200 federal workers — about 27.5% — said they received their back pay within one-to-three days after returning to work. Another 200 said they were paid within four-to-seven days. For the remaining 323 individuals, it took more than a week to receive their back pay.
Source: Federal News Network November 2025 survey of 1,467 current federal employees.
Many employees told Federal News Network that there was a lot of confusion about how to process timesheets and guidance changed a few times the first two days, which had contributed to the delay in issuing our pay.
“Smithsonian still has not managed to get us paid. They are wasting time making sure everyone has the correct time codes rather than getting people paid. It’s more important to them that they take a couple weeks to record we were furloughed. Can’t pay the mortgage, but at least they’ll have the correct time code,” one employee said on Nov. 22.
One Interior Department employee told Federal News Network on Dec. 1 the agency had only paid them for 72 hours worked during the shutdown and had promised the remainder by Nov. 25 — they are still waiting on that payment. They added that none of the 69 civilian employees at the U.S. Park Police have been fully paid. Sworn officers, however, received a flat 80 hours per pay period, and while overtime and night-differential corrections were made, it’s not clear if that pay had been issued.
“We have not heard anything about when we will be paid beyond the deadline that passed a week ago, no reason has been provided to explain the delay,” the employee said. “I will be retiring early. While not the only reason, the recent hijinks played a role in my decision.”
One employee at INTERPOL Washington told Federal News Network on Dec. 1 that personnel there have received only partial back pay and some employees have only received pay for one pay period. The issue stems from the Justice Department’s decision to dismantle INTERPOL Washington and fold its remaining functions into the U.S. Marshals Service during the shutdown — while making changes in the pay system while payroll processing was underway.
The workers were initially told they would receive all of their back pay on Nov. 21, but instead received partial pay on Nov. 24. DOJ then promised the rest by Nov. 28, but only a handful of people were paid over that weekend. The agency now says it has finally identified the problem and that employees should be paid by Dec. 3.
“Every time that the DOJ claims to find a solution and puts another date out for when we should get paid, there is just another disappointment,” the INTERPOL Washington employee said.
Another Air Force civilian at Lackland Air Force Base, who was told they would be paid last week, is still waiting for their back pay now nearly three weeks after the shutdown ended. On Monday, they were told that “the comptroller squadron is working diligently to manually process over 3,000 timecards with an estimated completion date of Nov. 29.”
For many of those who received back pay, determining whether the amount was correct was nearly impossible.
Dozens of respondents said they were unsure if their payments were accurate because agencies did not issue accompanying paystubs for the affected pay periods. Several employees said since payroll providers such as the Defense Finance and Accounting Service do not provide leave and earnings statements for retroactive pay, meaning they will have to wait for the next pay period to verify whether the amount is correct.
“It seems to be off by a few hundred dollars, but I can’t determine where the discrepancy is,” one federal worker said on Nov. 26.
“We don’t know since it was a partial payment with no documentation,” another respondent said on Nov. 24.
“Many people at work say that their paychecks were less due to taxes on lump sum payouts,” another respondent said on Nov. 25.
More feds eyeing the exit
Federal workers were already overwhelmed, stretched thin and struggling with high levels of anxiety following the Trump administration’s push to reduce the size of the federal workforce. Now, the shutdown is pushing even more people out the door.
Out of 758 federal workers, 329 respondents — about 43.4% — said that the shutdown made them reconsider staying in federal service.
Source: Federal News Network November 2025 survey of 1,467 current federal employees.
Many said they are actively looking for an out, while for others the shutdown reinforced their decision to retire
“It is so untenable that I plan to quit in the next month or so. The situation has gotten even worse since returning,” one employee said.
“The shutdown did solidify that I will retire the first date I can,” a federal worker said.
“I have dedicated 20 years to serving my country, including service in the U.S. Army. It’s pretty thankless to be a federal civilian employee now. I used to encourage my children to pursue a similar career but now I am encouraging them to stay away from federal service,” another employee said.
Financial, mental health toll
More than half of federal employees — 58% of respondents — reported experiencing financial challenges during the shutdown, and nearly a third said they struggled to pay bills. Over 51% of federal workers said they had to rely on credit cards, loans or emergency savings to pay their bills, while 14% reported missing rent, mortgage or other payments. About 10% of federal workers said they needed outside assistance, such as food banks and relief programs. But notably, nearly 62% said the shutdown impacted their mental health.
Source: Federal News Network November 2025 survey of 1,467 current federal employees.
Several respondents said they dipped into retirement accounts or cleared out emergency savings to stay afloat, while others reported delaying Christmas shopping, postponing home repairs or borrowing from family members to cover basic needs. Younger workers and those in single-income households were hit especially hard.
And while some said they were fortunate enough to have savings or a second household income, many still described the experience as deeply destabilizing.
“Fortunately, we are a two-income, no-child household and good savers. But I did give a monetary gift to a colleague who is in a much more tenuous situation,” a federal worker said.
“I requested a skip loan payment on my car since I could without fees. I have paid for things out of savings and since I’m a bit older I can do that, but I’m depleting savings still as I continue to not be paid,” one employee said.
“Outsiders calling it a ‘free vacation’ don’t understand the effects the shutdown has on furloughed staff,” another employee said.
Workers described experiencing “constant dread and worry,” “incredible stress and anxiety” and “the feeling of absolutely no protections.”
“It was very stressful. I had to take a part-time job,” one employee said.
Ultimately, one worker said, the impacts were “cruel and petty and proved to be irrelevant to either side achieving their stated goals.”
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email anastasia.obis@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at (301) 830-2747.
A new forecast projects that defense spending will keep rising through 2035, while civilian agencies face years of flat or shrinking budgets, continued cuts and growing pressure to scale back.
The Professional Services Council’s latest federal market forecast, compiled with input from more than 400 industry volunteers and subject-matter experts, predicts that in an environment where legislative logjam is likely to persist, defense spending will continue rising at roughly 2% annually after its first $1 trillion budget in fiscal 2026 — a one-time spike driven by reconciliation — while cuts will “continue to fall disproportionately on civil agencies until elections change the balance of power.”
“What this means in practical terms is that the fiscal environment for the next decade will be tight, competitive, highly dependent on supplemental funding, reconciliation and prone to crisis-driven appropriations. Base budgets alone will struggle to drive new initiatives, especially on the non-defense side. In this environment, as one of our interviewees suggested, it’s best to keep your customers close and your congressional supporters and lobbyists closer,” Mike Riley, a volunteer for PSC’s Vision Federal Market Forecast told reporters last week.
In the defense space, PSC volunteers said their discussions with defense stakeholders revealed a shift, or “strategic realignment,” in the Pentagon’s priorities. While the Indo-Pacific Command remains of “elevated importance,” the Northern Command and Southern Command are gaining new emphasis as the department puts greater focus on homeland, border security and expands its presence in Latin America and the Caribbean.
“This year was a bit of an interesting year for us. A lot of defense folks acknowledge the growing importance under this administration, but also a lot of consternation about the directions the administration might be going and just kind of the lack of clarity. There’s some continuing trends — deterring China, integrated deterrence, that pivot to the Pacific — that’s an ongoing thing that didn’t change from the previous administration. Of course, border security, the Department finds itself in an uncomfortable position,” Jason Dombrowski, a volunteer for PSC’s Vision Federal Market Forecast, said.
“They are getting a little bit more heavily involved in domestic politics than they would otherwise prefer to. Certainly, they always reiterated their intent to be responsive to the commander in chief. But historically, of course, the American military has tried to avoid a domestic role,” he added.
The department is also placing greater emphasis on the Golden Dome missile defense system, shipbuilding and munitions under this administration.
“I think everyone’s been paying attention to the news that there has been some very notable plus ups and focuses of this administration, most notably around shipbuilding, but also to include things like nuclear modernization, which in previous years we had highlighted as a potential toss up, but this year definitely moved into the winners category,” Dombrowski said.
Acquisition reform
The Defense Department also moves to implement Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s sweeping acquisition reforms, which emphasize greater competition, faster delivery and making commercial technology the default option. It’s unclear whether the department has the ability to implement those changes given deep personnel cuts across the contracting workforce.
“The contracting professionals — there seems to be a large reduction. How do we get this done? That fundamental capacity to get things done is really going to make a difference, whether you’re putting out contracts, supply chain, workforce throughput … It’s going to affect how we can actually help out the government. Adaptability is the name of the game,”Jim Kainz, a PSC volunteer, said.
In addition, the department’s new acquisition strategy promises to lower barriers to entry to encourage startups and non-traditional vendors to join the defense industrial base. Dombrowski said that while stakeholders are cautiously optimistic about the reforms, there is also a “healthy cynicism of saying, ‘How is this time any different?’”
“This administration has made a big priority of trying to attract new people, and we looked at the pros and cons of it. It’s probably worth noting that, aside from a few very notable successes that we can all figure out, there hasn’t really been much movement in this regard,” Dombrowski said.
“We’re very excited, certainly [Commercial Solutions Opening] and [Other Transaction Authority] and just a variety of things that should provide a lot of flexibility, but let’s see it,” he added.
Winner and losers
Dombrowski and Kainz said several areas emerged as clear “losers” in this year’s defense outlook, including the department’s buying power, which continues to erode as inflation and reshoring efforts drive up costs across programs.
Legacy systems and advisory and assistance services are facing cuts, and U.S. Africa Command and Central Command are being pushed lower on the priority list as resources shift toward European Command.
There is also uncertainty around operations and maintenance funding, which Dombrowski and Kainz said remains a major concern for both think tanks and potential customers. Sustainability initiatives appear to be split — the “green side of sustainability” will most certainly lose ground, while efforts tied to energy resilience may gain momentum.
Contested logistics, once considered a toss-up, is gaining traction as a priority, and scalability — the ability to rapidly increase production in a crisis — is emerging as a clear winner across the department.
Overall, research and development spending is increasing, but only in areas related to advanced weapon systems, technologies, drones and energy.
“However, there’s a belief and a growing expectation that the contracting community will bear more of those responsibilities,” Dombrowski said. “It’s really unclear where that line is going to be drawn between things that are really government exclusive where DoD is willing to pick up all costs associated to it. There are things we can all imagine, like fighter jets. But what about things that are more in the gray areas? Avionics, business process systems, back-office systems, things like that — definitely more of a sense that we are going to have to be developing those on our own.”
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email anastasia.obis@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at (301) 830-2747.
As the Defense Department moves to implement Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s sweeping acquisition reforms, Space Force leaders warn that the depth of workforce cuts is threatening to cripple the service’s ability to execute them.
“You have to have a strong, vibrant workforce to do the work and we’re in a really interesting time and a troubling time. There is a strong, motivated force but there have been an incredible amount of pressures on them this past year,” Maj. Gen. Stephen Purdy, acting assistant secretary for space acquisition and integration at the Department of the Air Force, said Nov. 20 during a Center for Strategic and International Studies event.
“We have a looming increase in acquisitions coming down the pike, and so that presents us with a really difficult situation of where we need to double down on our acquisition workforce, our acquisition training. We are in a situation where we barely have enough acquirers to do all of the work that we have now,” he added.
Purdy said the service has spent the last few years implementing the acquisition tenets set by Frank Calvelli, who stepped down as assistant secretary of the Air Force for space acquisition and integration in January. Calvelli pushed the service to “build smaller satellites and smaller ground systems and minimize non-recurring engineering or new design.” He also preferred to use fixed-price contracts when possible. Calvelli’s “tenets” were a back-to-basics formula meant to fix chronic problems in space programs.
“We’ve built upon that this last year. We haven’t let grass grow under our feet as we’ve kind of taken over in January. And we’ve built upon that foundation and moved on out and really done a lot this year that kind of foreshadowed [Hegseth’s] acquisition reforms. But the workforce question is really the key piece,” Purdy said.
The Trump administration push to reduce the size of the federal workforce through initiatives such as the deferred resignation program and voluntary early retirement has had an “outsized impact” on the Space Force. In May, Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman told Congress the service had lost nearly 14% of its civilian workforce — much of it coming from Space Systems Command, the Space Force’s acquisition hub.
“I’m worried about replacing that level of expertise in the near term as we try to resolve it and make sure we have a good workforce doing that acquisition,” Saltzman told the Senate Armed Services Committee at the time.
When asked about the acquisition workforce, Saltzman told reporters that these workforce reduction efforts have taken civilian experts “out of play,” leaving gaps in the institutional knowledge and technical skills.
As the Space Force begins implementing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s acquisition overhaul, which calls for using commercial technology as the default option, great competition and faster delivery, Purdy warned the service may not have the workforce needed to shift to the new way of doing business.
“If you look at [Hegseth’s] acquisition reforms that he’s laid out, a bunch of great initiatives and things we need to get after. But … you need the numbers of people, and you need the quality to understand. If you say ‘go commercial,’ and if you say, go after ‘new manufacturing mechanisms’ and take advantage of all of the new space companies that are out there, you need a larger number of people just to even track that activity. You need to be able to understand all that’s going on. You need to understand the incentive structure,” Purdy said.
The strain is particularly acute in contracting since the service simply doesn’t have enough contracting officers to handle a much larger workload created by recent acquisition reforms.
“In the past, if we had an acquisition program and we would go 20 years and it would be with one prime, we would maybe have one or two contracts, an R&D contract and a production contract. Pretty simple. One prime, a couple contracts. Now, with some of our programs there’ll be a five-year program, but we’ll probably have 20 contracts because I’m dealing with 10 or 15 different contractors in industry, which is literally what acquisition reform is telling us to do,” Purdy said.
“We have a serious issue here at a federal level on contracting and it’s just the numbers of folks. We do not have the numbers of contractors that we need at a federal level. Every federal agency has problems, and so we do not have the right numbers that we need,” he added.
Saltzman said the service is trying to ease the strain by requesting waivers to the hiring freeze that has been in place since the start of the Trump administration, as well as hiring authorities to fill essential acquisition and contracting roles.
Kay Sears, vice president and general manager of space, intelligence and weapon systems development at Boeing, said that while the Space Force acquisition community is more open and collaborative than ever, it is also apparent that the service’s workforce is stretched thin.
“You can tell that they’re stressed. You can tell that they’re overworked. And then when you get into that contracting element that’s really where I see the slowdown, the, ‘Hey, I’ve only got one playbook — I’m going to go follow the playbook,’ and we really start to lose sight of the mission objective,” Sears said.
Acquisition experts have said that while the proposed acquisition changes could meaningfully reshape how the Pentagon buys capabilities, the success of Hegseth’s reforms will hinge on whether the department can equip the workforce with the skills needed to operate differently.
“Scores of case studies have shown, there has to also be an aggressive, intentional and holistic approach to change management, prominently including how the relevant workforces are developed. Absent re-aligning those processes, real change will remain elusive,” Stan Soloway, president and CEO of Celero Strategies and federal acquisition expert, told Federal News Network.
Nearly two weeks after the record-long government shutdown ended, some Defense Department civilian employees say they have yet to receive the back pay they are owed.
The federal government reopened on Nov. 13 after President Donald Trump signed a bill to fund the government through Jan. 30, ending the 43-day shutdown and allowing tens of thousands of DoD civilians to return to work.
At the time, the Office of Personnel Management said that checks for DoD civilians were slated to go out on Nov. 16. DoD civilians, however, were told to expect payment sometime between Nov. 17 and Nov. 20.
But with Thanksgiving week now underway, many workers say they are still waiting for as much as four weeks of back pay.
One civilian employee at Laughlin Air Force Base in Texas, who was furloughed during the shutdown, told Federal News Network that more than 150 people in their unit of more than 400 civilians have not been paid.
“When everybody got back to work, we were told that the next week — or mid-week — we would get paid. And a lot of people did get paid, but a lot of us have not. They keep saying, ‘It’s going to take a few days,’” he said Wednesday.
The Air Force employee said there has been no official guidance or clear communication, but their supervisor told them Wednesday to expect back pay on Nov. 29.
“There’s nothing in writing,” the employee said. “It’s all the leadership just walking around telling us, ‘Expect to get paid.’ There’s no email traffic — it’s just their own interpretation of when they think we’re going to get paid. But there’s been nothing official sent out.”
A DoD spokesperson told Federal News Network that all civilians whose updated time and attendance have been received have been paid.
“It is essential that civilian employees review their time and attendance reports, and their Leave and Earnings Statements (LES) for accuracy. Civilians with questions or civilian pay issues should contact their local Agency Customer Service Representative (CSR) or immediate supervisor. [The Defense Finance and Accounting Service] will continue to work with the military components to resolve any remaining payment issues,” the spokesperson said.
Another Air Force civilian in San Antonio, who worked through the shutdown, said many civilians in their unit of police officers are still waiting for back pay.
“Nobody in leadership has put out any message other than when I inquired with my person who handles the payroll. She just said we should be getting paid on the 23rd or 24th, but that didn’t happen. Now, we are going into past Thanksgiving, who knows when it’s going to be,” the Air Force civilian told Federal News Network on Wednesday.
He said he has been trying for weeks to get answers for himself and the employees he supervises. When he asked his own supervisor for help, he was told to consider filing a congressional complaint.
“That’s just laughable to me because we have a GS-13, we have a commander and active-duty commander. There’s a whole bunch of people between me and my congressman that could probably provide answers. But going to your supervisor hasn’t worked,” the Air Force employee said.
“I don’t understand why they can’t just put out a simple explanation, because communication really helps, whether it’s good or bad, but at least they could explain why or what the problem is, but they haven’t. It’s frustrating,” he added.
The bill that Congress passed to reopen the government reaffirmed that both furloughed and excepted federal employees would receive back pay. The Office of Personnel Management official guidance stated the agency “is committed to ensuring that retroactive pay is provided as soon as possible,” and that the retroactive pay for excepted employees “must be provided at the earliest date possible after the lapse ends.”
A defense official told Federal News Network last week that “DFAS is running continuous pay cycles to expeditiously pay civilians a one-time retroactive lump sum payment for pay periods missed during the government shutdown. Civilians and service members who have questions regarding their pay may contact their local finance office or chain of command.”
The Department of the Air Force did not respond to questions about how many Air Force civilian employees are impacted, the cause of the delay or when civilians should expect back pay.
With pay stalled for weeks, many federal workers were forced to dip into savings, rely on credit cards, seek out no-interest loans or take on part-time work to make ends meet. Military families have been turning up at food banks in greater numbers — the Armed Services YMCA, for example, reported a 30% to 75% spike in demand at its food pantries near military installations since the shutdown began.
“I’ve joked with my family and my kids that if I don’t get back pay, we might have to push Christmas til maybe January, but the impending loom of another shutdown at the end of January, it can’t get worse,” the Air Force employee from Laughlin Air Force Base said.
Defense Department civilians aren’t the only ones still waiting for their back pay.
“Smithsonian still has not managed to get us paid. They are wasting time making sure everyone has the correct time codes rather than getting people paid. It’s more important to them that they take a couple weeks to record we were furloughed. Can’t pay the mortgage, but at least they’ll have the correct time code,” a federal employee told Federal News Network on Nov. 22.
At the Federal Aviation Administration, one air traffic control employee reported receiving only partial back pay through the end of November.
Meanwhile, federal workers who have received back pay told Federal News Network they cannot verify whether the pay was accurate as they have not received an accompanying Leave and Earnings Statement.
“Not sure if it is accurate, as no LES are being created for the back pay,” one federal employee said.
“Without a LES, I have no idea. I just hope it’s right. It feels like it might be right, but I don’t know,” another employee told Federal News Network.
Others reported major errors — an employee who received their back pay said it was “taxed so incorrectly that my first paycheck after returning was missing about $500 and only one of two missed health insurance payments were taken out.”
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email anastasia.obis@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at (301) 830-2747.
FILE - The Pentagon in Washington, March 27, 2008. The Defense Department will install solar panels on the Pentagon as part of a Biden administration plan to promote energy conservation and clean energy. The Pentagon is one of 31 government sites that are receiving grants for the Energy Department program, which the administration says is intended to “reestablish the federal government as a sustainability leader” and promote President Joe Biden’s commitment to clean energy. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)
D.C. National Guard members and their families lined up for free Thanksgiving meals at the D.C. Armory last week during an annual event hosted by Operation Homefront, a nonprofit that supports the military community.
As part of their Holiday Meals for Military program, the organization provided families with all the fixings for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner — stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie and more. Operation Homefront also distributed Harris Teeter gift cards so families could purchase their protein of choice, whether it’s turkey, ham or chicken. In total, the organization distributed 400 meal kits and grocery gift cards to pre-registered service members and military families.
With grocery prices rising and many service members still feeling the financial strain of the recent shutdown, the organization says demand for assistance has surged — food requests alone are up 57% this year.
“Our case work is up — quadruple — what it was 30 days ago. Undoubtedly, the economic times are difficult for everyone in our country, I think that’s greater with the military,” Vivian Dietrich, Operation Homefront senior director, told Federal News Network.
Operation Homefront, founded in 2002, serves military families nationwide by providing financial, emotional and social support through programs designed to keep households “strong, stable and secure,” Dietrich said. Financial assistance, however, is the backbone of the organization’s work, helping lower-ranking service members cover urgent expenses such as car repairs, rent and utility bills before these short-term problems spiral into long-term financial crises.
Through its Critical Financial Assistance program, Operation Homefront offers grants — not loans — and pays vendors on behalf of families. Caseworkers also review a family’s full financial situation to ensure they address the root of the problem.
“When we do our case work, often it’s somebody calling at the nth hour because the military is very proud. And generally, when they call, you’re at the point that you’re desperate, you need support, and our case workers are highly trained social workers. They spend time studying their finances. We work with them on how to manage their money and help them move forward,” Dietrich said.
But food remains the organization’s top request for assistance, Dietrich said.
Surveys conducted by organizations like Blue Star Families consistently find that food insecurity among active-duty families remains higher than the national average.
A number of factors contribute to military families’ financial vulnerability. Service members move dozens of times throughout their career, making it difficult for their spouses to find and maintain employment. Despite years of advocacy and policy efforts, the unemployment rate for active-duty military spouses has held stubbornly at around 22% for quite some time.
Service members also face significant upfront costs when moving to a new base — military families spend an average of about $8,000 out of pocket during each move, which causes them to dip into their savings or accrue credit card debt.
During the recent government shutdown, military families were turning up at food banks in greater numbers — the Armed Services YMCA, for example, reported a 30% to 75% spike in demand at its food pantries near military installations.
“Number one request for us is food — that has quadrupled right out of the top. But generally, it’s food, rent, maybe car payments, utilities — the day-to-day expenses that we all have. But it isn’t uncommon that there was some type of crisis that occurred that caused them to fall behind. A car would break down, or someone is sick and they had to miss work and they didn’t have pay. Or in the military, you can be deployed. You can be out on a training mission. And then if you have children, where’s the childcare?” Dietrich said.
“In general, it’s the basic expenses that we all live with, and if you don’t catch it at the very beginning, it really does become a crisis, and a crisis that can last for years. And our goal is to stay focused, get them strong, secure and stable,” she added.
Operation Homefront provides holiday meals for military families throughout the year, not just at Thanksgiving.
Nearly every service member living in privatized military housing has experienced at least one serious issue in their home — and an overwhelming number say their family’s health has been negatively impacted by their housing conditions. Nearly half said a medical provider had confirmed the connection, a new survey found.
The Change the Air Foundation recently conducted the Safe Military Housing Survey — one of the most comprehensive efforts yet to collect data the Defense Department has never been able to track accurately. The survey was designed to answer questions previous studies had overlooked and to provide Congress and the Pentagon with better data on what families across all branches and ranks are actually experiencing in military housing.
“We were hearing a lot of how many indoor air quality hazards and just housing hazards that these families were experiencing. But nobody was really ever asking, how is this affecting your physical health? How is this affecting your cognitive abilities? How is this affecting your mental and emotional health, and your and your personal finances? That’s a huge component of this survey,” Brandon Chappo, co-founder and director of public policy at the Change the Air Foundation, told Federal News Network.
Erica Thompson, a military spouse and the military families’ liaison for the Change the Air Foundation, lived in military housing for 10 months at Maxwell Air Force Base located in Montgomery, Alabama. Thompson said her family immediately noticed serious issues with the house, including a failing AC system they were told couldn’t be replaced. Once contractors opened the walls without any containment, the entire family — including their dog — began experiencing a cascade of medical issues. Her son started passing out in the house and the dog started having seizures; three of their children were later diagnosed with asthma and one was diagnosed with bilateral pediatric cataracts in both eyes.
“We saw a huge range of health implications across the board, throughout our whole family. And so I think using part of that, it was able to guide us through this questionnaire, some of those things that I wish offices knew. It was able to really give me insight into making some of these questions, because we would share our story with congressional offices, they would say, ‘How many more kids are there like yours?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know. There’s no data around that right now,’” Thompson told Federal News Network.
For decades, service members and their families living in privatized military housing have been exposed to hazardous conditions, including black mold, contaminated water, asbestos in ceilings and lead in walls. The survey found that mold, mildew or microbial growth were the most common issues, reported by 74% of respondents. More than half of respondents cited significant problems with temperature and humidity, pest infestations, water damage and HVAC failures.
“Mold and water damage can be extraordinarily hazardous to somebody’s health. That’s extremely dismaying,” Chappo said.
Overall, 76% of service members said their health has been negatively affected by housing conditions, and nearly half said a physician had confirmed their homes were making them sick.
The survey also revealed an alarming statistic — 47% of service members said their housing issues impacted their ability to perform their duties or maintain mission readiness. The problem was particularly prevalent among those stationed in Florida.
Three in five service members reported experiencing mental health challenges such as anxiety or depression, and roughly two in five service members said those issues affected their ability to attend work or training. One in six service members had to relocate — sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently — often leaving behind personal items that had been damaged.
“That is absolutely stunning. And so, if anything, it underscores the importance of trying to get these issues dealt with. It’s the fact that not only are our service members’ health and wellness being affected, it’s mission readiness. This is a national security issue, and we need to start talking about it in that light, and start really framing it in that way,” Chappo said.
While anxiety, depression, mood changes, cognitive issues, insomnia, headaches, migraines, brain fog and skin, eye and respiratory irritation top the list of reported health problems, the survey found the health impacts to be far more extensive than that.
“This is extraordinary. These [medical conditions] weren’t just in the low percentages. We’re talking in the 20, 30, 40 percentages for some of these. Even those alone, being as high as they are, really should catch the attention of, hopefully, the country, and of course, those in Congress,” Chappo said.
The survey found that Florida, Hawaii and Texas experienced housing-related issues at far greater rates and saw significantly higher rates of both health impacts and readiness concerns. Nearly 60% of service members stationed in Florida said housing issues impacted their ability to perform their duties. Health impacts were also higher than average — 84% of Florida service members said their families’ health had been impacted by house-related issues, compared with 83% in Hawaii and North Carolina.
“I think it’s got to do with lots of these states are on federal land, and they don’t have to follow the state regulations for building and code, and so that’s something that needs to be looked at. But Florida, Hawaii and Texas were exponentially higher on those stats for both readiness and really across the board. And those have some really big commands in those states as well that need to have some attention drawn to it,” Thompson said.
Marines reported the highest rates across all branches, with 85% saying their families were affected.
“We were displaced multiple times, with one displacement over 30 days. Relocation to a new home was requested, but we were denied a new home. We ultimately moved into a hotel on our dime after getting rid of everything we owned,” an active Marine service member in North Carolina told the Change the Air Foundation.
Gaps in current dispute resolution process
Whenever a housing-related issue arises, service members are supposed to follow a three-step tenant resolution process that includes built-in escalation steps.
The first step is to file a service call. If the issue isn’t resolved to the service member’s satisfaction, it can be escalated to the Military Housing Office or the government housing office on base, along with the service member’s chain of command to help elevate the issues. Thompson said that’s where most families drop out of the process.
The survey found that nine in ten service members always reported the issues they were experiencing, but only 7% made it all the way through the tenant resolution process — and of those, 72% said it still did not resolve their problem.
One in 14 service members were denied the tenant resolution process altogether.
“I want people to try to understand this, nine of 10 service members reported issues as they should to the proper authorities. Nine of 10 had to report the same issue multiple times. 66% of those had their issues marked resolved without a satisfactory result and over 50% of those went unresolved entirely. We have a situation here where the families are asking, calling, screaming for help. They’re upholding their end of the bargain, and the other side isn’t, and it’s failing,” Chappo said.
“Only 7% of service members actually made it through the entire dispute resolution process. That shows us that it’s broken. It’s failing. It’s not working,” he added.
In addition, the survey highlights major gaps in seven-year housing histories, with only 43% of service members receiving one — and most of those were incomplete.
“You’re able to turn down a house if you recognize or see something you’re not comfortable with. But if their service calls aren’t accurate, or it’s not reporting accurately, I think that screams to a bigger issue of what is going on? What’s the further issue? It’s not only for the service members, but it’s for DoD accountability,” Thompson said.
Out-of-pocket cost of privatized housing
Roughly half of service members reported paying an average of $1,680 out of pocket for costs such as pest control, mold inspections, hotel stays and medical bills .
“If they’re paying for pest control out of pocket, that’s not something that’s reimbursable. Our dehumidifiers and air purifiers are not reimbursable. You just end up paying out of pocket to do what you can, to try and make what you have work. And then same with medical bills, if you’re seeking extra time or care outside of the military, that’s out of pocket as well,” Thompson said.
Nearly all military family housing in the United States — about 99% — is owned and managed by private companies. These projects are built around 50-year ground leases and legal agreements that private partners use to secure financing and guarantee predictable revenue over decades, which limited the Defense Department’s ability to cancel or renegotiate agreements when housing conditions declined, creating oversight challenges that have persisted for decades.
Thompson, along with other advocates, have been advocating for several amendments to be included in the 2026 defense policy bill, including the proposed Healthy at Home on Base Act, which would require the Defense Department to study mold and its health effects in both military housing and barracks. Another amendment would direct the department to adopt uniform mold remediation standards across all barracks and family housing.
“We’re hearing a lot of congressional offices are starting to read the report, and they’re already asking for meetings to discuss these a little more closely, and then, of course, talk about some of the fixes and solutions. We’re having some feedback and some conversations with folks at the Pentagon who are kind of taking a closer look at this as well, and trying to come up with long term fixes, as opposed to band aid fixes,” Chappo said.
A sheet containing resources for U.S. military families affected by on-base housing water contamination from a jet fuel leak in 2021 is seen at the Dietz family's home on Monday, April 22, 2024, in Honolulu, Hawaii. (AP Photo/Mengshin Lin)
Two lawmakers want to fully exempt military compensation from federal income tax — a move that would deliver a significant pay boost for service members and mark one of the most sweeping tax changes for the military community.
The legislation, dubbed the Service Members Tax Relief Act, seeks to eliminate federal income tax on all active-duty and reserve pay, including enlistment, retention and education bonuses and all special and incentive pays.
The measure would go well beyond previous tax-exemption proposals, which largely focus on bonuses or specialty pays.
In May, for example, a bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced the BONUS act, which would amend a section of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to explicitly exempt all military bonuses from federal income tax.
“The bill builds on existing tax exclusions for certain military benefits and responds to long-standing concerns raised by troops, families and advocates who believe those who serve should not be taxed on the bonuses they earn in service to our country,” Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.), the sponsor of the BONUS act, said at the time.
Similarly, the No Tax on Bonuses Act, introduced in April, seeks to exclude service members’ enlistment and reenlistment bonuses from gross income.
Currently, service members deployed to combat zones receive tax-free income. In addition, most allowances that make up a significant portion of a service member’s total compensation, including basic allowance for housing and basic allowance for subsistence are tax-exempt. Veterans’ disability compensation is also exempt from federal income taxes. Together, these exemptions amount to roughly $30 billion a year in foregone federal income tax revenue each year.
Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) and Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-Ariz.), who introduced the Service Members Tax Relief act this week, are also sponsoring the Tax Cuts for Veterans Act of 2025, a measure that would amend Section 122 of the Internal Revenue Code to exclude all military retirement pay and veterans’ benefits from federal income taxes. This includes all retired and retainer pay under Titles 10 and 14, as well as all VA monthly benefits, including disability compensation and survivor payments covered under Titles 37 and 38.
The two measures stand apart from prior proposals, as no recent bill has attempted a tax exemption of this scope.
“It is pretty sweeping… and it’s potentially a very expensive proposal. Now, there’s a reason why Congress has, on a bipartisan basis, provided these existing tax exclusions for military and veterans benefits — there’s a wide bipartisan appreciation for the fact that if you served our country, put your life and put your body on the line — you’re receiving benefits that you deserve for that service…I think any proposal that costs tens of billions of dollars per year, Congress is going to scrutinize,” Andrew Lautz, director of tax policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, told Federal News Network.
It is unclear what strategy the sponsors plan to pursue — standalone bills often face political hurdles, and lawmakers frequently try to attach such proposals to larger legislative packages like the annual National Defense Authorization Act to increase their chances.
“These bills are fiscally conservative in that they offer relief through the tax code instead of new spending. It is a win-win; the exemption instantly improves take-home pay, while helping with recruitment and retention, which in turn keeps our war fighters strong,” Hamadeh said.
Lautz pushed back on the idea that the bills are “fiscally conservative,” arguing that a dollar of a tax cut that isn’t offset adds to the deficit just as much as a dollar of new spending that isn’t paid for.
“If you’ve got $100 billion spending program or the $100 billion tax cut, and you’re not paying for that — that is not fiscally responsible. Now, Republican lawmakers have shown a preference for cutting taxes over increasing government spending, and Democrats vice versa, that is an unmistakable trend. But in terms of the fiscally responsible approach here, I think the message we’ve sent to both parties is that if you’re going to have a large tax cut or you’re going to have a large spending increase, you should pay for it with offsetting either spending cuts or tax increases,” Lautz said.
While the proposal would eliminate federal income taxes on military pay, active-duty and reserve personnel would still be paying payroll taxes on their income.
The Senate side of the Capitol is seen in Washington, early Monday, June 30, 2025, as Republicans plan to begin a final push to advance President Donald Trump's big tax breaks and spending cuts package. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
The Space Force is finalizing a strategic roadmap that will lay out what space systems, infrastructure and manpower it will need over the next 15 years to stay ahead of emerging threats.
Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman said most of the work on the document, known as the “objective force” is largely complete.
“I want to publish objective force 2025 before the end of the calendar year. That’s the task I’ve given the staff. And of course, they immediately push back saying we can’t possibly do that. I think they can. So I’m really trying to hold them. I think the bulk of the work is almost complete,” Saltzman said during a Center for Strategic and International Studies event Thursday.
Saltzman said the “objective force” is designed to be a living document, updated regularly and republished every five years. The 2025 version will outline what the service will need between now and 2040, but its purpose is not to list everything new that’s needed by 2040. Instead, it maps out which systems the service will need to sustain, phase out or bring online over the next 15 years.
“There are systems we are flying today that we will continue to use into 2040, so the objective force will account for that. There are some systems we use today that we will wean ourselves off of in the intervening years between now and 2040 — the objective force will say that, ‘Hey, we plan to sunset in the 2030 time frame, 2035 and the new system will be growing along the same time so we preserve that mission capability,’” Saltzman said.
“That’s the way you want to think about, it’s not what do we need for 2040, it’s what happens between now and 2040 to make sure we have that objective force we need,” he added.
The document, however, will go beyond simply cataloging the types of systems the service already has or will need in the future. It will also outline the broader infrastructure needed to sustain the mission, including how many bases and squadrons are required and whether new military construction will be necessary — offering a full roadmap for what it will take to build and maintain a future Space Force.
Saltzman acknowledged that circumstances and requirements will inevitably change, so the roadmap is meant to adopt along with them.
“There will be annual updates based on resourcing, obviously, and then every five years we will re-snap the chalk line and say, ‘So objective force 2030, we’ll be looking to 2045.’ It’ll be this rolling campaign of learning to make sure that we have the force documented that we think we’re going to need in the out years,” Saltzman said.
Clear demand signal
Saltzman said the Space Force needs to clearly and formally communicate what it needs long-term to its stakeholders, including Congress, defense contractors, allies and partners.
“We’ll try to lay all of that out, to publish it to the stakeholders so that they can see what our plan is and see a stable, comprehensive demand signal to what we need to buy, what approvals we need, how much resourcing we might need to put it in place,” Saltzman said.
While Saltzman had originally aimed to publish the document by the end of 2025, he said its release will most likely slip into 2026.
“I think while you may not see a published document before the end of December, I can pretty much tell you that the work will be complete by the end of December, and we will be in final approvals to say yes. We’ll take this to the secretary, obviously, and make sure that the whole staff understands what we’re trying to do,” Saltzman said.
“I think the work of the force design will be done in 2025, and then hopefully publish it again to stakeholders in early 2026. That’s kind of what I see as the current timeline,” he added.
A government watchdog is sounding the alarm about a growing national security threat online. Rather than a traditional cyberattack, however, this one comes from the everyday digital footprints service members and their families leave across the internet.
A new Government Accountability Office report warns that publicly accessible data — from social media posts and location tracking to Defense Department press releases — can be pieced together by malicious actors to identify military personnel, target their families and disrupt military operations.
According to GAO, while the Pentagon has taken some steps to address the threat, its efforts remain scattered, inconsistent and lack coordination.
“We found that the department recognized that there were security issues, but they weren’t necessarily well-prepared to respond to them because it was new, because it didn’t necessarily neatly fit into existing organizational structures or policies or doctrines, and that’s a consistent story with the department,” Joe Kirschbaum, director of the defense capabilities and management team at GAO, told Federal News Network.
To understand the risks posed to DoD personnel and operations that come from the aggregation of publicly accessible digital data, the watchdog conducted its own investigation and built notional threat scenarios showing how that information could be exploited. GAO began by surveying the types of data already available online and also assigned investigators to scour the dark web for information about service members.
In addition to basic social media posts, investigators found data brokers selling personal and even operational information about DoD personnel and their families — information that can be combined with other publicly available data to build a more complete profile.
“Once you start putting some of these things together, potentially, you start to see a pattern — whether it’s looking at individuals, whether it’s the individuals linked to military operational units or operations themselves, family members. Nefarious actors can take these things and build them into a profile that could be used for nefarious purposes,” Kirschbaum said.
One of GAO’s threat scenarios shows how publicly accessible information can expose sensitive military training materials and capabilities. Investigators found that social media posts, online forums and dark-web marketplaces contained everything from military equipment manuals, detailed training materials, and photos of facility and aircraft interiors. When combined, these digital footprints can reveal information about equipment modifications, strategic partnerships or potential vulnerabilities, which can be used to clone products, exploit weaknesses or undermine military operations.
And while DoD has identified the public accessibility of digital data as a “real and growing threat,” GAO found that DoD’s policies and guidance are narrowly focused on social media and email use rather than the full range of potential risks from aggregated digital footprints.
For instance, the DoD chief information officer has prohibited the use of personal email or messaging apps for official business involving controlled unclassified information. But that policy doesn’t address the use of personal accounts on personal devices for unofficial tasks involving unclassified information — such as booking travel, accessing military travel orders, or posting on social media — activities that can pose similar risks once aggregated.
In addition, DoD officials acknowledged that current policies and guidance do not fully address the range of risks created by publicly accessible digital information about DoD and its personnel. They said part of the challenge is that the department has limited authority to regulate actions of DoD personnel and contractors outside of an operational environment.
“In general, except for the operation security folks, the answer was they didn’t really consider this kind of publicly available information in their own sphere. It’s not like they didn’t recognize there’s an issue, but it was more like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a problem. But I think it’s handled in these other areas.’ Almost like passing the buck. They didn’t understand, necessarily, where it was handled. And the answer was, it should probably be handled collectively amidst this entire structure,” Kirschbaum said.
The officials also said that while they had planned to review current policies and guidance, they “had not collaborated to address digital profile risks because they did not believe the digital profile threat and its associated risks aligned with the Secretary of Defense’s priorities,” including reviving warrior ethos, restoring trust in the military and reestablishing deterrence by defending the homeland.
“One of our perspectives on this is we know we’re not sure where you would put this topic in terms of those priorities. I mean, this is a pretty clear case where it’s a threat to the stability and efficacy of our military forces. That kind of underlines all priorities — you can’t necessarily defend the homeland with forces that have maybe potential operational security weaknesses. So it would seem to kind of undergird all of those priorities,” Kirschbaum said.
“We also respect the fact that as the department’s making tough choices, whether it’s concentrations of policy, financial and things of that nature, they do have to figure out the most immediate ways to apply dollars. For example, we’re asking the department to look across all those security disciplines and more thoroughly incorporate these threats in that existing process. The extent they’re going to have to make investments in those, they do have to figure out what needs to be done first and where this fits in,” he added.
GAO issued 12 recommendations to individual components and agency heads, but at its core, Kirschbaum said, is the need for the department to incorporate the threat of publicly available information into its existing structure.
“In order to do that, we’re asking them to use those existing structures that they do have, like the security enterprise executive committee, as their collaborative mechanism. We want that body to really assess where the department is. And sometimes they’re better able to identify exactly what they need to do, rather than us telling them. We want them to identify what they need to do and conduct those efforts,” he said.
House and Senate negotiators are racing to finalize the 2026 defense policy bill by the end of the week, with all House and Senate Armed Services Committee disputes resolved and only a few Senate jurisdictional details still holding the legislation’s advancement to the House floor in early December.
“I think what they’re doing is, there’s been a couple of pencils-down time frames, but it sounds like it’ll be done by the end of the week. That’s what the focus is. Get it done by the end of the week, and then to be on the floor the beginning of the second week of December,”Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., a member of the House Armed Services Committee, told Federal News Network Tuesday.
The one big place where things are still going through the process, Wittman said, is with the other committees of jurisdiction. They can either decide to waive jurisdiction or refine the language in ways that ensure the “Big Four” on HASC and SASC will agree to include it in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
“It really is a Senate issue because the Senate has the rules where they can add some things that are not allowed under House rules. That’s really where the issue is right now, I think all the HASC and SASC issues have been taken care of,” Wittman said.
The Senate advanced its NDAA with broad bipartisan support in October, while the House version passed in September with mostly GOP support.
The two chambers were divided on topline funding — the Senate bill authorized nearly $925 billion for national defense, while the House version aligned with the White House’s $883 billion request.
Both bills are heavily focused on acquisition reforms, and while the two chambers target many of the same areas, they differ in approach and specific reforms.
“The House’s version really focused on achieving mission outcomes. It’s much more outcome-based. The Senate version was more about governance. How do we change the issues there of governance? Some of the things that we saw there that I think are really transformational is time frames,” Wittman said during the Defense One State of Defense Business Acquisition event on Tuesday. “The average acquisition process in the Pentagon is 800 days. This is going to change it to 90 to 120 days.”
Many of the acquisition reforms Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently rolled out as part of what he called a “war on Pentagon bureaucracy” mirror proposals in the House and Senate versions of the defense policy bill.
“Changing how we do modular open systems architecture — those things are going to be key, opening up the aperture even more, making it easier to use other transaction authorities, changing the [program executive officers] to [program acquisition executives], and then taking those billets that are now three-year billets and turning them into six-year billets,” Wittman said. “That’s actually a longer-term perspective for folks in those areas. I think this is the farthest-reaching effort in acquisition reform in the history of DoD. And a lot of what the House and Senate are doing is reflected in some of the things that the Pentagon is doing.”
Hegseth’s move to replace the current program executive offices with a smaller number of portfolio acquisition executives — giving these new portfolio leaders broader authorities, including the ability to shift funds among programs — is also part of the Senate’s acquisition reform proposals.
When asked whether officers who used to serve three years as PEOs would want to serve six-year tours as PAEs, Wittman wagered they would as long as it doesn’t interfere with the promotion process.
“We’ve been clear that this does not interfere with the promotion process,” he said. “There’s nothing that prevents somebody that goes into a PAE position as a two-star to come out as a three-star, or, for that matter, even a four-star.”
The change will also allow PAEs to take more risks in a culture that is deeply risk-averse. But it has to start with Congress, Whittman said.
“We can’t lecture and say, ‘Take risks,’ and then the first time there’s a failure, we call somebody up on Capitol Hill and bang the table and holler and scream and go, ‘How did you do this? How could this happen?’ That behavior will stop in a heartbeat when somebody goes, ‘You know what? I watched them grill this PAE up on Capitol Hill. I’m not going to do that, so I’m not going to take any risks,’” Whittman said.
The longest partial shutdown in U.S. history has officially ended after President Donald Trump signed a bill last week to fund most of the government through Jan. 30 and give other agencies full-year funding. Federal agencies are starting to reopen, but many federal workers — who haven’t been paid in over a month — are still waiting for their back pay. It is also unclear how quickly operations will return to normal or what the long-term impacts will be on missions and agency readiness. And another partial shutdown threat is already looming.
If you are dealing with challenges related to this shutdown — financial, personal or work-related — we want to hear from you. Please take a few minutes to fill out our survey. All answers will be kept anonymous. The survey results will be used for an upcoming story.
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email anastasia.obis@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at (301) 830-2747.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s acquisition system shakeup is being met with cautious optimism from acquisition experts who say the changes could meaningfully reshape how the Pentagon buys capabilities, manages programs and integrates emerging technologies — if the department can avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
Stan Soloway, president and CEO of Celero Strategies and federal acquisition expert, said by and large the changes make a lot of sense — they could help to break down entrenched silos across the department’s acquisition enterprise and drive greater coordination and integration. They also expand on initiatives the department has tried before.
“There have been a lot of reform efforts over the years — and this one both incorporates similar themes and/or reflects a natural extension of them — and all faced similar challenges in both implementation and sustainability,” Soloway told Federal News Network.
But the success of Hegseth’s reforms will hinge on whether the department can change its culture and equip the workforce with the skills needed to operate differently. Otherwise, the system can quickly revert to its old ways.
“Change is not something that happens by dictate. As they and scores of case studies have shown, there has to also be an aggressive, intentional, and holistic approach to change management, prominently including how the relevant workforces are developed. Absent re-aligning those processes, real change will remain elusive,” Soloway said.
Hegseth’s new proposed structure, Soloway said, somewhat resembles the Integrated Product Teams the department created in the 1990s as part of a major acquisition reform push. There were early successes, but they eventually faded, mainly because the workforce and culture never fully adapted.
And whether the department has the workforce to support such a sweeping overhaul remains an open question. DoD has already lost 5% to 8% of its civilian workforce since the start of the Trump administration through various means such as the Deferred Resignation Program and the Voluntary Early Retirement Authority.
“I’m excited about what [Hegseth’s] speech will do to attract the interest of high talent — folks who might want to come in and help us do this job. We’re certainly always looking for good people to come in and help. We do have some need for additional personnel, at least in my office, and I suspect across the acquisition workforce,” Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey told reporters Monday.
In addition, while the new structures and consolidations seem promising, there is always a familiar risk that the reforms could end up adding new layers of bureaucracy rather than eliminating old ones.
“It will take particularly strong, forward leaning leadership on both the civilian and military side as well as new levels of collaboration between and among the services and, importantly, [the office of the secretary of defense],” Soloway said.
And then the reforms Hegseth is proposing will require significant funding — but there is very little mention of resources in the strategy the department recently unveiled.
“That’s one place where the rubber hits the road,” Soloway said.
“The next big thing will be the 2027 budget submission, because some of these things require prioritization, and prioritization requires resourcing. Some of the initiatives like a focus on exportability, focus on developing multi-sourcing for parts and components — these things require resourcing. Where are they going to be in the 2027 budget submission? Because that will show how important it is for the administration,” Jerry McGinn, the director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Center for the Industrial Base, told Federal News Network.
‘Speed to delivery’
Hegseth emphasized that speed will be at the center of this sweeping transformation the department is embarking on.
“The core principles of this transformation are simple: instill the warrior ethos in the acquisition workforce and enterprise, inject a sense of urgency and relentless focus on speed by empowering those directly responsible for delivery to make and own decisions, cut through unnecessary layers to focus the [Warfighting Acquisition System] on speed, accountability and mission outcomes, and prioritize flexible requirements and resource trades to enable timely delivery at the speed of relevance,” he wrote in a memo.
The focus on speed, Solloway said, may be more critical now than ever. But speed alone isn’t the point – the department has spent the past decade chasing speed through tools like other transaction agreements and rapid prototyping, but the real measure is whether capabilities are actually fielded.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth salutes as he and South Korean Defense Minister Ahn Gyu-back inspect a guard of honor during a welcoming ceremony prior to the 57rd Security Consultative Meeting (SCM), at the defense ministry in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025. (Jeon Heon-Kyun/Pool Photo via AP)
As the government begins to reopen after the longest shutdown in U.S. history, paychecks for Defense Department civilians who haven’t been paid in over a month are slated to be processed on Sunday, while service members are expected to get paid on time, according to an administration official.
President Trump signed a bill late Wednesday to fund the government through Jan. 30, ending the record 43-day shutdown and clearing the way for tens of thousands of Defense Department civilians to return to work.
While the administration official told Federal News Network that checks are scheduled to go out on Sunday, DoD civilians are being told to expect payment sometime between Monday and mid-week.
One DoD civilian told Federal News Network their supervisor said paychecks could “possibly” arrive on Monday, but the organization has yet to receive an official timeline. Civilian employees there were instructed to return to work Thursday after being notified late Wednesday night.
Another DoD civilian told Federal News Network their organization is still waiting on official guidance about when furloughed employees will be reporting back, but as of now they have no official return date.
Agencies have been told to “take all necessary steps to ensure offices open in a prompt and orderly manner on Nov. 13,” an Air Force Department spokesperson told Federal News Network.
It is unclear how many civilian employees were furloughed during this shutdown. The Air Force spokesperson said furloughs and exemptions were handled at the local level and the department does not have an aggregated number.
The Army did not provide details on when furloughed employees are expected to return to work or how many employees were furloughed during the shutdown — an Army spokesperson told Federal News Network the service has not yet lifted its communications restrictions.
The Department of the Navy referred inquiries regarding the return date for civilian employees to the Office of Personnel Management.
OPM said on social media platform X that federal agencies in the Washington, D.C. area are open and that employees are expected to begin the workday on time. “Normal operating procedures are in effect,” the agency said. OPM also issued guidance Wednesday outlining how agencies should handle administering pay, leave and benefits for employees impacted by the lapse in appropriations.
According to the Defense Department’s contingency plan released ahead of the shutdown, about 45% of the department’s civilian workforce was expected to be furloughed.
The department employs roughly 741,500 civilians, according to the contingency plan. Of those, approximately 24% — or about 182,700 — are funded through sources other than the annual appropriations bill. Another 30% — about 223,900 — are designated as “excepted” personnel who continue to work regardless of the lapse in funding. The department estimated that about 334,900 civilian employees would be furloughed in the event of a shutdown.
The legislation Trump signed Wednesday only funds the government through Jan. 30, meaning another shutdown threat is already looming.
Organizations like the National Military Family Association are already urging Congress to revisit legislation such as the “Pay Our Troops Act” introduced just before the shutdown, which would ensure that troops, DoD civilians and Coast Guard members continue to receive pay and benefits in the event of a shutdown. It would also prevent future eleventh-hour attempts to ensure service members are paid on time — during this shutdown, the administration drew heavily from several accounts, including the research and development and procurement accounts, to cover military pay. At some point, DoD received a donation from a private donor to fund military salaries.
David Super, the Carmack Waterhouse professor of law and economics at Georgetown University Law Center, said that the department could also ask Congress to forward fund military pay in the future or even current budget requests.
“That’s done for some accounts that we don’t want to have interrupted. Instead of paying it fiscal year by fiscal year, they could pay it calendar year by calendar year, so that there would still be money for the next three months to cover it — that’s a perfectly sensible thing. To the best of my knowledge, neither this administration or its predecessors have proposed that that would be a good idea,” Super told Federal News Network.
The bill also includes full-year funding for military construction, the departments of Veterans Affairs and Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, and Congress. The $153 billion measure would provide $19.7 billion for Pentagon construction and family housing programs.
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email anastasia.obis@federalnewsnetwork.com or reach out on Signal at (301) 830-2747.
As Congress hammers out the final version of the fiscal 2026 defense policy bill, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren is putting pressure on a leading industry group to stop opposing bipartisan right-to-repair efforts aimed at giving the Pentagon greater control over fixing its own equipment.
In a letter to the National Defense Industrial Association, the Massachusetts senator called the organization’s opposition to reform proposals in the House and Senate versions of the legislation a “dangerous and misguided attempt to protect an unacceptable status quo of giant contractor profiteering.”
“Your organization’s attacks are based on unproven conjectures and self-serving projections, making clear there is no real basis to oppose the defense right-to-repair effort other than to protect profits of some of the largest defense contractors in the country,” Warren said in the letter.
The reforms aim to help the Defense Department obtain more technical information to allow troops to repair their gear in theater, enhancing readiness, saving taxpayer dollars and strengthening innovation.
“NDIA’s last-ditch efforts to oppose commonsense and bipartisan legislation that is a Trump administration priority appears to be a desperate attempt to cling to a status quo that makes big defense contractors billions of dollars a year at taxpayer expense. Instead of fighting reform efforts, NDIA should commit to working with DoD to protect service members and promote a healthy and competitive industrial base,” she added.
The military services have long faced contract-imposed restrictions on how they can repair and maintain equipment and weapons, leaving them dependent on original manufacturers to conduct necessary fixes in the field, which is costly and time-consuming.
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, for example, recently pointed to a Black Hawk helicopter part to show how contractor restrictions drive up costs. The original equipment manufacturer refuses to repair or replace a small screen-control knob that grounds the aircraft when it breaks — forcing the Army to purchase an entire new screen assembly for $47,000. Driscoll said the Army could make the knob for just $15.
The right-to-repair issue has been gaining momentum and bipartisan support from Congress — and both the House and Senate included provisions in their versions of the 2026 defense policy bills.
The House version of the bill includes a Data-as-a-Service Solutions for Weapon System Contracts provision, which would require DoD to negotiate access to the technical data and necessary software before signing a contract. That includes detailed manufacturing or process data, digital networks and models, software-related information, and operational and training information — all to be accessible as a service through various methods like online, in person or via machine-to-machine encryption.
Meanwhile, Senate lawmakers included a provision in their version of the annual bill that would require contractors to provide detailed instructions for repair and maintenance.
“The Defense Secretary may not enter into a contract or agreement for the procurement, sustainment, or subsequent modifications of covered defense equipment unless the contract or agreement requires that the contractor deliver, or offer as a negotiated price option, Instructions for Continued Operational Readiness to the secretary upon delivery of the equipment,” the provision states.
The contractor would have to provide the department with the rights to diagnose, maintain and repair the equipment — and the department could withhold payment to the contractor until the company delivers those instructions.
NDIA argues that the “instructions for continued operational readiness” that Congress wants DoD to have include “data, tools and software for operations, maintenance, installation and training, which could include sensitive and proprietary technical and manufacturing data and IP developed at the contractor’s private expense.” The group warns the proposal would allow DoD to provide those parts, tools and information to any authorized third-party contractor, including a company’s direct competitors under this proposal.
In its white paper, NDIA said these efforts will “hamper innovation and DoD’s access to cutting-edge technologies by deterring companies, including traditional contractors, nontraditionals, and small businesses, from contracting with the DoD over concerns of forcing disclosure of IP; increasing legal, safety, and compliance risks; and introducing contractual and licensing conflicts.”
Some stakeholders, however, remain unconvinced.
“I’ve talked to folks that crafted the Senate language, and they don’t agree with that characterization at all. We’re almost dealing with perceptions here. I don’t see any real separation between the objectives in the House or in the Senate versions, but it’s in the particulars on how they do it,” Jerry McGinn, the director of the CSIS’ Center for the Industrial Base, told Federal News Network.
In her letter to the industry group, Warren accused NDIA of “attacking these reforms with vague and threatening claims that don’t stand up to scrutiny,” including assertions that right-to-repair efforts would “hamper innovation.”
“The opposite is true. Small businesses have said that a defense right to repair law would create new business opportunities in the defense industrial base, not deter them from doing business with the military…Embracing competition will only grow the industrial base further,” Warren said.
“Your argument that such a right would deter companies from working with DoD is not supported by reality and appears to be a late-in-the game effort meant to confuse and scare members of Congress and muddy the terms of the debate,” she added.
In April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the Army to incorporate right-to-repair provisions in all new and existing contracts as part of the service’s sweeping transformation initiative.
Stan Soloway, president and CEO of Celero Strategies and federal acquisition expert, said the debate is just the latest iteration of the government’s decades-long tug of war with industry over intellectual property and data rights. Ultimately, those issues need to be resolved early in a program’s life cycle and not moments of crisis.
“It is true that there have been very difficult negotiations between the parties when the government has sought data it believes it needed. Historically, the government has too often treated IP and tech data as a zero-sum game, demanding access far more broadly than needed. Meanwhile, industry has sometimes been overly zealous in protection of its IP and tech data rights. The lack of trust is real and endemic,” Soloway told Federal News Network.
NDIA declined to comment and referred questions on the matter to their aforementioned white paper.
U.S. Army Pfc. Tess Sandoval assigned to 2nd Squadron, 6th Calvary Regiment, 25th Combat Aviation Brigade is one of two female attack helicopter repairers in the squadron located on Wheeler Army Airfield, Hawaii, Aug. 25, 2019. (Photo Credit: 1st Lt. Ryan DeBooy)
While delivering capabilities at speed is at the core of the Defense Department’s acquisition system shakeup, the department’s top acquisition official said the Pentagon is not “mandating speed.”
“We’re continually going to be dependent on the judgment of program leaders who are executing these programs to understand where does the need for speed balance with the risk that we would undertake to cost and/or performance of the system,” Michael Duffey, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, told reporters Monday.
Last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a series of initiatives to overhaul the department’s acquisition process as part of what he described as a broader war on Pentagon bureaucracy. Key changes include prioritizing a commercial-first approach, cutting red tape, increasing competition and bringing more commercial firms and nontraditional contractors into the defense space and transitioning program executive offices (PAO) to portfolio acquisition executives (PAE), which would give these new portfolio officials greater authorities and responsibilities for requirements, resourcing and acquisition.
In the Nov. 7 memo, Hegseth emphasized that speed will be at the center of this sweeping transformation the department is embarking on.
“The core principles of this transformation are simple: instill the warrior ethos in the acquisition workforce and enterprise, inject a sense of urgency and relentless focus on speed by empowering those directly responsible for delivery to make and own decisions, cut through unnecessary layers to focus the [Warfighting Acquisition System] on speed, accountability and mission outcomes, and prioritize flexible requirements and resource trades to enable timely delivery at the speed of relevance,” he wrote in the memo.
Duffey said while speed to capability delivery is key, given constant budgetary irregularities, his focus is on making the most of the department’s budget — optimizing the system to deliver the best capability at the greatest speed for the lowest cost.
“Those are the parameters we operate in, and that’s what we intend to empower the workforce to make the best judgments going forward,” Duffey said.
Portfolio acquisition executives, Duffey said, will be the ones responsible for striking the right balance between speed and risk, deciding when to accelerate and possibly cut corners to achieve speed or when to delay program delivery.
“We’re hoping to provide the flexibility to the portfolio acquisition executives to be able to move money around and to trade requirements. There’s certainly no question about the emphasis on speed but recognizing that there’s a need for judgment and flexibility in that triangle of cost schedule performance,” he said.
“One thing we’re doing around here nowadays is we’re now saying schedule performance cost instead of cost schedule performance just as a way of emphasizing the fact that speed is priority amongst us,” he added.
It’s unclear whether these portfolio acquisition executives will be the ones making that call — Duffey said the department is still working out those implementation details. “I think what you’ll find is there will be circumstances where they need to have a broader conversation, and there will be circumstances where the threshold will allow them to make that decision on their own,” he said.
Along with Hegseth’s “Transforming the Defense Acquisition System into the Warfighting Acquisition System to Accelerate Fielding of Urgently Needed Capabilities to Our Warriors” memo, the department also released the acquisition transformation strategy — five pillars laid out in the plan include expanding the industrial base; empowering the acquisition workforce to deliver at speed; introducing greater acquisition flexibility through cutting regulations and processes; developing high performance systems; and improving lifecycle risk management.
Hegseth’s memo already directed the services to begin carrying out a number of key initiatives that emerged from those five pillars.
One of the changes the department seeks to implement is replacing what it calls “redundant and excessive” studies like the Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) that the strategy says delays the start of programs. The process, which takes place early in the acquisition process and is mandated by Congress, is designed to compare operational effectiveness, suitability and life-cycle cost of alternatives.
The strategy calls for modifying those processes and providing “more rapid and impactful assessment of commercial solutions, existing technologies, and competing prototypes as a preferred approach to the extended document analysis.”
“I think that we can learn more from experimentation and prototyping than we can from an analysis of alternatives. We recognize there may be exceptional circumstances, specifically when it comes to large-scale weapon systems where we may need to do a study of what an alternative might be. But our intent is a heavy focus on prototyping and experimentation as the best learning and best connected to the art of cutting-edge technology,” Duffey said.
Michael P. Duffey appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee for his nomination to become undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment in Washington, D.C. March 27, 2025. (DoD photo by EJ Hersom)
The White House’s nominee to lead the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation office, long criticized for overstepping its advisory role, told lawmakers he would work to restore the office’s credibility by refocusing it on its statutory mission as an independent advisory rather than a decision-maker.
“I have seen CAPE take on an advocacy role that I think is inappropriate for an independent analytic organization,” Michael Payne, who is currently serving as the acting director of CAPE, told the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday.
CAPE has faced scrutiny over the years for operating beyond its statutory responsibilities — in 2023, the House Armed Services Committee even proposed eliminating the office altogether. While Congress ultimately decided against shutting down the office, the fiscal 2024 defense policy bill required the Defense Department to overhaul how it operates.
The annual legislation required the Pentagon to create an analysis working group, which would work with CAPE, the Joint Staff and DoD components to improve analytic standards across the force. The bill also required the department to stand up an analytical team, or the “program evaluation competitive analysis cell” — an independent team to review CAPE’s methodologies, assumptions and data.
In addition, the law mandated a pilot program on alternative analysis to test new approaches for evaluating defense programs.
So far, only one of those requirements has been met. “We have stood up the analysis working group, but we absolutely need to do more. Red teaming is an important part of any scientific or analytic endeavor, and if I’m confirmed, I will make it a priority to ensure that we comply fully,” Payne said.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), who leads the Senate Armed Services Committee, voiced frustration during the confirmation hearing that little progress has been made, even though Payne has been in a leadership role at CAPE since the bill was signed into law.
“You’ve been deputy director since the law passed, and since January, you’ve been acting director. And yet, the second and third directives of the statute passed by the Congress and signed into law by the commander-in-chief have not been implemented — that is a concern,” Wicker said.
In his written responses to lawmakers’ questions ahead of his confirmation hearing, Payne said steering the office back to its roots and away from advocacy would be his biggest challenge. The effort, he said, would require reforming the office’s cost-estimating and program-evaluation processes to better align with department-wide ongoing acquisition reform initiatives.
“I would address the program-evaluation process by reforming the analysis of alternatives approach to better align with the reformed requirements and acquisition processes, including early engagement with industry. For cost estimating, I would focus on ensuring cost reporting requirements for industry are less burdensome in order to better facilitate the entry of non-traditional vendors into the acquisition process,” Payne said.
When asked if he believes that the CAPE office would benefit from outside reviews of its processes, Payne said he recommends “using existing government entities to conduct such reviews, that the reviews be targeted with specific objectives, and that DCAPE be given an opportunity to address the findings directly in order to implement improvements.”
‘Strained’ workforce
Payne said while the team is still capable of meeting existing legal requirements by pushing some of its cost-estimation work to the military services, CAPE’s workforce is stretched thin.
“The recent addition of statutory requirements for military construction and sustainment review cost estimating has necessitated increased delegation to the services,” Payne said.
“I believe the workforce is sufficient, though strained in certain areas as it adapts to broader national workforce demographic and skill shifts,” he added.
Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., speaks to Stephen Feinberg, President Donald Trump's choice to be deputy secretary of defense, as he appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee for his confirmation hearing, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)
The Marine Corps is rolling out new enlistment bonuses for fiscal 2026, offering its biggest payout to recruits who sign up for specialized roles in cyber and electronics maintenance.
The incentives aren’t limited to high-demand technical roles — the service is also offering shipping bonuses to recruits in any specialty who agree to leave for boot camp on the service’s schedule.
In a message to the force, the service announced it would offer bonuses of up to $15,000 to recruits who enter the electronics maintenance and cyber and cryptologic operations career fields, which include specialties such as cyber network operators, electronic intelligence and electromagnetic warfare analysts, cryptologic linguists and tactical data systems technicians.
Recruits across dozens of military specialties, including open contacts, combat support, accounting and legal, logistics and even infantry, can also qualify for a $5,000 or $10,000 shipping bonus if they agree to ship quickly to boot camp.
The service is also offering $7,000 or $15,000 “targeted investment” bonuses for applicants willing to extend their enlistment contracts by one or two years.
The Marine Corps has long struggled with a high turnover rate among newly enlisted troops, discharging about 75% of first-term Marines each year. In the last couple of years, the service has been overhauling its approach to recruiting and retention, moving away from a “recruit and replace” personnel model that it adopted more than a generation ago toward one focused on “investing and retaining.”
“The Marine Corps’ objective is to maximize the number of fully trained, qualified, experienced, and deployable Marines in the Fleet Marine Force (FMF) over time and within any given personnel budget. As we progress towards an ‘invest and retain’ model, it is critical to channel applicants into the right occupational fields to maximize our return on investment and increase Marines’ propensity to serve beyond their initial contract,” the message said.
Active-duty recruits are only eligible for one enlistment bonus, and the amounts may be adjusted throughout the fiscal year depending on the recruiting environment.
In addition, the Corps is expanding incentives for the Selected Marine Corps Reserve — recruits in critical billets can receive up to $10,000, while others can qualify for $6,000 if they commit to six years of service and complete all initial training requirements. The Reserve enlistment bonus is paid in a lump sum after recruits complete their training and MOS school.
Reserve Marines can also qualify for the Montgomery GI Bill Selected Reserve program, which provides up to $350 a month for as many as 36 months to offset education costs.
Congress’ inability to pass a full-year budget last fiscal year led to widespread delays in bonus payments for Marines and other service members across the Defense Department — in March, Congress extended a continuing resolution through the end of fiscal 2025, marking the first time the Pentagon had to operate under a CR for the entire year.
In April, the service announced that payments under the Selective Retention Bonus Program would now be made on a funding-available basis, with Oct. 1 as the earliest possible payout date. It is unclear how the ongoing government shutdown will impact the Marine Corps’ rollout of the new enlistment bonuses.
The fiscal 2026 enlistment incentive programs will remain in effect through Sep. 30, 2026.
Login
