Heretic nailed it. We believe it would be prudent for Rep. Elijah Cummings, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation to hold a series of hearing into Coast Guards modernization. Admiral Thad Allen has forged ahead with modernization absent authorization. What that means is congress neither appropriated nor authorized the expenditure of funds for modernization. Allen marched forward using dollars scrapped from other resources at a time the service was down hundreds of millions of dollars due to failed Deepwarter ICGS programs.
In his rush to get Coast Guard “modernized” before his term as Commandant expired, he did so absent a full understanding of the impact it would have on his resources, people and credibility. With modernization now at the stage Allen originally referred to as complete, it now has new name … version 1.0. Nearly a dozen different contractors are working to correct the unintended consequences of 1.0 and get Coast Guard to 2.0. Employees at the deckplate level already see signs that there may be a need for 3.0 and possibly a 4.0 if they don’t get it right.
These contractors come at great expense and are racking up charges in the millions of dollars collectively. At the same time contractors are banking money off modernization, Coast Guard has left some of its people programs scrapped for cash.
Insider, I agree, especially with your last two sentences.
The first red flag for me is that we decided to pursue modernization full force during an election year in which there was definitely going to be a change in Administration and without Congressional authorization. Are we really that politically tone-deaf?
The second red flag was that this was supposed to be a “resource neutral” transition, which means staffing and funding do not follow responsibilities.
Lastly, all anyone had to do was look at the process maps/swim lanes to see that there are too many offices/divisions/departments involved in pieces of projects and decisions. This led to an inefficient and confused Chain of Command and no accountability whatsoever.
I’ll also second the enormous time and money sink that went into planning OPCOM/FORCECOM. Only to do it all over again for Interim OPCOM/FORCECOM. Only to do it a third time for “Numbered” PAC/FORCECOM/LANT/OPCOM, or whatever it is they are called today.
Amen, this is right on. Just parcel out a small piece of “modernization” How much have we spent with Booz Allen, Price Waterhouse, adding new billets (civilian and military) to CG-8, CG-1, CG-6 and others to pass the CFO audit?? In FY10 we are adding dozens more, not to mention MILLIONS and MILLIONS in contracts for what? How is today compared to 3 years ago? We can’t (and haven’t) updated our financial systems (CAS/FPD) in YEARS because we LOST a lawsuit…we don’t even own the code to change, update or fix it.
What a mess. The ISC breakup? What a total cluster…..one stop shop with a seasoned leader as CO to 3 commands, a detachment, all managed by more junior personnel, no one in charge, no one knows who does what and even the COMDT was “suprised” the ISC’s were going away 2 weeks before it happened???? this is his freakin plan!!! To solve it, we create a “PSO” no idea what it stands for but it is the senior officer who we go to for any “intergrated” issues between the BSU, PSSU, HSWL, etc, etc…….this person is typically the former ISC CO…..what did we gain by this? Absolutely insane. Get the duct tape, my head is going to explode.