Defense Department Budget Cuts

The official memo just released mentions a wide range of steps being taken including a 22 furlough of ALL civilian workers (nonconsecutive), suspension of all semester abroad slots for next semester, and the suspension of SLS...

Things are definitely not looking good for next year.
 
Due to the looming sequestration (pretty significant budget cuts), funding for almost everything at west point is being cut right now. That means AIADs and trips are being re-examined, altered, or canceled, Academic departments are being told to conserve paper by not printing anything (which means we have to print their handouts for them and bring them to class), the number of floaters at each meal is increasing (at least it appears to be), summer training objectives are being re-examined, altered, or canceld, and, probably most important for you (USMA2020), class size is being reduced
Whoa! That is scary. All the reason to work harder. Me and my school books have finally been getting re-aquainted, and after a lot of studying I got my two of my first As this year, so I guess I am just going to have to work even harder. Mostly it has been Bs and Cs. Thanks for explaining.

Ashleigh
 
No, "not a wise or well-reasoned approach" is believing what the President says in prime time, especially on T.V. or in debates. :wink:
Agreed. Not a fan. Cried my eyes out in front of a bunch of big news cameras when the announcement came, even though the state senate candidate that I had worked myself sick for (literally), won. So did the guy I worked with. No one was happy with the outcome.

Ashleigh
 
I know the cuts seem bad at USMA, but they really aren't compared to the active forces. I am not active now, but I was in the early 90s when similar budget cuts took place. Our heavy mech unit was afforded 50% less field time than we needed and our pacing items were down for weeks at a time as the budget was very, very thin. Based on what my active unit went through, printing out your own papers seems like little more than a tiny annoyance.
 
I agree that printing more is a somewhat trivial matter.
Does anyone know what % cuts active units are expected to make? I have been told it's 38% for USMA
 
I agree that printing more is a somewhat trivial matter.
Does anyone know what % cuts active units are expected to make? I have been told it's 38% for USMA

Don't know what % cuts active units are expect to make, but have to look at it short term and long term. Sequestration cuts for FY 13 have to be mostly on Operation and Maintenance (i..e traininig, equipment, contractors) as any savings from cutting soldiers won't be immediate.

Was there any explanation to 38%? Don't know what USMA budget is but my guess is that it will be 38% of something. I don't think it will be 38% of the total budget as can't fire professors, can't suddently kick cadets out, can't stop feeding cadets.
 
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I was told 38% of $110 million ~ so about $40 million.
As mentioned earlier, most of this is coming from cutting/modifying AIADs, summer training, and civilian staff
Other, smaller cuts are being made by reducing paper costs, moving graduation dates, cutting down company Sandhurst training (especially ranges), and cutting conference attendance.
 
I was told 38% of $110 million ~ so about $40 million.
As mentioned earlier, most of this is coming from cutting/modifying AIADs, summer training, and civilian staff
Other, smaller cuts are being made by reducing paper costs, moving graduation dates, cutting down company Sandhurst training (especially ranges), and cutting conference attendance.

Have AOG been lying to us old grads when they are soliciting for donations to West Point Fund. If I recall correctly, West Point fund paid for significant portions for non-military training cadets did during the summer.
 
The official memo just released mentions a wide range of steps being taken including a 22 furlough of ALL civilian workers (nonconsecutive), suspension of all semester abroad slots for next semester, and the suspension of SLS...

Was this a new memo? Or Supe's memo mentioned earlier (1/24 Pointer View). Unless it's something new, the cuts mentioned were being considered, and had not been announced.

It's still a very serious situation, with USMA losing almost 1/3 of Federal funding.

If these cuts were confirmed as a final decision that would be very unfortunate news! Hopefully it was just the areas they were considering.

Unless things have changed in the last few days:
  • CLDT, *IAD, and CTLT application was conducted as planned
  • SLE application will proceed with reduced class sizes (and slightly delayed application date)
  • Scheduled study abroad selection started as planned

All indications were that CLDT was going to be difficult for rising cows to get even prior to the new budget issues.

This does not mean that they are not at risk, just that until formal announcement of being eliminated we should be cautious about assuming they are. TAC NCO's appear to be giving similar guidance to cadets.

Also, much of the Club & DCA funding comes from contributions. (As much as 10% of overall USMA operating budget). This should be unimpacted by the Federal budget issue. Some of this funding is targeted for specific areas and cannot be redirected to other areas. The unrestricted funds are typically left to the Supe's discretion, and I would expect that to be reprioritized.
 
Have AOG been lying to us old grads when they are soliciting for donations to West Point Fund. If I recall correctly, West Point fund paid for significant portions for non-military training cadets did during the summer.

Saw a presentation on this recently.... roughly $30M / yr from WP AOG goes to USMA to supplement their operating budget. And yes, quite a bit goes to AIAD & similar.

More info at the WPAOG.ORG site
 
Have AOG been lying to us old grads when they are soliciting for donations to West Point Fund. If I recall correctly, West Point fund paid for significant portions for non-military training cadets did during the summer.

No, this is definitely true. Its one of the reasons one of the professors I spoke with encouraged cadets to remain calm until we see the bigger picture. Limiting people to one IAD might look like it'll cut down things on paper, but odds are, it won't actually happen purely for this reason - the Army isn't paying for many of the AIAD's. The academic departments, grants, outside funding, etc. are so cutting them doesn't help save money and hurts cadets' development and recruiting.
 
No, this is definitely true. Its one of the reasons one of the professors I spoke with encouraged cadets to remain calm until we see the bigger picture. Limiting people to one IAD might look like it'll cut down things on paper, but odds are, it won't actually happen purely for this reason - the Army isn't paying for many of the AIAD's. The academic departments, grants, outside funding, etc. are so cutting them doesn't help save money and hurts cadets' development and recruiting.

The Academic departments get their money from the same source as everyone else; their AIADs are already being limited. I know that my major lost 10-20 slots already and expects to lose 5-10 more.

Many AIADs are paid for by the recieving party. When those groups' budgets are cut too, one of the easiest things to get rid of is paying for a cadet to come hang out for a few weeks.
 
Was this a new memo? Or Supe's memo mentioned earlier (1/24 Pointer View). Unless it's something new, the cuts mentioned were being considered, and had not been announced.

It's still a very serious situation, with USMA losing almost 1/3 of Federal funding.

It is changes being considered but the fact that such drastic measures are being considered is pretty alarming. Also, the fact that it was made public makes me think that these cuts are likely (more likely than if it had been kept secret at least). I skimmed through all the pages and notice it had already been brought up. :redface:
 
It is changes being considered but the fact that such drastic measures are being considered is pretty alarming. Also, the fact that it was made public makes me think that these cuts are likely (more likely than if it had been kept secret at least). I skimmed through all the pages and notice it had already been brought up. :redface:

Or it's made public for political reasons... like putting pressure on one party or another to avoid it. But no doubt it will be drastic if it takes effect.
 
The Academic departments get their money from the same source as everyone else;

With all respect, this is absolutely not the case. While funding for professors, buildings, etc are part of the mainstream budget, much of the discretionary spending comes from non-federal sources. It is not the same budgets!

There are general and department specific endowments. Supe's fund & endowment, etc.

They fund:
  • Many AIAD's (travel & expense)
  • Conferences for cadets
  • Dean's teams (Bridge, canoe, & similar competitions)
  • Academic trip sections (competition & just enrichment trips)
  • etc

This is not to say there won't be fewer, just that the funding from external sources will still be available in many cases.

What could be hurt is how the supe's fund & endowment is allocated, it may go more to capital projects. But that's yet to be determined.

Same for DCA funding, both from the fed & private sources. It's not all the same pile of money. Some is restricted to certain activities, etc.

their AIADs are already being limited. I know that my major lost 10-20 slots already and expects to lose 5-10 more.

That is unfortunate, and the extreme measure would be to limit cadets to one IAD experience.

But some funding will remain as it's private and restricted to use for those types of activities.

This does put a very different twist on selecting IADS.... If you know you'll only get one, would you pick one (Airborne, for example) that you'd be very likely to get in the regular army? Or focus on one that would be a unique experience that you will not get in the RA?

There are already some complicated gates & priorities in summer training selection, and these changes will make it even harder for a cadet to chart that path without painting themselves in a corner.

Losing AIAD's would be unfortunate. What's the impact of losing CLDT? Lot's of opinions on that one, and from outside it's not clear who is right. It does seem more in line with USMA's core mission, even if not popular with most cadets.
 
They fund:
  • Many AIAD's (travel & expense)
  • Conferences for cadets
  • Dean's teams (Bridge, canoe, & similar competitions)
  • Academic trip sections (competition & just enrichment trips)
  • etc

Well, having observed events falling into each of those categories being canceled in the past few weeks, I think you're overestimating how much private funding is used to pay for those things.
 
I wonder what students at normal colleges do, ones without computer labs with printers or dorm printers?

Funny you should ask that.

Neither of my son's even had a printer at school, they rarely had to print anything out. Most of the larger essays and projects were done on the computer and then emailed or submitted through a blackboard site. Even essays that were sent in for corrections, these were corrected with remarks and then sent back via email. Most of the exams were electronic as well.

I remember sending my older son to school with 2 reams of paper, when he graduated he still had one unopened and the other almost full.

I'm curious as to why there would be so much paper printing at WP.
 
Well, having observed events falling into each of those categories being canceled in the past few weeks, I think you're overestimating how much private funding is used to pay for those things.

If you are trying to say that USMA is on lockdown, then agreed, that much is clear. And that there will likely be impact in discretionary programs.

It's how much and which programs that is the question.
 
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