European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 21, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 2 stars and stripes Friday March 21, 1986 cuts won t Hurt readiness Safe chief says by Dick Hodgso Kaiserslautern Bureau Ramstein a Germany despite More than $80 million in funding shortfalls for the remainder of fiscal 1986, combat readiness and the command s Quality of life programs can be maintained said Safe commander Gen. Charles l. Donnelly or. Any reductions in funding will Impact on our Overall readiness Donnelly said. We would like to View our readiness posture As being on a ramp increasing a Little each year. With these cuts we won t be Able to enhance our readiness As quickly As we would like in fact we May plateau out for a  an initial Safe budget projection of $955 million has been chopped to $872 million As a result of spending reductions mandated by the Gramm Rudman budget balancing Law and other congressionally directed budget cuts Safe officials said. The reductions $3.2 million from training $29.6 million from War readiness Materiel support and $50.2 million in a general curtailment of base operations support activities mean Safe will spend 8.7 percent less in fiscal 1986 than it needed to operate in fiscal 1985, said col. Gary Hahn command comptroller. Flight training which received the smallest Dollar Cut will be reduced by 1,200 projected sorties putting it at the same level flown in 1985, Hahn said. There will be a reduction of less than one sortie per Pilot per month from what Safe projected he said. We still have to maintain the flying Donnelly said. That s the reason we re Here to be Able to go to War if called upon to do so. If we Don t maintain the flying train ing we Haven t done our  a 17 percent reduction for funding facility projects is nothing new for Safe Donnelly said. This command has suffered from underfunding in facility projects for a number of years he said. We had a couple of Good years of funding and had anticipated about an equal level this year. We re not going to have it. There Are a lot of things that fall under the facility projects title and some of the things Are going to have to be deferred. A ramp that we might have liked to repair this year May have to wait until next  facility project funds pay for everything from minor modifications to buildings to runway refurbishing projects Donnelly said. The projects requested were listed in priority of importance and those deter mined to have the least Impact on the command were dropped he said. The largest bite $50.2. Million came from general support areas Hahn said because that is the area in which individual commanders have the most flexibility. With the exception of the flying hours program which is centrally controlled we have pretty much left the Deci Sions on what to trim to individual bases he said. They Are in a much better position to know what they can afford to delay or do without than we in the Headquarters  Donnelly said temporary duty will be reduced because it is one of the easiest funds to Cut Back. That will Hurt us a Little bit but essentially i m sat Donnelly isfried that although the cuts we took Are hurting readiness they Are not going to drive us toward that lower readiness we had in years past he said. The cuts will come in Levels of supplies and equipment maintained by individual bases in maintenance and in education and training Hahn said. Funding cuts to the various bases in Safe average about 4 percent of each base s budget Hahn said. The Glam ground launched cruise missile bases which Are still in a building phase will not be reduced he said. Other bases and even one Glam base Raf Greenham common in England which Are More mature in their development can better absorb the cuts than those which Are still trying to get to full operational Capa  Donnelly said the plateau in readiness also May appear in other areas. While Quality of life programs such As education and training May suffer some cuts he expects them to remain fairly consistent. Our goal is to keep the Quality of life Impact of these cuts to the absolute minimum Donnelly said. I think we re going to do very Well in those areas. We must focus on the welfare of our people they Are our  Donnelly said he did not want to speculate on what effect this fiscal year s budget cuts could have on future operations in Safe. Until we see the budget the Congress comes up with next year i can t predict whether we will see further cuts or in what areas we might see them he said. It s Tough for me to project what the Long term effects of the cuts will be to determine what area will be Hurt the most. There is a synergistic effect to All this it All fits  air base to delay needed pro Emfs to Frim budget by Dick Hodgson Kaiserslautern Bureau Ramstein a Germany officials say they Are going to delay projects that should be done now in order to trim $1.45 million from the base s budget and meet constraints of the Gramm Rudman deficit reduction Law. Col. Leslie a. Hobgood 377th combat support Wing commander called the spending cuts a calculated risk that could prove to be a false Economy in the next fiscal year if officials projections of fund ing needs Are wrong. As base commander at Ramstein Hob Good was charged with producing the larg est spending reduction of any Safe base Safe officials said. We re going to have to play this thing really close he said. I just Hope we Don t get overzealous and Cut in the wrong places. We re awfully close to some pretty thin ice. Most of our cuts Are going to come from what i Call the amenities Hobgood said. Our people won t get the Quality of serv ices that they deserve under these spending  the largest portion of Ramstein s reduction $600,000 was taken from civil engineering projects. For one thing we decided to not renew a number of custodial contracts which were due for renewal he said. That Means people will have to Start cleaning their own work areas washing their own windows and soon. On the surface that May look like All we have done is eliminate a Nice to have but in reality it Means people will have to take time away from their primary duties to per form custodial work. That hurts our mis  Hobgood said civil engineers will Cut Back on buying off season supplies and equipment such As Snow removal gear and chemicals. It s much cheaper to buy Large Quanti ties of Salt and urea now than to wait until fall he said. And that s what we have done in the past. We know it saves us Money but this year we can t afford it. We Are going to buy Only the minimum and Gamble on a mild Winter. If we re wrong it will Cost us More in the next fiscal year to make up what we could have bought  other civil engineering projects such As landscaping renovation of some base facilities and new construction in offices will be delayed he said. An ongoing project to renovate military family housing on the base and to open a senior teen Center Are not being affected by the cuts Hobgood said. We can t Stop contracts in the Middle for which we Are already committed he said. It would Cost us an enormous amount in penalties to the contractors. So we Are going ahead with ones already contracted or in Progress. The teen Center does t really fall into this category though since a majority of it is being funded through donations and Volunteer labor he said. Another $200,000 of Ramstein s spend ing reduction will come from organizations that take care of dormitories and Bachelor officers quarters Hobgood said. We have decided to delay replacement and repair of some dormitory furnishings and we re going to Cut Back on laundry and dry cleaning services for the dorms he said. All of the rooms won t have desks or refrigerators All of the Day rooms won t have Pool tables or Ping Pong tables. Again some people May say those Are not major things but i believe they Are necessary for the people in the dorms just to maintain their sanity. They Are More of the amenities i talked about earlier. But those amenities pay for themselves in terms of troop morale and performance i think they Border on being Mission  Hobgood said the Mission is one area where Ramstein won t make cuts. Even with Gramm Rudman we re not going to shoot ourselves in the foot Moneta Rily he said. We can t afford to do any thing which will affect our combat capability. We have a somewhat reduced flying program anyway with the conversion from f-4s to f-16s, and we won t make any cuts there because of  another $125,000 Worth of reductions will come from civilian pay Hobgood said. He called the cuts which will be made by attrition rather than dismissals a great big Shell  when an employee quits there is going to be a longer time before a replacement is hired he said. In fact we re looking at a one for four plan right now. What that Means is that four employees will have to quit before we will hire one replacement at least until we get the costs Down to a manageable level and can begin one for one  As a result remaining office workers will have to take up the Slack left by vacancies he said. But the summer youth hire program will not be significantly affected Hobgood said. We can t afford to Cut the summer hire program very much. Aside from the fact that the program allows our youngsters to experience work and responsibility we could t get along without them. They Are a great inexpensive labor Force and Are willing to do a lot of the jobs such As Lawn care that we would have to hire professionals to do. We would be up to Here in alligators if we did t keep that program  a $90,000 savings is projected by the base s transportation Complex. Vehicles that cannot be economically maintained will be disposed of and purchases of some new equipment will be postponed officials said. A planned consolidation of the base retail sales store and several other warehouse re lated improvements will be delayed to save $50,000 in the Supply system at Ramstein. The majority of the rest of Ramstein s cuts will be made by delaying or forgoing purchases and by reducing existing Stock Levels of supplies and equipment in Security police personnel communications Chapel and recreational programs Hobgood said. I want to emphasize that All these cuts Are being made in rough proportion to each organization s share of our budget he said. No major programs Are just going to go away because of Gramm Rudman. There will be some negative impacts on the people Here but those occur with any economic cuts. We re going to do the Best we can with what funding we can get to optimize rather than maximize with our  nato allies briefed on advances in ski project Wuerzburg Germany a the . Star wars research chief briefed nato defense ministers thursday and later said a decision on deploying the controversial space based system May be made before the projected Early 1990s target Date. The americans also promised the project will include measures to protect . Allies in Western Europe Ger Man defense minister Manfred Woerner said. . Allies in Western Europe have frequently said the Star wars program As originally proposed would leave them exposed to soviet attack while protecting the United states. Much of the two Day meeting in this bavarian City was expected to be devoted to discussing the Star wars project which the soviet Union vehemently opposes. The project is officially known As the strategic defense initiative or ski. Air Force it. Gen. James Abrahamson said a decision on the feasibility of deploying the space based defense against soviet missiles still was expected by the Early 1990s. But if our great Progress continues we could have a Deci Sion earlier than that Abrahamson said adding that technological advances were being made More quickly than expected. While declining to be specific Abrahamson said he briefed the ministers on advances in fiber optics lasers and infrared detectors. I m startled that the technical Side of ski is proving much easier than the political Side he said. Britain is the Only government to have joined the program. . Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger who is attending the nato meeting announced wednesday the United states and Germany had reached a Basic agreement that will permit German companies to take part. In thursday s news conference Abrahamson also said the ministers discussed a link Between Star wars and a missile defense for Western Europe. This shows that the insistence of the europeans and the West germans in particular has been successful Woerner said of the assurances that the americans Are gearing up to protect Western Europe in the ski program