It seems like long ago. Thousands of active duty service members applied for religious exemptions from COVID vaccines. Now we know how well the armed services did in processing the exemptions and the discharges of service members from the armed services. For details, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin talked to Project Manager Marie Godwin in the Defense Department’s Office of Inspector General.

Interview Transcript: 

Marie Godwin We wanted to ensure that service members were treated fairly, and that their exemption requests and discharges were processed in accordance with the law and DoD regulations. And we also received a number of hotline complaints alleging that the military services were improperly processing religious accommodation requests. So we wanted to review that process and determine if those allegations had any merit. So specifically, the complaints were alleging that the military services were processing the requests too quickly and not performing individualized review of the requests as required by the law and DoD policy. But in the end, we found the allegations did not jibe with our findings, and our report confirms that those allegations were, in fact, unfounded.

Tom Temin All right. Do the requirements on the DoD specify a timeline or a period of time in which they have to decide these? Usually the problem is the government gets backlogs of things. In this case they were processing them. It sounds like efficiently.

Marie Godwin Yes, the DoD does establish time requirements, and the time requirement depends on if the service requires a waiver of policy for that religious accommodation request or not. So for the Army, Marine Corps and Navy, they had 90 days to process the requests. The Air Force had 30 days to process the requests because they had decentralized decision process that did not require a waiver of policy.

Tom Temin You didn’t look then at whether the discharges or the exemptions were correct or not. It was just simply looking at whether they were processed in a way that was in accordance with their policy for processing them.

Marie Godwin That’s correct.

Tom Temin All right. Let’s go into that a little bit further. You said the Army, Navy, Marine Corps had a 90 day policy and the Air Force 30 days, maybe a little bit more detail on why that was the case, that variance.

Marie Godwin Sure. That’s just an overarching DoD policy that establishes the time requirements. And the DoD policy says that if the religious accommodation request requires a waiver of department policy, then it can be processed within 90 days. And I think the thought behind that is that it takes longer to process that through a central decision authority. If the request does not require a waiver of policy, as is the case with the Air Force, then the time requirement for that processing is only 30 days.

Tom Temin In what’s involved in processing that even takes 30 days?

Marie Godwin Sure. There’s a number of things that happen in the process, and it differs by military service. But generally, the service member submits a request. They have recommendations from their chain of command. They meet with a military chaplain to discuss their request. There’s also medical subject matter expert recommendations, and all these are processed up through the decision authority to consider.

Tom Temin Right. And just to clarify once more. You didn’t look at the quality of the decisions versus, yeah, you can stay or you’re discharged. But again, just whether they were processed in the proper manner.

Marie Godwin Right. So we looked at did they have all of the required recommendations? And was the proper decision authority deciding on their request?

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Marie Godwin. She’s a project manager in the Inspector General’s Office at the Defense Department. So generally, everything went according to each armed service’s policy for getting those things processed. Any exceptions or any outlying issues that you discovered?

Marie Godwin So for religious accommodation requests, we found that the Army and Air Force were taking much longer to process the exemptions than the DoD time requirements. So the Army, as we said before, had 90 days to process those requests, and they were averaging about 192 days to process the requests. The Air Force had 30 days to process those requests, and they were averaging about 168 days.

Tom Temin Yikes. And do we know why it took so long to do those?

Marie Godwin Well, we spoke with the military personnel involved in processing religious accommodation requests, and they told us that in a typical year, they only receive 3 or 4 requests for religious accommodation. So they were just overwhelmed by the sheer number of the requests.

Tom Temin  And could be that the religious exemption has maybe more subtle decision making that’s required. It’s hard to tell, that sounds like a tough one. Maybe they’re afraid to make the call in some cases.

Marie Godwin Well, I think they just wanted to take the time to make the correct decision and make sure that it was an informed decision.

Tom Temin All right. So what recommendations do you have then? Sounds like they would be centering around the religious exemption request because that’s what caused the outlying cases.

Marie Godwin So we had three recommendations. We had one for religious accommodation requests, one for medical and administrative exemptions and one for discharges. So for religious accommodation requests, we recommended that the DoD issued new guidance for periods of high volume request to decrease processing times. Military personnel told us that they only receive a few requests per year, and under those conditions, the existing policies were sufficient, but not in periods of high volume requests. So this recommendation aims to improve the processing time so that service members are not significantly impacted while they’re awaiting a decision.

Tom Temin All right. And what about for the medical and administrative? Recommendations there?

Marie Godwin Sure. We recommended that the DoD require personnel to document exemption approvals in service members personnel records. We had found that they weren’t always being documented in their records, so we anticipate that requirement will reduce the risk of errors and ensure that the service members vaccination status is accurate in the medical readiness systems.

Tom Temin And for the discharge petitions. That means that people want to be released from the military rather than have the vaccine. That’s what that particular application is.

Marie Godwin Correct. So we recommended that the DoD require uniform discharge types and reentry codes for all service members who were discharged for vaccination refusal. And we made that recommendation because of the DoD does not issue uniform discharge types and reentry codes, then service members will experience different impacts to their educational benefits and eligibility to re-enlist.

Tom Temin I was going to say reentry codes. Does that mean that there’s like a revolving door over vaccinations? You can be discharged and then come back?

Marie Godwin Well, when a service member leaves military service, they’re issued a certificate of release from active duty service. And that lists your discharge type and your reentry code. And the reentry code just indicates a service members eligibility to re-enlist in the service later. So we found that some service members received reentry codes that required them to obtain a waiver to re-enlist, while other service members receive codes that banned re-enlistment altogether.

Tom Temin Got it. And so the recommendation there was or did you have any for that particular class of application.

Marie Godwin So we recommended that they have uniform discharge types and uniform reentry codes.

Tom Temin Got it. And did the department say yeah we agree.

Marie Godwin They actually did not agree with that recommendation. But they provided another plan to address the recommendation. So once they provide that plan to us, we’ll reevaluate the recommendation.

Tom Temin This is more than history then. Because should another type of pandemic happen in the country, or we have another one of these situations where mass vaccinations become the general mode of the land, this could come up again.

Marie Godwin You’re absolutely right. And so DoD allows service members to request medical or administrative exemptions from any vaccination, not just COVID 19.

Tom Temin It could be measles, mumps or polio for that matter.

Marie Godwin Right. The military services have a list of ten or so required vaccinations for all service members.

The post Pentagon report card for dealing with vaccine refuseniks first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Air Force seeks to override governors’ authority over their National Guard personnel in some states and move Air National Guard units with space missions to the Space Force.

Air Force officials are proposing legislation to bypass existing law requiring them to obtain a governor’s consent before making changes to a National Guard unit and to transfer 14 Air National Guard space units across seven states into the Space Force.

The draft legislation titled “Transfer to The Space Force of covered space functions of the Air National Guard of the United States,” which was reviewed by Federal News Network, would allow the Air Force Secretary to take one of three courses of action if National Guard space units end up being removed from their states:

• change the status of the unit so that it’s a Space Force unit rather than an Air National Guard unit;
• deactivate the unit after revoking its federal recognition;
• or assign the unit a new federal mission.

If passed, the legislation would waive section 104(c) of Title 32, which says that “no change in the branch, organization or allotment of a unit located entirely within a state may be made without the approval of its governor;” and section 18238 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code, which states that “a unit of the Army National Guard or the Air National Guard may not be relocated or withdrawn under this chapter without the consent of the governor of the state.

Upon the transfer, the Space Force end strength would increase by that number of personnel billets and the Air National Guard end strength would decrease by the same amount. There are approximately 1,000 Air Guard space professionals serving full- and part-time in New York, Florida, Hawaii, Colorado, Alaska, California and Ohio, according to the National Guard Association of the United States (NGAUS). 

The proposed legislation is already facing criticism from state governors and advocate groups. 

In a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis wrote, “I oppose this legislation in the strongest possible terms.”

“Each servicemember signed a contract to serve in the Colorado Air National Guard and swore an oath to serve both the United States of America and the State of Colorado. As their Commander-in-Chief, I cannot stand idly by as the servicemembers I am charged with leading are faced with the decision to either leave military service or serve in a manner that they did not originally agree to. We know that a significant majority of Air National Guard space operators will not transfer to the U.S. Space Force, putting both their military career and national security at risk,” Gov. Polis wrote.

Removing the requirement to obtain a governor’s consent before making changes to the unit structure would also set a “dangerous precedent.” 

“It’s a terrible precedent. If they do this now and they are successful — what’s next? They’re going to be taking a C-130 wing out of a state and putting it into the active component or they are going to be taking a brigade combat team out of the Army and putting that into the active components. This is a very, very dangerous precedent,” Retired Maj. Gen. Frank McGinn, NGAUS president, told Federal News Network.

As of now, Guardians doesn’t have an option to serve part-time. As part of the 2024 defense bill, the Space Force Personnel Management Act, however, will allow the Air Force to have a system where Air Force reservists and Guardians can choose to serve part- or full-time in some instances. But the Act doesn’t apply to the Air Force National Guard personnel issue. 

According to NGAUS, surveys show that over 90% of airmen have said they don’t want to leave the National Guard.

“If it goes through in an attempt to take the Air National Guard space units and personnel, most of them are not going to go. So It’s going to create a huge void and capability at a time when we really can’t afford to do that,” said McGinn.

“It would take about nine years to rebuild that infrastructure in that capacity. You’d also be losing decades of experience from our citizen guardsmen, which is almost irreplaceable.”

The Air Force didn’t comment on the proposed legislation.

Creating a Space National Guard

At the same time, some lawmakers are making another push to create a national guard component for the Space Force — an effort that has been in limbo for several years now. 

Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and a bipartisan group of 11 senators reintroduced the Space National Guard Establishment Act of 2024 on Jan. 31. The bill was first introduced in 2022, but the passing of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) delayed the effort. 

The 2024 defense bill requires the Pentagon to assess the feasibility and advisability of transferring all Air National Guard space functions to the Space Force. 

“For me personally, I’ve been very clear in my congressional testimony when asked for my best military advice. I believe the establishment of the Space National Guard is the best use of our folks that have been doing this mission in many cases for over 25 years,” Gen. Daniel Hokanson, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, told reporters in February.

The White House and much of Congress have opposed the idea of a separate Space Guard, citing that the move would create unnecessary bureaucracy and have a high price tag.

NGAUS, however, estimated that it would only cost $250,000 to create a Space National Guard.

The post Air Force seeks to override existing law, move Guard units to Space Force first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Air Force is out with a new multiple award solicitation to modernize all of its base network infrastructure.

The request for proposals uses the phrase, “enterprise IT-as-a-service” only a handful of times, but for all intent and purposes, this potentially 10-year contract with a $12.5 billion ceiling is considered Wave 2.

The new RFP calls for a group of large and small businesses to “modernize, operate and maintain the network infrastructure on all Department of the Air Force locations, to include Guard and Reserve bases.”

The Air Force is planning to award at least five contracts to 8(a) firms as well as a minimum of three awards to HUBZone companies, women-owned small businesses, service-disabled veteran-owned small business firms and other small businesses not in a socioeconomic program.

“This effort takes lessons learned from the EITaaS risk reduction effort network-as-a-service effort as well as lessons learned from existing base IT infrastructure modernization efforts to modernize the future base area network (BAN) offering at Air Force bases worldwide,” the RFP states. “This effort intends to modernize the Non-Secure Internet Protocol Router (NIPR) and Secure Internet Protocol Router (SIPR) BAN through an as-a-service model utilizing contractor provided networking services.”

The Air Force says its goal through the BIM vehicle is to obtain standardized, innovative and agile IT services, increase integration through a modern streamlined network and to be an investment for future mission sets.

Air Force to reduce data centers

Winston Beauchamp, the deputy chief information officer at the Air Force, said the goal is to award the multiple award contract later this spring with the first set of task orders going out before the end of the fiscal year.

Beauchamp said the Wave 2 EITaaS RFP comes as the Wave 1 effort is picking up steam.

“They started by essentially absorbing the bases that were part of our risk reduction experiment originally, that preceded the acquisition, and they are right now delivering common central services that will be applicable to all bases,” Beauchamp said in an interview with Federal News Network after speaking at the AFCEA NOVA Space IT day. “We’re talking about things like a centralized helpdesk automation so that folks can do certain things on their own, like resetting passwords, and answering tier zero help desk type questions. Then also to come there’s field services. The option for folks to use our contract to put people in the field to support them at the bases of all that for centralized security and help desk services.”

The Air Force is using the base infrastructure modernization contract as a key piece to its centralization strategy. Beauchamp said not every IT service needs to be an enterprise service, but there are a wide variety of opportunities for the Air Force to improve how it delivers technology to its users.

For example, across the 185 Air Force and Space Force bases there are about 1,000 data centers running.

Beauchamp said the CIO’s office is making a big push to move applications to the cloud, where it makes sense.

“We fully expect that more and more applications will be moving into our cloud architecture. That’s called CloudOne today, and that contract is up for renewal. It will be re competed, and it will be calling it CloudOne Next, but the intent is that it will be just the next evolution of the CloudOne program,” he said. “The interface between that and the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) our intent to leverage that contract to the maximum extent possible by buying cloud services capacity through JWCC, and then managing it under the CloudOne contract. The expectation is that we would continue to acquire cloud through JWCC, where it’s cost effective to do so in bulk and then we would provision it with security services that DevSecOps and the other layers of services that we’ve built up over the years on the under the CloudOne contract.”

Three cloud contracts in the works

The Air Force released its request for information for CloudOne Next in September and just in March, it offered more details on its acquisition strategy.

The Air Force expects to release three solicitations for CloudOne Next in the third quarter of 2024 and make the award in the fourth quarter of this year. It will be three single-award blanket purchase agreements on top of the schedules program run by the General Services Administration.

The three BPAs will focus on:

• Cloud service provider (CSP) reseller and software management
• Architecture and common shared services
• Enterprise application modernization and migration

Beauchamp said the Air Force is evolving from siloes of excellence where every system built its own technology stack to a series of enterprise capabilities where the burden to sustain, modernize and secure is shared.

“We really have is an opportunity to look at the degree to which there may be commonality between those approaches, either in factor or in potential, and where we can either use collective buying strategies to reduce the overall cost collective across the Air Force and collectively across DOD, to get the best possible deal through economies of scale,” he said. “If there’s an architectural approach that perhaps could leverage an existing enterprise service, we want to make sure that we have the ability to see them and to make those recommendations to really free up the time and resources so that those dollars can be applied towards more effective mission capability.”

This approach to IT portfolio management is one of the six lines of effort Air Force CIO Venice Goodwine outlined in her strategy.

Other lines of effort include the acceleration of cloud adoption, the future of cybersecurity, including zero trust, workforce development and training, software management and data and artificial intelligence.

Beauchamp said IT portfolio management, or line of effort 4, is one of the most exciting opportunities for the Air Force. He said IT portfolio management can create leverage across the entire department that can result in both savings and money redirected toward mission needs.

“Overall, I think that each of the sub objectives within line of effort four are going to contribute in some way in that direction. Everything from implementing a capital planning and investment control (CPIC) approach within the Department of Air Force, which we are piloting this year, to improving our monitoring of the user’s experience, which really enables us to target our modernization efforts on those areas where folks are suffering the most will allow us to make better use of the resources that we have for free enterprise IT,” he said. “One of the things we’re going to have to do is really reexamine how we’re implementing CPIC. When I say the pilot, what we’ve done is we’ve selected a major command and a couple of functional areas, where we’re going to put a more rigorous capability in place to really meet not just the letter of the law, but the spirit as well, and apply the data to actually make business decisions. That’s the key. If you if you’re going to go to the trouble of collecting all this data about your programs, you might as well use that data for informing your decision making.”

The post Air Force begins phase 2 of enterprise IT service delivery first appeared on Federal News Network.

From the Education Department to the Homeland Security Department to the Air Force to the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), federal leaders are retiring or heading to new opportunities in the private sector.

Starting with the Education Department, Luis Lopez, the chief information officer since December 2022, is leaving on March 22 for a job with INOVA Healthcare.

An Education Department spokesman confirmed Lopez is leaving for the private sector.

“We are preparing for a smooth transition by posting the position before he departs,” the spokesman said.

It’s unclear who will be acting CIO when Lopez leaves. Education already put out the job announcement to hire a new CIO. Applications are due by March 14 so only a two-week opening.

Federal News Network has learned Lopez will be vice president of IT operations for Inova Health Care Services.

Lopez has worked in federal service since 2008 and been with Education since 2017.

In his short time as CIO, Lopez said in a recent interview that he set up a customer advisory council last summer to help explain to non-IT executives why the 2014 law matters to them and it’s more than just a technology priority. He also led the effort to consolidate and standardize the number of video teleconferencing and collaboration tools used by Education Department employees.

Along with his work at Education, Lopez also worked at the Defense Health Agency and the Walter Reed National Medical Center.

Joining Lopez in heading to the private sector are two other technology leaders.

Federal News Network has confirmed Drew Malloy, the technical director for DISA’s Cyber Development Directorate, and Robert Wood, the chief information security officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, also are leaving for new positions outside of government.

Malloy, who has been with DISA for 14 years and served in government since 2003, will join a small systems integrator.

Malloy has led DISA’s cyber directorate since 2020 where he oversaw the agency’s portfolio of cybersecurity capabilities, including identity and access management, the Joint Regional Security Stacks, cybersecurity situational awareness and zero trust.

He wrote on LinkedIn that he also “developed the modernization strategy for our network and security architecture in accordance with zero trust principles resulting in Project Thunderdome for the DoD enterprise.”

It’s unclear when Malloy’s last day will be or who will replace him even on an acting basis.

In addition to running the cyber directorate, Malloy ran DISA’s services development directorate and was the chief engineer for the Cyber Situational Awareness and Analytics Division.

He also worked at Naval Research Laboratory before coming to DISA.

CMS CISO Wood taking new role

As for Wood, who has been CMS CISO since November 2020, he will join a new venture with Sidekick Security, while also continuing to invest in and grow the non-profit Soft Side of Cyber.

Federal News Network has learned that CMS deputy CISO Keith Busby will be stepping up to lead the program until a permanent CISO is hired.

During his time at CMS, Wood focused on improving the culture at CMS around cybersecurity, building a security data lake to break down silos and advancing the technology strategy through cyber enablement.

Before joining CMS in 2020, Wood spent most of his career in the private sector working in cybersecurity positions with Cigital, Simon Data and N95.

Retirements at DHS, Air Force

Two other federal technology leaders decided it was time to call it a career.

Ken Bible, the Department of Homeland Security’s chief information security officer, and Eileen Vidrine, the Air Force’s chief data and artificial intelligence officer, have submitted their retirement papers.

Bible said his last day will be March 29 and has no firm plans for his post-federal life.

“I am looking forward to taking some time to enjoy my home in Charleston, S.C. and perhaps engage in helping in both the education arena as well as helping at the state and regional policy levels in the future,” Bible said in an email to Federal News Network.

He has been DHS CISO since January 2021 and worked in government for almost 39 years. Bible, who received a 2023 Presidential Rank Award,  started his career in 1985 at the former Charleston Naval Shipyard, where he rose to be a nuclear qualified engineering supervisor for three engineering branches.

During his time at DHS, Bible launched a pathfinder last summer to begin evaluating existing contractors with cyber hygiene clauses in their contracts and focused on addressing broader supply chain risks through a strategy.

Before coming to DHS, Bible served under the headquarters Marine Corps Deputy Commandant for Information as the assistant director for the information command, control, communications and computers division (IC4). He also served as the Marine Corps’ deputy CIO and CISO. Additionally, he worked at the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) for almost two decades.

Vidrine is retiring on March 31 after 38 years of federal service.

She has been the Air Force chief data officer since 2018 and CDO/CAIO since January 2023 when she returned to the service after a one-year detail serving as the senior strategic advisor for data to the Federal Chief Information Officer in the Office of Management and Budget.

Last March, Vidrine told Federal News Network that her new title reflects the central role data has in getting AI projects off the ground.

Vidrine said AI readiness for the department comes down to establishing a baseline set of data and AI skills for airmen and guardians, as well as making sure they have access to the digital infrastructure and tools needed to advance breakthroughs in AI research.

Vidrine began her government career in 1986 as an enlisted member of the Army where she received her commission in 1987 through the U.S. Army Officer Candidate School Program as an Army transportation officer.

From 2006 to 2012, Vidrine served in various positions of leadership at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence culminating as the chief of staff for the Assistant Director of National Intelligence for Human Capital.

Army PEO-EIS leader moving to new agency

Finally, one federal executive who isn’t leaving federal service, but is on the move to a new role.

Rob Schadey, the acting deputy program executive officer for the Army’s PEO-Enterprise Information Systems (PEO-EIS), is joining the Defense Counterintelligence and Service Agency (DCSA) to be the program manager of the National Background Investigation Services.

Federal News Network has learned Schadey’s last day will be in March and it’s unclear who will take over for him even in an acting role.

Before stepping into the acting deputy PEO-EIS role in January, Schadey served as the assistant program executive officer and as the director of the business mission area, both at PEO-EIS.

As the program manager for NBIS, Schadey will have to continue to modernize the systems that help federal employees obtain security clearances.

OMB recently approved the Personnel Vetting Questionnaire (PVQ) in November, according to the third quarterly update on the “Trusted Workforce 2.0” initiative from the Performance Accountability Council. The questionnaire consolidates the SF-86, “Questionnaire for National Security,” along with several other vetting questionnaires used for federal jobs, including public trust and non-sensitive positions.

DCSA is now working on plans to integrate the PVQ into the new “eApp” web portal for background investigation applications as part of its NBIS.

The post Education, DHS among agencies seeking new IT leaders first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Air Force collects terabytes of data during each mission, but most of it will “never see the light of day.” Gen. James Slife, the service’s newly confirmed vice chief of staff, is making it a priority to improve how the service takes advantage of its own data.

“We’re not at all organized, educated or trained, we don’t have the right policies, we are wholly out of position to be able to take advantage of this,” Slife said at the AFCEA luncheon on Feb. 29. “This is going to be something I’m going to spend the next X number of years being the designated hammer inside the Air Force on this topic. We’ve got a long way to go.”

In his first public speaking engagement since he was sworn in as the service’s No. 2 in December, Slife emphasized the need for the service to address challenges associated with capturing, managing, and more importantly, utilizing the information collected as a strategic asset to enhance its operations.

Every time the F-35 stealth fighter takes off, its various systems and sensors start collecting information. The aircraft’s electronic warfare system, its electro-optical targeting system, the communication suite and cameras provide airmen with a “detailed, cohesive image of everything that [the aircraft] sees and senses.” All the while, it’s recording a massive amount of data, but most of it will most likely be lost.

“There are lessons learned built into that data. There’s the wingman that did the wrong thing. There’s the bad radio call. There is the signal that we’ve never seen before. We need to incorporate that into our future missions to feed our algorithms the truth required for accurate AI models. The problem — there is a high probability that every bit of that valuable data will never ever see the light of day. It’ll all be deleted. And we’ll record over it the very next day,” Slife said.

The reason why this data gets deleted is because it’s just too large to be transmitted. Hours of transit time, unbroken horizon video footage of the plane going from point A to point B — all of it takes up a lot of space.

Recorded data needs to be indexed and tagged — a labor-intensive and time-consuming process. When there is no time, that data just gets dumped into a so-called data lake.

“These data lakes have more unusable data than that which is actually usable. These lakes, therefore, become data swamps,” said Slife.

In addition, there is an issue of overclassification. For example, there is data on one of the F-35s airmen want to use for an upcoming exercise. But the tape includes a short conversation about a B-21 taking off somewhere, making the entire recording classified at a top-secret level, even though “99% of what’s going on that sortie is unclassified and could be more readily accessible to the force,” Slife said.

“Our current solutions are sluggish and they’re not totally accurate. And frankly, our own culture of over-classification and protecting data past the point at which we lose the ability for it to become operationally relevant is part of our own problem,” Slife said.

When it comes to the C-17 cargo plane, a wealth of data flows back and forth across a data bus to all the various aircraft systems, but none of the data gets recorded.

“Every one of those 1553 data buses watches that treasure trove of information speed right past it every second. None of it is recorded or analyzed or saved or looked at — none of it,” Slife said.

Given the challenges, Slife said he needs better solutions for moving large quantities of data. The current setup where airmen have to physically transport hard drives between bases is inadequate and unsustainable.

Additionally, he needs automated data processing solutions to filter out irrelevant information and index, tag, and catalog data efficiently. There is also a need for better cross-domain solutions to securely transfer data between different classification levels, putting the right information on the right classification systems quickly, accurately, and most importantly, in an automated fashion.

“I hope this is a bit of a call to action. We need a more holistic approach to this. It can’t just be vendor product A solving problem A,” Slife said. “I need help getting our arms around these problems I’m outlining to you today.”

The post Air Force vice chief needs better solutions for moving data first appeared on Federal News Network.

There may be no one facing the continued workforce and technology challenge more than Air Force’s intelligence community.

The move to new and emerging technologies like the cloud are directly clashing with the Air Force’s obligation to keep current systems running.

That is why Col. Michael Medgyessy, the chief information officer of Air Force Intelligence Office, said initiatives like the Air Force and Space Force’s Digital University are so important.

He said it’s more critical than ever to ensure his digital savvy airmen and women don’t get frustrated and leave.

“There are definitely new hires coming into the Air Force already digital savvy. They’re coders. They have a strong data understanding. And it’s this new workforce that we got to make sure it doesn’t get frustrated and leaves by enabling them to be able to do these types of things at the edge, enabling them with different technologies like low code, no code, automated workflows, being able to do scripts and things, and be able to understand that the lexicon is different,” Medgyessy said on Ask the CIO. “When do scripts become apps? When do data platforms that have user defined operational pictures on them that have names become apps that need accreditations? A lot of people will use the word app to describe a lot of different things that aren’t really, in my mind, actual, full stack applications. Then you go down these roads of, well, who’s approved this thing to be used? So enabling the workforce by ensuring that the lexicon is clear, and that they are empowered to do certain things is important.”

That also means, Medgyessy, who also is the cyber authorizing official and chief data officer for the intelligence office, said, defining user privileges and capabilities, relying on automation to help make those determinations faster and easier and protecting data and applications from intended or unintended problems.

Clearing Air Force obstacles

At the same time, by opening up these types of platforms to more airmen and women, they can solve problems more quickly, drive decision making to the edge and move faster in a secure manner.

And, Medgyessy said, “try not to frustrate them as much as possible and get them into paths that will let them use their skills and grow them.”

Limiting that frustration also means finding a way to say “yes” to new ideas. Medgyessy said he’s aware of the technology and process obstacles that can arise.

“The digital infrastructure needs to shift the mindset because every time we add new work, it’s not necessarily more cost, more resources and bodies to the person saying ‘yes,’ because the way we do this is a fully burdened cost model. So as a service, we scale elastically and the people asking for the permission to do something are coming with the funded requirement, which is actually scaling out not only the technology, but the workforce on the back end. The dynamic has shifted,” he said. “So actually, the more funded requirements we get on these capabilities, the more others can scale them out and get benefit from them. It’s a complete flip. Cybersecurity wise, we have to really take a culture and shift it from flat file repositories and reviews of those capabilities on a periodic basis into live data, and people that understand how to read code and go into the code repositories and understand where the production is getting spun up from under what policies and audits of those policies to ensure that they’re actually happening to the specifications we expect, but more so in a live manner, a dashboard manner, in a manner that understands that the production environment is in flux constantly.”

Medgyessy said his office is implementing those toolsets through continuous integration, continuous delivery (CICD) pipelines in the cloud, and leaning into reciprocity of other office’s or agency platforms.

“If we understand how a pipeline is built and the body of evidence has been approved, that they’re doing this to the specifications we also require, then those pipelines should also be able to provide a certificate that we accept and can move those containers to another environment to be able to be used without having a lot of security on top of that done, and move that in a very seamless fashion,” he said. “The only way we’re going to be able to do that at scale is not with humans, but with automation, and so our cybersecurity workforce really has to get into this world and understand it, as do the authorizing officials. The authorizing officials cannot be stuck in doing things the old industrial age way.”

Working across the community

To that end, the Air Force Intelligence Office has accepted three platforms from the National Geospatial and Intelligence Agency, the National Reconnaissance Office and from the Air Force’s Platform One. Additionally, the intelligence platform, ODIN, can bring on containerized applications from the Air Force Kessel Run and Space Force’s Gravity platforms “with very little cybersecurity rework and it’s very automated,” he said.

The access to and use of platforms is one major reason why Medgyessy said cloud office governance is a big deal for 2024.

He said with the emergence of the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) vehicle and the continued use of the C2E program for the intelligence community, the governance process will help ensure users follow the guardrails the Air Force built for using cloud services.

“The shared inherited controls that you get when you using this way, the visibility and security cognizance of what’s going on in commercial cloud at any given time by the CIO is super important to trying to tame the Wild West, while not having to slow people down,” he said.. “We have to have an understanding that when you do come through the cloud office, yes, there’s going to be guardrails in place, but you’re also getting to go faster and you’re going to be more successful long term.”

That idea of going faster and being more successful also fits into Medgyessy’s goal of migrating successful agile pilots into sustainable programs.

He said the Air Force Intelligence Office is looking at moving to an “as-a-service” type of model to help get customer capabilities in place more quickly.

Air Force Intel Office to get new CDO

“We have a customer base that is larger than any normal program office’s customer base because normally that program office will have a certain finite set of users that they’re focused on. In this case, we have customer funding from all over the place, which is really been the goal for IT services. People have been wanting this forever, but we don’t actually have an institutional way to deliver what people have been wanting,” he said. “I’ll give you an example of like, we have a cost model, it’s fully burdened. So I can take customers as a multi-tenant cloud environment from anywhere and it will not cost the Air Force or the intelligence community any more money than what we were spending on supporting ourselves initially to get that capability running. But I’m scaling it out to all these customers who don’t have to duplicate the effort from scratch, and can just buy into what they need to scale it out to them. It actually helps us that model of doing business is very different.”

Medgyessy said a final priority is focused on data and improving the platform the information resides on. The good news for Medgyessy is the Air Force Intelligence Office is hiring chief data officer, for which applications closed Feb. 26. This means Medgyessy will wear one less hat.

“We have a lot of work happening with classified cloud at the edge and extending it really in two prongs. One prong is how do I get sensor data ingested into classify cloud in a low latency, high bandwidth fashion. It’s kind of like an internet of things model, where I’m doing processing at the edge, and I’m also redistributing some of that data to the regional nodes, and then bringing that back into classify cloud,” he said. “Then there’s also the data platform and how can we do replication and resynchronization when it’s reconnected across secret and top secret instances? Some of the difficulty and challenge there is regional cross domain solutions, and how we can actually move between the classifications of our data locally without having to come back to the continental United States to do it. That’s one big part there and furthering the standards for data sharing.”

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The Air Force and National Reconnaissance Office have been jointly managing an effort to deliver space-based Ground Moving Target Indicators — sensors that can track and monitor moving objects of interest on the ground in near-real time.

Frank Calvelli, Air Force space acquisition chief, said the project is expected to complete its Milestone B review by the end of March, allowing the program to begin engineering and manufacturing development.

“NRO is in great shape to do that program, I’m expecting that milestone to go very smooth,” Calvelli said during the NSSA Defense and Intelligence Space conference Tuesday. “What I need for that program is for Congress to pass a budget because it’s a new start. If we don’t get the budget passed, we are stuck in a [continuing resolution]. We can’t do much with that program this year.”

The House passed another stopgap bill Thursday, which will keep some of the government agencies open through March 8 and the rest of the federal government through March 22.

Some lawmakers have floated the idea of funding the government through a year-long continuing resolution, which will leave the federal government operating at the 2023 budget levels and prevent some new programs from starting.

“A [continuing resolution] for the year cripples our ability to implement what we want as the Department of the Air Force in terms of our vision for operational imperatives, and it’s just horrible, quite honestly. It’s crippling our ability to compete,” Calvelli said.

Under a year-long continuing resolution, the Air Force would lose up to $1.4 billion in research, test, development and evaluation dollars. The Space Force, however, would face the largest funding gap, losing nearly $2.6 billion in research dollars, or 10% of its entire budget.

According to fiscal 2024 budget documents, the Air Force plans to transition part of its ground-moving target indicator mission from its current platform, the aging E-8C Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System aircraft, which is set to retire at the end of this year, with GMTI capability.

The Space Force is asking for $243 million in fiscal 2024 to research and develop satellites capable of tracking moving targets on the ground. The service estimates it will need more than $1.2 billion through fiscal 2028 to fund the program.

After years of debate, defense officials decided to task the Space Force with developing requirements and supervising the acquisition process. At the same time, the National Reconnaissance Office is in charge of procuring sensor payloads.

Details about the new classified sensors are limited, but similar GMTI systems have been based on radar use of a pulsing technique and Doppler shift analysis to detect and track moving targets on the ground.

Calvelli also said his focus in the coming year will be on classification reduction.

“It is something that hinders our ability to actually integrate space in with other domains and space just within the space programs to really enable a warfighter to go do their job. I will tell you that it’s easier said than done,” Calvelli said. “My vision is to bring the majority of space programs out of the [special access programs] down to [top secret] level.”

The post Space ground tracking program to reach key milestone first appeared on Federal News Network.

In one of the most significant reorganizations in recent history, the Air Force is reshaping its service’s structure in an effort to meet the security challenges of an increasingly complex global landscape.

Among the biggest changes is the creation of a new command center, which will play a crucial role in centralizing the planning process for the service’s future requirements and capabilities. The Integrated Capabilities Command will allow other command centers to focus on daily operations rather than independently determining their own requirements or planning for the future.

“It’s just what the name infers,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Dave Allvin said at the Air and Space Forces Association’s Air Warfare Symposium Monday. “They will design and they will put the requirements in and test one Air Force, not some of our functional Air Forces and then we have to put them together later.”

“This is where the operators will test operational concepts against our force design. They will also ensure that when we have modernization initiatives, those are rationalized to ensure our current force gets to the future force in a way that makes sense so we do not unintentionally put modernization on platforms that really don’t have a long-term play in the future force design. It wastes money.”

The service is also standing up a new integrated capabilities office, which will help the leadership prioritize modernization investments.

When Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall wanted the service to focus on closing the gaps for operational imperatives he introduced over two years ago to support the Air Force’s modernization priorities, there was no organization to support those initiatives. The integrated capabilities office will be in charge of determining the next iteration of operational imperatives.

“We’ll be looking at capabilities across our services, not in stovepipes,” Kristyn Jones, who is currently performing the duties of the Air Force under secretary, said.

The changes also include elevating Air Forces Cyber from under Air Combat Command to being a standalone service component command. Air Force Cyber will report directly to U.S. Cyber Command, which is responsible for coordinating defense and offensive cyber operations across the military services.

“This reflects the importance the cyber is going to take in future warfare and it also enables that direct relationship and for us to better understand and articulate the risk and also develop capabilities within our Air Force,” Allvin said.

This is not the first time Air Force Cyber has gone through significant organizational shifts. In 2018, it transitioned from being under Air Force Space Command to falling under Air Combat Command. It was later merged with Air Force intelligence units to form the 16th Air Force.

Additionally, the Air Force is bringing back warrant officers in IT and cyber fields to fill the service’s technical expertise gap. The service made a decision to phase out the role over 50 years ago, with the last active-duty warrant retiring in 1980.

“Developing that warrant officer track for this narrow career field, we anticipate, will drive that talent in and help us to keep that talent. There’s something specific about this career field why it’s attractive and it’s a nice match for a Warrant Officer Program,” Allvin said.

More broadly, the service is restructuring its operational wings into three distinct categories, or “units of action.” These categories include deployable combat wings, in-place combat wings and combat generation wings. The goal is to improve the service’s ability to rapidly deploy support staff alongside squadrons without interrupting day-to-day operations.

“We need to ensure that our combat wings are coherent units of action that have everything they need to be able to execute their wartime tasks,” Allvin said.

The senior officials are still finalizing the details regarding the 24 decisions they announced on Monday. Kendall said that each decision will have a timeline for planning and execution, which will vary from immediate to over a year.

The post Air Force introduces ‘sweeping’ changes to force structure first appeared on Federal News Network.

• There is a new face in charge at another one of the largest U.S. intelligence agencies. Air Force Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse is now director at the Defense Intelligence Agency. He takes over for retiring Army Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, who had led DIA since October 2020. Kruse was previously adviser for military affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The change-in-command at DIA took place on Friday, the same day Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh took the reins of the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command from Army Gen. Paul Nakasone.
  (Berrier relinquishes command to Kruse at DIA - DIA X account)
• The Postal Service plans to significantly shrink its carbon footprint by the end of the decade. By 2030, USPS expects to cut carbon emissions from fuel and electricity by 40% and reduce emissions from contracted services by 20%. The agency plans to make that happen by rolling out a majority-electric vehicle delivery fleet and consolidating facilities. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said these sustainability goals will give USPS an advantage over its competitors, as it looks to grow its package business. "Through our efforts, the Postal Service be the most sustainable way to mail and ship," DeJoy said.
  (USPS plans to shrink its carbon footprint with majority-electric fleet - Federal News Network)
• House Republicans are once again looking to cut through what they feel is ambiguity surrounding teleworking federal employees. After what they say has been months without enough clarity, leaders on the Oversight and Accountability Committee are turning to the Office of Management and Budget to get information on agencies' telework policies. The lawmakers said OMB should give them access to agencies' workplace environment plans, which detail how many feds are teleworking each day. They also want to know if there has been any resistance from employees when told to return to the office. The lawmakers say getting more data on telework is ultimately a question of agency performance. They gave OMB a deadline of Feb. 14 to respond.
  (Letter to OMB on federal telework - House Oversight and Accountability Committee)
• The Defense Department is laying the groundwork for building a workplace culture accepting of telework and remote work. DoD has a new telework policy and the biggest change is that it now addresses remote work. The document, updated for the first time since 2012, said DoD wants the military services to “actively” promote remote work and telework. It also encourages the component heads to eliminate barriers to telework program execution through education and training. The policy said remote work and telework can be used to recruit employees with specialized skills, retain valuable employees, and increase work-life balance.
  (DoD’s new policy - Federal News Network)
• The State Department is getting a new second in command. The Senate voted to confirm Kurt Campbell as the next deputy secretary of state. Campbell is currently serving as the deputy assistant to the President and coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs on the National Security Council. He will take over for Wendy Sherman, who left the State Department last summer. Among his previous jobs, Campbell served as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs during the Obama administration. He also served as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific affairs during the Clinton administration.
  (Senate Press Gallery - Senate Press Gallery on X)
• The Office of Management and Budget will add a chief customer experience officer to its ranks, if a bipartisan bill keeps advancing through Congress. The Government Service Delivery Improvement Act is heading for a House floor vote, after making it through the House Oversight and Accountability Committee. The bill requires OMB to appoint a senior official whose primary job is to lead governmentwide improvements in customer service. The bill also makes it clear agency that heads are responsible for how well they deliver services to the public.
  (Full committee business meeting - House Oversight and Accountability Committee)
• The Environmental Protection Agency is pulling out all the stops this week to try to recruit younger and more diverse talent. Today, potential job applicants will hear from EPA Deputy Administrator Janet McCabe in a hiring webinar. She will offer information to try to clear up the federal hiring process and detail the many different career paths available at the agency. In the next year, EPA plans to onboard over 1,000 new employees. Many of the positions will involve working on initiatives from the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Law.
  ( "Be EPA" recruitment week - Environmental Protection Agency)
• The Federal Emergency Management Agency plans to modernize one of its most widely used forms. FEMA is seeking public comment on its plans to standardize the Homeowner Flood Form. The agency said the new form will provide homeowners with a more personalized, customizable product, along with using simplified language in a more user-friendly format. The form is part of the National Flood Insurance Program. FEMA is seeking comments through April 8.
  (FEMA seeks comment on simplified Homeowner Flood Insurance Form to improve customer experience - FEMA)
• The Army is selecting brigades to experiment with electromagnetic warfare, networks, cyber, small drones and robotics while overseas. Chief of Staff of the Army Gen. Randy George calls it “transforming in contact.” The plan is to adjust network equipment and the number of drones and add electromagnetic capabilities, robotics or next-generation squad weapons inside those formations. The goal of the experiment is to receive feedback on the tech used and get recommendations on capabilities needed at the echelon level. Gen. George said the Army is already sending some equipment to the Central Command, with which to experiment in theater.
  (Army is selecting brigades to test cyber, networks capabilities - AUSA)

The post Intelligence community gets another new leader first appeared on Federal News Network.

• For the first time in nearly six years, there is a new general in charge at the National Security Agency. Air Force Gen. Timothy Haugh is officially director of the NSA and head of U.S. Cyber Command. He took the reins last Friday during a change-of-command ceremony. Army Gen. Paul Nakasone retired after leading the dual command since May 2018. Haugh most previously served as CYBERCOM’s deputy commander. He has also served in leadership positions at Sixteenth Air Force and in other positions in the intelligence community.
  (Gen. Timothy Haugh takes lead of CYBERCOM and NSA - NSA)
• Here are seven ideas to reform the federal budget process. Growing concerns about budget cuts and other austerity measures has led a group of federal experts to push for ways to strengthen the budget process for improved management. The Shared Services Leadership Coalition and the IBM Center for The Business of Government brought together 19 experts to recommend new ways to accelerate management improvement, promote greater administrative efficiency and improve government performance. Among their recommendations is one to strengthen links between management routines and budget development efforts, and another is to prioritize and fully price multiyear plans to address the capital needs that can lead to long-term savings.
  (Good government groups recommend changes to budget process - IBM Center of The Business of Government)
• Some Department of Homeland Security components would see a big hiring boost under the $118 billion national security supplemental spending bill released by Senate negotiators on Sunday. The bill has $534 million for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hire more officers and agents. It also includes funding for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to onboard more than 4,000 new asylum officers. And the legislation would grant both ICE and USCIS direct-hire authority for the next five years. While the legislation has some bipartisan support in the Senate, it faces a steep uphill climb in the Republican-controlled House.
  (Summary of Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2024 - Senate Appropriations Committee )
• The State Department is calling on mid-career experts in the private sector to join the Foreign Service at mid-career ranks. That is the idea behind the congressionally mandated Lateral Entry Pilot Program. Lucia Piazza is the deputy assistant secretary for the State Department’s Bureau of Global Talent Management. She said the pilot will help bring critical skills into the Foreign Service. “Especially as things change so rapidly, there’s a real need to bring in folks who are also interested in diplomacy, who want to be Foreign Service officers, but who come with this wealth of experience in these very, very specific areas," Piazza said.
  (State Dept recruiting mid-career experts to join Foreign Service in ‘lateral entry’ pilot - Federal News Network)
• The Department of Veterans Affairs is giving lawmakers an update on its investigation into alleged sexual harassment. The department sent the House VA Committee its final report on allegations directed at leaders within the Office of Resolution Management, Diversity, and Inclusion. Lawmakers said the report substantiates much of what VA whistleblowers told the committee, but they said it is still not everything they demanded in a subpoena approved last month. The committee plans to hold a hearing with updates on its investigation next week.
  (Biden administration ignores subpoena regarding VA allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct - House VA Committee )
• It has been nine years since the OPM data breach and now two lawmakers want to give the 22 million current and former federal employees impacted free lifetime identity-protection coverage. D.C Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.) have introduced the Reducing the Effects of the Cyberattack on OPM Victims Emergency Response (RECOVER) Act. It would require OPM to provide lifetime identity-protection coverage for the affected individuals. The current identity protection coverage approved in 2015 is set to expire in October 2026.
  (House bill would give OPM data breach victims identity protection coverage for life - Del. Norton (D-D.C.))
• Adm. Samuel Paparo, tapped to lead the United States Indo-Pacific Command, is pledging to focus on logistics if confirmed by the Senate. Paparo said he is committed to improving airfields, sea ports and warehousing to decrease logistics vulnerabilities. Paparo also pledged to address gaps in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities. He will also focus on assessing current information-related capabilities and consider options to improve the Pentagon’s information operations readiness in the region. Paparo currently leads the United States Pacific Fleet. If confirmed, Paparo will succeed Adm. John Aquilino, who is retiring in the spring. Paparo will oversee the Indo-Pacom region through the mid-2020s.
  (IDOPAYCOM commander nominee says logistics posture needs improvement - Senate Armed Services Committee)
• The Air Force’s 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing is collaborating with the service’s weapons school to expose students to realistic threats in the electromagnetic operational environment. For the first time, the wing partnered with the Air Force Weapons School to provide students with a better understanding about the challenges posed by adversaries’ advanced systems, how to counter them and how to control the electromagnetic spectrum. Specifically, the wing wanted to re-program mission data files for priority combat platforms and acquire and analyze crowd-sourced flight data. It also sought to further develop electronic warfare assessment and operation experience and to test the ability to download advanced mission applications in flight. Integrating the 350th Spectrum Warfare Wing into the service’s weapons school will be a building block for future exercises so maintenance, support and intelligence personnel are more prepared to counter electromagnetic spectrum challenges in the future.
  (Air Force integrates its spectrum warfare wing into service’s weapons school event for the first time - DVIDS)

The post Gen. Timothy Haugh takes charge of NSA, Cyber Command first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Air Force is ringing the alarm bells over a yearlong continuing resolution, estimating that the service would lose as much as $13 billion in buying power before adjusting for inflation, the Air Force’s top official said Wednesday.

“[Some of the details] of that are really pretty catastrophic. And I don’t think there’s been enough discussion about some of those impacts,” Kristyn Jones, who is currently performing the duties of the Air Force under secretary, said during the Center for Strategic and International Studies event Wednesday.

Under a full-year continuing resolution, the Space Force would face the largest funding gap, losing nearly $2.6 billion in research dollars. The Air Force would lose up to $1.4 billion in research, test, development and evaluation dollars. It would have to cancel 34 construction projects, and the measure would impact seven national security space launches.

Lt. Gen. Rick Moore, Air Force deputy chief of staff for plans and programs, said that this year reminds him of the circumstances of 2013 when the Pentagon reduced its maintenance budgets — a decision that has had lasting effects on the department even a decade later.

“By the time this is implemented, we’ll be halfway through the fiscal year, but the number doesn’t change. So that means the last two quarters of this fiscal year, we’ll have to find $4.4 billion, a quarter of things that we thought we were going to be able to do that we now can’t,” Moore said.

“Military construction impacts the places where airmen work, the places where they live, it impacts families, it’s really difficult to quantify some of those things. But I think anybody that you ask about what they think about 2013 and how their workforce continues to feel about 2013, it’s a decade later. And we’re still not past that.”

Last week, Congress passed a stopgap bill to keep the federal government open until March. While the measure buys more time for the two chambers to negotiate, it leaves the federal government operating at the 2023 budget levels, and the continued dependence on multiple stopgap measures increases the chances of a yearlong continuing resolution.

In the last 12 years, the federal government has collectively spent over four years under a continuing resolution. On average, the department operates under a continuing resolution for 117 days, nearly one-third of the year.

Additionally, if Congress is unable to pass the 2024 budget, it will trigger a 1% cut in fiscal 2024. The cuts will become permanent in April, meaning the federal government will operate at the fiscal 2023 budget levels minus 1%.

Jones said her office will protect some of the department’s spending, but some programs across the department will face funding gaps.

“Because of the fact that we’ve had a really historic increase in our pay for this year, both military and civilian. We’ve had to absorb that already, starting at the beginning of this calendar year. And so that requires us to make even bigger impacts in the non-pay areas,” Jones said.

One of the areas that will be affected by operating under continuing resolutions is the Collaborative Combat Aircraft Program, or CCA, which lets the service test and implement new concepts around autonomous and manned-unmanned aircraft teaming. The program aligns with Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s series of priorities, or operational imperatives, to better position the Air Force for a modern conflict.

“That’s one of the areas that we’re particularly excited about to add additional mass to our force at lower prices than our current aircraft; we now have five performers who are on contract. Being able to move forward with that effort and moving into the next stages of production are going to be slowed because of this,” Jones said.

Additionally, the Air Force’s Agile Combat Employment, aimed at improving the service’s ability to operate in the Indo-Pacific region, got a significant boost in the 2024 budget request. But budget uncertainty will have an impact on this effort as well.

“We’re not able to bring our investments up to those levels that we had planned. So we’re continuing to cede time to our adversaries. And that’s causing significant impacts,” Jones said.

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You may not wake up thinking about Cislunar-space situational awareness, but people at the Air Force Research Laboratories. In fact, AFRL has had two programs for such awareness. Two programs they have brought together. The resulting program is called the Oracle family of systems. To find out more,  the Federal Drive with Tom Temin talked with two of the project leaders: Mission Lead Jaime Stearns and Investigator James Frith.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin All right, so let’s begin at the beginning here. Cislunar-space situational awareness. It’s a mouthful. What is it exactly?

Jaime Stearns Sure. So let’s break that term down a little bit. We’ll start with cislunar. Technically that means the area between the Earth and the moon. But a bunch of us have started using it in a much more general sense. And I think that was codified in a national strategy that was actually released in November of 2022 that talks about cislunar-space as the area all the way out to the moon and a little bit beyond that is to these points of stability called Lagrange points. And there’s one on the far side of the moon, about 65,000km further than the moon. And so cislunar- space goes all the way out there. And the way that we talk about it, we usually mean it to start not quite at the Earth, but beyond a geosynchronous orbit. So a little bit beyond the area where the Department of Defense in particular is used to operating. We really use cislunar to mean that whole area beyond where we’re used to operating to the other side of the moon. And all of that in a full sphere that rotates as the moon rotates around the Earth.

Tom Temin In general, though, operations don’t go really much beyond that which can orbit the Earth itself.  There’s nothing besides the moon that’s as far away as the moon.

Jaime Stearns There are a few satellites out there already. NASA is looking to send the Artemis missions out that way. Other countries and commercial operators are sending a fair amount of traffic all the way out to the moon. But in terms of Department of Defense operations, that has really just been at geosynchronous orbit and below historically. And that’s some of what the Air Force Research Lab is looking to expand here.

Tom Temin Ok. And you were going to continue with one more thought.

Jaime Stearns Yeah, I was going to define space situational awareness. That’s really just the process of keeping track of all of the objects in space. In its most general form, it means both natural objects and manmade objects. So satellites, our focus is largely on keeping track of satellites so that we understand where they’re at, we can make sure that they’re not going to run into each other. If anything goes wrong with one of them knowing where it’s at helps provide support to the operator of that satellite. And this is something that we have done traditionally, again in geosynchronous orbit and below. And we give that data away free to the world. We help owner operators operate in all of those traditional orbit regimes. And what we’re trying to do at AFRL is expand the capabilities to do that space situational awareness all the way out to the moon. So when the Artemis program goes back, we can help them understand where they are and make sure that nothing else is going to run into them.

Tom Temin And Dr. Frith, what form does this take? What kind of surveillance and listening devices or eyeballs are required here?

James Frith Well, it’s really not any different than what we’ve done in the past with Earth based telescopes or either optical or RF radio frequencies. The only real difference is adjusting the capabilities of the traditional telescopes to account for the greater distances, and the sort of increased complexity of the dynamics that happen when you start not only having to predict the motion of an object based on the gravity of the Earth, but also when both the Earth and the moon are affecting the satellite, which gets very complicated, very fast. This is called the three body problem. The gravitational dynamic is extremely complicated, and your ability to predict where these things are going to be over time.

Tom Temin Yeah, it sounds like three dimensional billiards.

James Frith You don’t really want them to run into each other. But yeah, it’s very much sitting on an ice rink, meaning that small forces can really make huge differences on the eventual location of the object over time.

Tom Temin And for this project, the Air Force has had some particular instruments in space for the cislunar research. Tell us about those and what’s up there now.

Jaime Stearns Most of our research now has been really more ground based than space based. We are in the process of developing two satellites to actually go out to cislunar-space and really begin pioneering how to do the space situational awareness mission out near the moon. So those are the two programs that we now call Oracle Mobility and Oracle Prime. And Oracle Mobility is really kind of the quick turn Pathfinder mission that initially began as a mobility experiment, and kind of through a convergent evolution process when we all realized how important cislunar- space was going to become. The Oracle M program office decided that they really wanted to focus on cislunar as the best demonstration of where they could explore the really high mobility that their satellite is going to have. And we also realized there was an opportunity to just get hands on experience. For our scientists, for our operators, or anyone in the Space Force who wants to be part of this program, to be able to actually learn to fly a satellite in cislunar-space. And that’s really what the Oracle M program is doing.

Tom Temin And does this instrument that will be launched, I guess, does it use optical viewing of what’s out there? Tell us more about what it actually can do. They can see things with optical and send back an image.

Jaime Stearns Exactly. It’ll have an optical telescope on it. So it will be taking pictures of the sky around it and hoping to capture any non star objects that are also in that field of view. Oracle M will be primarily focused on tracking objects that we already know are there. Just practicing doing that saying hey, we can go find the satellite that we know is out there, let’s go up, let’s take a picture of it. And when I say picture, not a result image or anything, these are just dots because they’re very, very, very far away. And be able to send that image back to the ground for further processing to say, yes, that is the satellite we thought it was, and then make that data available to the rest of the community for any research purposes they may have.

Tom Temin This is getting all more urgent, as more and more nations are able to launch things into space. And we’re not sure of what their intentions are all the time.

Jaime Stearns Well, I think there’s just going to be a lot of activity in cislunar-space, period. Just our own internal open source estimates. There’s going to be about 100 objects out there by 2026. If you include all the active satellites that we know are going from every country, from NASA, from commercial, and then anomalies happen, things go wrong. There’s always going to be an element of surprise where even if everyone is doing everything quite responsibly and nobody has any bad intentions, things still happen. So we just want to be able to observe all of these satellites and be prepared if we need to help people understand where objects are and make sure that we can not have any conjunctions or have a bad day in cislunar-space.

Tom Temin Sure. And let me ask you, James, when a dot is discovered, what does it take to understand that, hey, that dot wasn’t there yesterday, or it’s not just another star and this kind of thing. There must be a lot of processing that goes on to make sure that that is really what you think it is.

James Frith You’re actually poking at some of the more fundamental research that we’re going through AFRL, which is doing exactly that. So being able to build up a database of objects that already exists in cislunar-space, there are multiple NASA missions, multiple missions that were launched a long time ago, the 60s and 70s, exploring that space. And building up a catalog of things that we already know are out there making the catalog more accurate. And then, if we observe a new object that isn’t within the catalog to update the catalog as best we can, we can share that with the community, make sure that everyone knows what’s out there, and they can move out of the way as needed if that’s an issue. But truly, the dynamics of this environment is complicated, working sort of in the realm of chaos theory, meaning that as you increase the amount of time from an observation, you actually get unpredictable results in the future. So taking sort of basic PhD level research and turn it into a unified capability is one of our research efforts here.

Tom Temin Yeah. So a lot of science has come to bear on this. It sounds like.

James Frith Yeah. So there are two main thrusts. One is the that dynamical problem, which is increasing our accuracy and how we can predict these objects location over time. And the other big piece of that is the technology needed in order to produce data to actually observe the objects, which there are certain situations where that’s truly impossible from the Earth itself, which is why we need a space based component for cislunar SSA.

Tom Temin And I’m getting a little whiff of artificial intelligence in here.

James Frith We’re starting with just, biological intelligence first. And then there’s certainly, that’s one tool in the potential toolbox for us to use. But again, that’s not necessarily, going to solve everything.

Tom Temin And the fact that this is all happening at the Air Force Research Laboratory and not at, say, Space Force, which is supposed to have the operational ownership of the space domain. Sounds like we’re in the early stages of understanding what goes on up there and how to figure out how we can observe it. Fair to say?

Jaime Stearns That’s a perfect description. James and I both do officially work for the Space Force aligned under Air Force Research Lab. And so, yeah, the main goals of these programs and all the research that James discussed, really, is to help any future programs that are official and operationally run out of the Space Force to understand, not even just what do we build, but even understand the basic requirements. It’s, as James said, a very complicated space. And we want to help understand how you really do this mission and be able to define those requirements.

Tom Temin And have we found anything out there yet?

James Frith Yeah. So there have been dozens of launches over the last year or two to this region, which is proof that this is an area that we need to focus on as a nation in terms of making sure that we can, track these objects. So Artemis one launched a little while back and deployed ten CubeSats, which are now within that region. So tracking them has been challenging. The Luna-25 was launched recently. There is a Korean launch called Cape Yellow. There have been up to about a dozen or more satellites have been launched in cislunar-space in the last couple of years, and these have been very useful test objects to work on the dynamic problem that we’re discussing. Some of these have been observed, some of these haven’t. But we’re testing out tools, techniques all the time.

Jaime Stearns There’s another interesting aspect of this too, of historical launches. So just during the course of our research and trying to build out how you would build a catalog for cislunar-space. We’ve come across objects that were launched in the 60s, like rocket bodies from some of those early missions that have kind of been rediscovered and put back into some of our catalogs. So we’re kind of practicing that discovery phase as well, with things that were launched a long, long time ago.

The post Air Force Research Lab creates a new approach to situational awareness in space first appeared on Federal News Network.

• Military members looking to expand their families, will soon have better access to infertility treatments. The Defense Department is updating its TRICARE policy to expand coverage of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures. The update is in response to a 2023 lawsuit alleging that DoD’s policy on IVF coverage excluded unmarried and LGBTQ+ service members. The lawsuit is also filed against the Department of Veterans Affairs, which has a similarly limited policy on IVF coverage. But unlike DoD, the VA has not yet announced any policy changes. Sonia Ossorio, executive director of NOW-NYC, the organization that filed the lawsuits, called the update from the DoD a "big win." Ossorio added, "But we’re only halfway there. We need the VA to recognize this policy and do the same thing that the Department of Defense has done.”
  (Military members in same-sex marriages set for better coverage of infertility treatments - Federal News Network)
• Senators are pressing for barcodes on tax returns, so the IRS can process them faster. Some taxpayers prepare their tax returns electronically, but chose to print them out and mail them to the IRS, rather than submit it online. That creates more work for IRS employees and leads to delayed refunds. But Senators Tom Carper (D-Del.) and Todd Young (R-Ind.) are introducing a bill that would require all returns prepared electronically and filed on paper, to include a scannable 2-D barcode. Several government watchdogs contend the barcodes would help the IRS reduce its paper-based workload.
  (Senators press for barcodes on tax returns so IRS can process them faster - Federal News Network)
• The Defense Intelligence Agency is taking steps to make sure the government’s top-secret network is secure from cyber threats. DIA is proactively probing the cyber defenses of agencies that connect to the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System (JWICS). DIA’s new JWICS cyber inspection program checks things like how user accounts are managed and whether agencies are patching known vulnerabilities. It also checks whether agencies have insider threat monitoring and response capabilities in place. DIA has conducted several dozen such inspections over the past year.
  (DIA's cyber assessments, including insider threat defenses, key to modernizing top-secret network - Federal News Network)
• The National Institutes of Health's governmentwide acquisition contract has added to its record-breaking number of bid protests. The CIO-SP4 acquisition effort received protest number 315 and 316 in the last few weeks. Protest 315 from DV United 2 came and went within a week, but protest 316 from iDoxSolutions remains before the Government Accountability Office. DV United 2 withdrew its protest, but GAO has until April 29 to decide on iDoxSolutions' complaint. Both firms allege NITAAC unreasonably eliminated them from the competition, based on their self-scores. NITAAC said it began sending out phase one notices of a successful offer earlier this month and will send out phase 2 and phase 3 notices in the coming weeks.
  (iDoxSolutions, Inc. - GAO)
• While the latest continuing resolution will keep the government open until March, the Air Force already feels the impact of stopgap spending measures. Undersecretary of the Air Force Kristyn Jones said that budget uncertainty is affecting several initiatives that are part of Secretary Frank Kendall’s series of priorities, also known as operational imperatives. The service will have to delay its Collaborative Combat Aircraft Program, an initiative focused on unmanned combat air vehicles. The Air Force also cannot invest in Agile Combat Employment as the service initially planned. Jones said the failure to pass all 12 regular appropriations will have catastrophic effects on the Defense Department.
  (Stopgap measures will have long-term effects on DoD - Center for Strategic and International Studies)
• Federal employees who relocate for work, may soon have better coverage of their moving expenses. Currently, feds can get repaid for moving through either a lump sum or by creating an itemized list of receipts. Now the General Services Administration (GSA) is proposing an update to how the reimbursements are calculated. GSA's new proposal would clarify what can and cannot be expensed. It would also update the lump sum amount, which has stayed the same since 2011. GSA is accepting public comments on its proposal until March 25.
  (Proposed rule on federal travel regulations - General Services Administration)
• The National Archives and Records Administration, known as NARA, said it has officially eliminated a pandemic-era backlog of veterans records requests. At one point, the backlog of requests at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, stood at more than 600,000. That led to lengthy delays for veterans seeking their military service records. NARA said it used technology improvements, added staff, and expanded work hours to whittle down the backlog. Now, NARA can respond to most routine requests for veteran records within 20 days.
  (NARA eliminates pandemic backlog of veteran records requests - NARA)
• If confirmed, Melissa Dalton, President Joe Biden’s pick to be under secretary of the Air Force, will focus on nuclear modernization, Space Force expansion, and recruitment efforts. During her confirmation hearing, Dalton committed to finding innovative approaches for recruitment to appeal to Gen Z. Given her experience working on the Pentagon’s Nuclear Posture Review, Dalton also committed to the modernization of two legs of the nuclear triad. Dalton faced criticism from conservative lawmakers for the Biden administration’s decision to sell construction materials for the border wall and the Chinese spy balloon incident. It is not clear how Republican opposition will impact Dalton’s nomination.
  (President Joe Biden’s nominee to be Frank Kendall’s No. 2 will focus on nuclear modernization - Senate Armed Services Committee)
• Two House committees want to end the finger pointing between the Office of Management and Budget and the Treasury Department over who has the ultimate authority to manage and oversee federal spending data on the USAspending.gov portal. Rep. James Comer (R-Tenn.), chairman of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee and Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), chairman of the House Budget Committee, wrote to OMB and Treasury seeking details after a November GAO report found a lack of progress in ensuring agencies provide accurate, complete and timely reports to the portal. The committees asked OMB and Treasury for a staff-level briefing no later than February 9.
  (House leaders press OMB, Treasury on federal spending data inaccuracies - House Committee on Oversight and Accountability)
• The leader of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee is outlining his oversight priorities to another government watchdog. Committee Chairman Jon Tester (D-Mont.) met with the Government Accountability Office and urged the agency to take a closer look at VA’s troubled rollout of the new Electronic Health Record Modernization program. Tester is also asking GAO how structural changes at VA could lead to better accountability, along with the avoidance of waste, fraud, and abuse.
  (Tester meets with government’s top watchdog to talk improving accountability and oversight at VA - Senate Veteran Affairs Committee)

The post Too many CRs will have catastrophic effects on DoD, Air Force official says first appeared on Federal News Network.

Several years in, and still no national guard component for the Space Force. What Space Force got in the most recent Defense Authorization bill is a feasibility study. For what that means, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with Brig. Gen. Michael Bruno from the Colorado National Guard.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin All right. And what is you’re feeling about this development in the NDAA? Because a lot of people from Space Force and Air Force have frankly said it’s about time for a National Guard there.

Brig. Gen. Michael Bruno and I completely agree with what you’re saying. So first, I do need to say that up front that my opinions are my own. Do not reflect the opinions of the Colorado National Guard, the United States Air Force, or the Department of Defense. The 2024 NDAA. The one thing it didn’t do is it did not establish a Space National Guard. It does, however, require the Secretary of Defense to conduct an interim briefing by the 1st of February and a study by the 1st of March to assess the feasibility and advisability of moving all Air National Guard space functions to the Space Force. This assessment will analyze three courses of actions, that is, maintain the status quo. What we’re doing today supporting space missions from the Air National Guard. Move all Air National Guard space assets to the US Space Force or and hopefully the ORS. What we’re looking for is create a space National Guard.

Tom Temin Is there anything to be learned, do you think from like the Marine Corps, which is kind of like the Space Force in some respects, that it has a nominally at least a parent organization called the Navy and Space Force came out of the Air Force. Is there anything that’s analog there that could be used for these learnings?

Brig. Gen. Michael Bruno So there is. So, you’re absolutely right. The way the Space Force works now is they’re all notable. They do all the operations side of the house, while Air Force does most of the support functions for them. So medical defense, same as the Navy does for the Marine Corps. What’s different, though, is under the new NDAA, Space Force is going to become a branch without a service component. So, they are going to this brand new, you know, one time it was called the Space Force Personnel Management Act. But they’re going to this brand-new construct where they don’t have a component. People will serve in an active status, inactive status, or a reserve status. So, this is an experiment in a new way of doing business for a branch of the military.

Tom Temin So what does that mean then for a National Guard possibility?

Brig. Gen. Michael Bruno So we think that they can do both at the same time. So, the Space Force Personnel Management Act is pretty much encompassing the reserve status of having a Space Force reserve. So, you have those folks that are doing active status, those folks that are doing an inactive status, and then the retirees. But you could also have a Space National Guard, which would be your surge to war capability. We are already doing that surge toward capability supporting combat commanders. So that would give you that capability so they could both function together. And that’s our hope is that’s what happens.

Tom Temin Maybe it’s good to review Space Force’s operational responsibilities now. And how that could translate to a reserve force that would be called up. I mean, what would need to be augmented, for example, in a national emergency with Space Force? Because, again, there’s no kinetic operation in space quite yet.

Brig. Gen. Michael Bruno You’re absolutely correct. But currently, the National Guard does 60% of the Space Force’s electromagnetic warfare capabilities. And this is both uplink and downlink from satellites, either disrupting or putting things into the system. And that is a capability that COCOM commanders really have an appetite for. And since we’re already doing 60% of that mission, why not keep us in the fold and continue to have us do that mission?

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Brigadier General Michael Bruno. He’s director of the Joint Staff for the Colorado National Guard. And in its statement on this development in the NDAA and not getting the Space Force National Guard this year again, the National Guard Association said that the analysis called for is mostly complete. And they also said that transferring roughly 1000 Air National Guard space units in eight states and territories to a single component Space Force is not feasible. Unit commanders have surveyed their personnel in the majority and want to stay in the National Guard. So, what’s going on with that statement?

Brig. Gen. Michael Bruno the statement that individuals want to stay with the National Guard. Yeah, absolutely. So, we recently conducted another survey, and about 80% of them want to stay in the National Guard. These are individuals that live in their communities, want to continue to serve both federally and at the state level. So approximately 20% would be willing to transfer to this new no component branch of service, so that 80% would have to be recruited and then retrained to do the missions that we currently do. The Guard’s been doing these missions for approximately 27 years, and that goes back to the 137th out of Greeley, Colorado. So, we have some of the most senior space professionals doing space operations at this time. So, if they create the Space Force, don’t create a Space National Guard and only get 20% of our force, they’ve got to make up that other 80% by recruiting and training those individuals. And it’s our opinion, and it’s the National Guard Bureau opinion out of the Pentagon, that it would take 7 to 10 years to develop a space professional from scratch to where we currently are. So, there’s a capability and a readiness gap right there for 7 to 10 years.

Tom Temin Yeah. And there’s a considerable opportunity cost, I guess then for those 8 to 10 years in real dollars.

Brig. Gen. Michael Bruno Absolutely. So unfortunately, that cost is immeasurable. National Guard Bureau has put out some numbers. And again, National Guard Bureau out of the Pentagon, that it will cost of approximately $1 billion to transfer everything that is currently done in the Air National Guard space missions to the US Space Force. And this includes all the training and also the equipment, the facilities that would be required and everything that goes with it. So, $1 billion and that seven to ten years’ worth of readiness. They’ve also figured if we just create a Space National Guard, take those 1000 service members and 14 units in currently it’s only seven states. So take those individuals and change them to Space National Guard. It would cost about $250,000 versus a billion. We’re talking changing name tapes and changing signage and guidance at the unit level. That’s your cost.

Tom Temin All right. So what is the course next just to wait for that study. And what do we know about who’s going to conduct it and who’s going to evaluate it.

Brig. Gen. Michael Bruno So that’s an interesting question. So the study is actually being done by the Department of Defense. The requirement that came out of Congress is for the Secretary of Defense to do this study. So it will be interesting. And again, this is where we go that my opinions don’t reflect those of Colorado National Guard, Air Force or DoD. It will be interesting if that report even sees the light of day. And the reason being is the White House’s Office of Management and Budget has said there will not be a Space National Guard. They don’t support a Space National Guard. Well, the Secretary of Defense works for the administration. He works for the white House. So, when the white House OMB says there will not be a Space National Guard, it’s hard for them to push anything out that says anything against that position. So, we’ll see if anything comes out of that. The analysis again done by DoD. And then it’s supposed to be presented to Congress. So, Congress’s who’s going to look at it and then make a determination. And that’s really what we’re looking for is for Congress to make the determination is what’s the best thing for the United States and the citizens right now. And I still think it’s established, the Space National Guard today.

The post Will the Space Force ever get its own national guard? first appeared on Federal News Network.

Speaking at an event hosted by the Air and Space Forces Association, Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force JoAnne Bass said that DoD needs to have a more comprehensive approach to meeting military-specific childcare needs, which will, in turn, improve retention and recruitment for the military.

“We have to think about what that model might look like,” Bass said.

“Our installation commanders … across the board are doing phenomenal things to make sure that they’re addressing it at the local level. Our childcare capacity has increased over the last year, and I couldn’t be more proud. We have less people on waiting lists and more [family child care] providers, which is really helpful, especially for airmen doing 24/7. But we’ve got to, I think, take a look as a department on how do we increase the capacity even more so that our service members can focus on the mission and know that their children will be taken care of,” she continued.

Bass is meeting with lawmakers later this month to discuss quality-of-life issues. The main topics she plans to flag for them include pay and compensation, healthcare and child care.

In their 2024 budget proposals, the military services requested significant increases in their childcare spending. The Air Force, however, proposed the largest increase among the branches, with a 19.4% rise over what Congress approved for 2023, totaling $466 million. The Pentagon’s total budget request for fiscal 2024 for child development programs was $1.79 billion, a 10.3% increase from 2023.

The defense policy bill, passed into law last month, requires an increase in appropriated funds to account for 115% of childcare fee receipts. It means that the Pentagon will be required to allocate funds for childcare programs that exceed the revenue generated through childcare fees.

Congressional push for transparency

The defense bill also requires the Defense secretary to brief Congress throughout the year on progress made in implementing universal pre-kindergarten programs in schools operated by DoD.

During the first briefing, the Pentagon will need to provide a report laying out locations within the department’s jurisdiction where universal pre-kindergarten programs and child development centers are co-located. Congress also wants to know the approximate number of children transitioning from child development centers to pre-kindergarten programs as a result of new program offerings.

As for the subsequent briefings, Congress expects an overview of the overall costs of funding universal pre-kindergarten programs in schools operated by the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA). Lawmakers also want the Pentagon to evaluate the availability of teachers for pre-kindergarten programs and assess whether airmen and guardians prefer to enroll their children in pre-kindergarten programs rather than continuing care in child development centers.

The Pentagon will also have to provide information on military installations with the longest waiting lists for childcare services at military child development centers and the number of classrooms shut down due to insufficient staffing and maintenance-related issues.

Understanding the extent of childcare provider shortages is nearly impossible since DoD doesn’t provide regular data on this topic. In addition, there is no information on how long waitlists at child development centers are, causing frustration among military parents.

In 2021, Federal News Network obtained a report revealing that just the Air Force had 5,116 children with an “unmet need” for care and that the average waiting time was 151 days.

Fee assistance

Starting this week, lower-income military service members will pay lower fees at DoD child development facilities.

The Defense Department adjusted its childcare fees to reduce the financial burden for service members and lower-income families. The changes are part of a DoD-wide fee structure change effective Jan. 1, 2024.

The Pentagon announced a policy change last year, consolidating income-based fee categories from 14 to 11. This change will streamline the fee structure, making childcare rates more equitable. This development builds on the previous year’s expansion of home-based child care, a measure designed to ease burden on the services’ child development centers.

Under the new calculations, there is also an increase of $100 per child in the monthly childcare fee assistance provider rate cap for both community-based providers and military-certified family childcare providers. Servicemembers can contribute up to $5,000 per household for eligible dependent care.

“We recognize the importance of providing military families and DoD civilians with access to quality and affordable childcare, and we’re committed to addressing the increased demand and challenges for this critical issue, which directly impacts the readiness of the Total Force.” Grier Martin, assistant secretary of Defense for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, said in a press release.

Addressing shortage of childcare providers

Alex Wagner, the assistant secretary of the Air Force for manpower and reserve affairs, said that higher pay alone will not solve the shortage of childcare providers. Officials decided that offering free or discounted care to childcare providers for childcare employees own children would address the issues.

“We’re not at 80% staffing in every location, but I’m looking at the trends every single month, and we’re making progress. Our CDCs are the gold standard. Everyone wants in, but not everyone is available to meet the CDCs during their opening times. So we are incentivizing a whole host of other options, including family childcare homes, including fee assistance, and we’re focused on that to fill those gaps,” Wagner said at the Air Force Association’s annual conference in National Harbor, Md., in October.

For fiscal 2024, the House and Senate Armed Services Committees proposed an amendment to provide discounted child care for DoD child care provider, but the legislative provision never got adopted.  Congress noted that the Defense Secretary already has the authority to set discounted rates for DoD childcare employees.

The post DoD needs comprehensive approach to child care first appeared on Federal News Network.