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Child care, health care and spouse employment top a long list of
Soldier needs met by installation programs, but with dwindling
installation funding, only the most vital of those programs are
likely to escape reductions.
That's according to Sgt. Major
of the Army Daniel A. Dailey, the Army's senior enlisted advisor,
who discussed the need to balance readiness with the services
provided to Soldiers by Army installations during an Association of
the U.S. Army "Hot Topic" forum about installation management in
March 2017.
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March 23, 2017 - Sgt. Major of the Army Daniel A. Dailey talks about
Army's fiscal constraints requiring a balance of services with
readiness during an Association of the U.S. Army "Hot Topics" forum
on installation management, in Arlington, VA.(U.S. Army photo by Devon Suits)
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"I am the first guy that is going to say we need
everything [for our Soldiers]," Dailey said. "But I am also
a realist, because I have to sit in the same meetings with
the [chief of staff of the Army.] I know the realistic costs
it takes to train and ready Soldiers to fight and win."
Soldiers -- both those with and without families -- need
a lot of support beyond what is provided by their units to
prepare them for the warfight, Dailey acknowledged. And most
of their needs are met through the services provided by the
installations where they live.
Those services are
wide-ranging in scope, and Dailey said that with smaller
budgets and a top-down directive by the Army's chief of
staff making readiness the No. 1 priority, installations
must prioritize and standardize the services provided to
Soldiers so that limited resources can be targeted at other
competing priorities.
"We need to have that
discussion, 'What do we provide on installations?'" Dailey
said. "We have to make the decision on what is sustainable
for the future, in our [current] fiscal restraints."
THE SOLDIER'S NEEDS
To get a sense of Soldiers' needs, Dailey reviewed
information collected from Army town halls for the past 24
months. He has identified the most-used family program:
child care. "We spend more time on child care than we do any
other family support program on our installations," he said.
Health care is also a
top priority for Soldiers. When it comes to health care,
Dailey said, expectations have grown. Currently, the Army is
facing challenges with its capacity to provide care,
including special-needs care for Soldiers and their
families.
As the health care needs of families
continue to increase, so too does the Army's fiscal
responsibility to provide that care, Dailey said. And for
the Army, the issue of health care is especially tricky
because of its direct ties to readiness. The Army can't
afford for either one to be at risk.
In addition to
health care, spouse employment was another key issue Dailey
identified; 61 percent of the Army population is married, he
said.
The majority of Army enlisted spouses are
employed. But unfortunately, due to the turbulence
associated with Army life -- such as changes of station and
frequent deployments -- it's not always possible for
military spouses to find stable, meaningful work.
"[Soldiers and their families] want the American dream,"
Dailey said. "It takes both [members] working to do that."
SINGLE-SOLDIER NEEDS
Single Soldiers have needs as well, Dailey noted. Many
of those single Soldiers live in barracks, and that's
something Dailey said the Army could do a better job at
managing.
"We have successfully
failed at taking care of our barracks in the Army for 241
years," he said. "We spend a lot of money on maintaining
barracks, but we're not good at taking care of them. We
shouldn't be in that business."
One option for taking
care of Soldier barracks might be to privatize them, he
suggested, in the same way that family housing has been
privatized. Such a move would take the financial burden off
the Army for maintaining housing for single Soldiers.
The Army must take care of the needs of Soldiers, Dailey
said, while at the same time balancing its commitment to
meeting those needs with its commitments to increasing
readiness and modernizing the force.
Establishing a
baseline of installation services would help lower costs,
Dailey said, and manage "the expectation of the family when
they PCS [permanent change of station] from one installation
to another. They know what the Army is going to provide them
-- the level of care that will be provided at the
installations."
By U.S. Army Devon Suits
Army News Service
Copyright 2017
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