2008/05/05 00:00:00
By Tom Philpott - May 5, 2008
When the effects of inflation are taken into account, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force have seen annual budgets for on-base morale, welfare, and recreation (MWR) programs erode by a combined $222 million since fiscal year 2003.
What has this meant to MWR programs? A lot, it seems.
But during an April 17 hearing of the House Armed Services Personnel Subcommittee on MWR programs, only an Air Force witness spoke about how this budget squeeze is affecting the quality of life for servicemembers and their families.
“We’ve seen our programs reduced across the board,” said Arthur J. Myers, director of services at Air Force headquarters. He said “every one of our library services” has been reduced. Funding for child-care providers, equipment, and supplies also were pared until Rep. Vic Snyder (D-Ark.) complained at an earlier hearing that a new child-care center on Little Rock AFB, Ark., lacked sufficient staff to operate as intended.
After Snyder’s complaint, money to properly staff child-care centers was added to the Air Force’s fiscal year 2008 budget, Myers said.
“We have to fight for all our requirements, and we’re seeing our programs reduced dramatically,” Myers attested. “And the word we are getting from the field is the airmen are seeing … their quality of life is being eroded.”
Rep. John McHugh (N.Y.), ranking Republican on the subcommittee, released a chart showing only the Marine Corps has increased its spending for MWR to keep pace with — and surpass — the effects of inflation in the last five years. The other services have seen MWR budgets significantly squeezed: the Army by $45.5 million a year, the Navy by $109.4 million, and the Air Force by $67.1 million.
“Those are big losses,” McHugh told Leslye A. Arsht, deputy undersecretary of Defense for Military Community and Family Policy.
MWR dollars are used for child development centers, youth centers, libraries, gymnasiums, golf courses, recreational equipment, hobby shops, and more.
McHugh said lawmakers who have bases in their districts field complaints from servicemembers and their families during base visits. They hear of gyms that have shortened operating hours or cut back on towel services. Libraries are open fewer hours a day to save on staff salaries, he said.
“This is a critical oversight function of this subcommittee, and we would be very remiss [if] we didn’t make it very clear that this is a very, very troubling, and sadly, a long-term, continuing problem.”
Rep. Susan Davis (D-Calif.), chair of the personnel subcommittee, also expressed alarm at MWR funding patterns.
“Our families need these strong and reliable centers in their lives, and our warriors absolutely must be confident that their families are well cared for in their absence,” Davis said.
“It is true that there have been some small decreases, if you include inflation, over the years’ span you’ve looked at,” Arsht said. “But we are pleased that the fiscal year ’09 budget has a 20-percent increase.”
Maj. Gen. John A. MacDonald, commander of the Army’s Family and Morale, Welfare, and Recreation Command, also focused on future budget gains, saying spending on Army family programs will climb by $700 million this year.
When Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey recently toured some posts, the feedback from families was that they don’t need a host of new programs, MacDonald said. They just need current programs to be better funded.
Part of the MWR funding shortfall can be traced to declining profits from military exchanges. At least half of exchange profits are paid as dividends to support MWR. If dividends decline, the services have to rely on appropriated dollars to sustain morale and recreation programs, or MWR services get pinched.
Exchange profits have been strained by closure of stores overseas and by the expense of expanding operations on bases receiving units formerly stationed overseas. Also, exchanges face stiff competition for the military consumer’s dollar from commercial discount stores.
Arsht said the exchanges distributed $349 million of fiscal 2007 profits as dividends to MWR operations, about a 10-percent increase from the previous year. But she projected dividends from 2008 exchange operations will fall to $283 million, a drop of almost 20 percent.
Davis asked for an explanation.
Army Reserve Brig. Gen. Keith L. Thurgood, commander of the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES), said AAFES has had to spend more to modernize stores and buy new technology to compete with retailers outside the gate. Those improvements are costly now but will “deliver record dividends to both the Army and Air Force by 2012,” he said.
For the next couple of years, however, dividends for MWR will be flat to slightly declining.
For MWR programs to rebound, the services will have to carve out more appropriated dollars for them, and that means competing against other wartime needs.
McHugh promised Congress will act to address this problem to protect service quality of life.
Davis worries about the long-term impact if that isn’t done.
“I hope the day does not come,” she said, “when we regret the loss of the sense of community in the military, because we no longer appreciate its value as we once did.”