Ken Calvert

Today, Congressman Ken Calvert (CA-42), a member of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, criticized the Defense Department for willfully ignoring the findings of a report issued by the Defense Business Board on the unsustainable growth in the civilian bureaucracy at the Pentagon. An investigation by The Washington Post found that Defense Department officials took a series of actions to keep the report and its findings out of public view.

“I introduced the REDUCE Act because there’s an undeniable reality that the civilian workforce at the Pentagon has become too large and too costly,” said Rep. Calvert. “The dollars being wasted on the Defense Department’s oversized bureaucracy hurts taxpayers and it hurts our troops because those funds would be better spent on new equipment, training and readiness. The status quo at the Pentagon must stop.  As The Post’s investigation found, Pentagon officials prefer to bury their heads in the sand on this critical issue, which is why Congress must pass the REDUCE Act and mandate that civilian workforce reductions take place.”

The Rebalance for an Effective Defense Uniform and Civilian Employees (REDUCE) Act (H.R. 340) would require the DOD to make civilian workforce reductions in a systematic manner without compromising our ability to maintain a strong national defense over the long term. Rep. Calvert introduced the bill on January 14, 2015.

The requirements of the REDUCE Act will accomplish the following:

• Reduce our Defense civilian workforce by 15% by FY 2022. This percentage was recommended by the Defense Business Board, a trusted, authoritative, and independent source of expertise.

• The Department of Defense civilian workforce would remain at or below this established cap of a 15% reduction for Fiscal Years 2022 through 2026.

• The Department of Defense civilian Senior Executive Service career appointee workforce will be reduced to 1,000 by 2022 and remain at or below 1,000 employees for Fiscal Years 2022 through 2026.

• Provide the Secretary of Defense the authority to use voluntary separation incentive payments and voluntary early retirement payments in order to achieve the required reductions in personnel. 

• Provide the Secretary of Defense the authority to assign greater weight to job performance versus tenure in a Reduction in Force.

• Require a two-fold reporting requirement for this Act: (1) a report from the Secretary of Defense covering the progress and impact of the requirements of this Act in the annual budget request for Fiscal Years 2018 through 2026. The Secretary of Defense may also report to Congress on the impact of the provisions at any time throughout the year (such as when submitting the report on achievement of performance goals as required by Sec. 116 of title 31 of the United States Code on “Agency performance rating.”), (2) a GAO study, no later than 3 years after enactment of this Act, that shall examine the progress and impact of the requirements of this Act. 

Rep. Calvert will be reintroducing the REDUCE Act in the 115^th Congress and continuing his call to reduce the civilian workforce at the Department of Defense.

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