Robert Hale

The Navy tells the Senate Armed Services Committee that a change in funding could hurt its trajectory on readiness.

Given enough attention and commitment from the Pentagon’s top leadership, the next administration ought to be able to implement enough business reforms to wring billions of dollars a year out of the Defense Department’s budget, said Robert Hale, who managed DoD’s finances for five years from 2009-2014.

The annual Defense authorization bill Congress sent to the President last week includes several provisions to redraw the Defense Department’s organizational chart, including one that creates a powerful new Chief Management Officer whose primary job will be overseeing and reforming DoD headquarters functions.

One-year emergency budget spending won’t cut it when it comes to modernizing and training the Army, members of the Future of the Army Commission told Congress.

Defense experts warned Congress about creeping operating and support costs and suggested ways to rectify them.

The Association of Defense Communities recently surveyed its membership, asking whether they’d prefer another BRAC round to the current hand-wringing about when or if the military will realign its stateside infrastructure. 91 percent said they’d prefer another BRAC, while 8.6 percent prefer the status quo.

President Barack Obama announced three major initiatives today to boost the Senior Executive Service. It’s the latest in a long line of initiatives and research on improving the SES. Booz Allen and the Partnership for Public Service have proposed reforms to the SES. Booz Allen’s Ron Sanders — former Chief Human Capital Officer for the intelligence community — and Bob Hale — former Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller) — talked about those SES reform recommendations on In Depth with Francis Rose.

“Inside the DoD’s Reporter’s Notebook” is a biweekly feature focused on news about the Defense Department and defense community as gathered by Federal News Radio DoD Reporter Jared Serbu. In this edition, DoD kicks off its “superior supplier” program, and DoD asks Congress to stop pushing acquisition reforms.

DoD’s cost savings proposals for 2015 and beyond include something for every lawmaker to hate. The process of selling the budget on Capitol Hill officially kicked off Wednesday, and the reception was not exceptionally warm.

Family members of active duty service members and military retirees would see new fees under the Defense Department’s proposal to consolidate TRICARE plans, as part of the fiscal 2015 budget request sent to Congress Tuesday.