Air Force Budget to CAP

[mikeylikey]

UPDATE!!!!!  Here is the link for Fiscal Year 2008 AF budget
https://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/FMB/pb/2008/afoandm_3400/AF3400_OM_Vol1_FY08_PB.pdf

CAP SPECIFICS begin on page 887

-------------------------------------------------------
It has been discussed on here before, but if anyone is interested in the '07 budget from Big Blue (how much they are giving us) here is the link https://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/FMB/pb/2007/afoandm_3400/AF3400_FY07_PB_OM_Vol%201.pdf

Specifically it begins on page 781  Looks like they are giving us less than last fiscal year.

'08 budget is expected to be released on Monday. 

[Earhart1971]

Every member of Congress that has a Pilots license should be made a member of CAP.

Then talk to them about what we need.

Talking to the Air Force, without the support of Congress is a waste of time.

[DNall]

If you'll look, it says AF is slimming down service wide & making administration more efficent, 2.8 mil is cut on that front. There is actually MORE money available for operations & training. I don't know how many people you think we NEED at Maxwell or how much you're willing to spend on that (9.885 mil is appropriated plus 3mil in national member dues), but if the whole AF is taking a hit cause the Army is in trouble & funds need to be shifted, and the AF's reaction put less of that hit on CAP than it is the rest of the AF while shifting funds around so more of it gets to us in the field.... Well, I'm pretty satisfied with that. You can go charging up the hill if you like, but CAP gets more money that it is worth to the country now & treated like the AF's favorite kid. If you want more money you need to expand into things that are more important priorities than other things the DoD is doing. AF just puts in a request, as does the Pres (you can see his is no change from last year), and Congress makes the value judgement. That's what you're looking at here.

[Ricochet13]

Related to budget . . . . wondered about the "Wing Bookkeeper" positions listed for TX and FL wings. 

Would be nice to know that additional income will make these positions cost effective.  If every wing ends up with one, that could end up costing in between $1-2 million.

Will there now be two employees working full/part time for each wing?

[RiverAux]

As I understand it CAP was paying for 1 bookkeeper/admin per Wing.  Some of the Wings that already had positions funded from states may only get 1 half-time person. 

[Earhart1971]

If you'll look, it says AF is slimming down service wide & making administration more efficent, 2.8 mil is cut on that front. There is actually MORE money available for operations & training. I don't know how many people you think we NEED at Maxwell or how much you're willing to spend on that (9.885 mil is appropriated plus 3mil in national member dues), but if the whole AF is taking a hit cause the Army is in trouble & funds need to be shifted, and the AF's reaction put less of that hit on CAP than it is the rest of the AF while shifting funds around so more of it gets to us in the field.... Well, I'm pretty satisfied with that. You can go charging up the hill if you like, but CAP gets more money that it is worth to the country now & treated like the AF's favorite kid. If you want more money you need to expand into things that are more important priorities than other things the DoD is doing. AF just puts in a request, as does the Pres (you can see his is no change from last year), and Congress makes the value judgement. That's what you're looking at here.

Maxwell is not what needs expanding.

The money needs to flow down to the unit level.

And unfortunately it takes an overall vision of Civil Air Patrol, and I don't know if it exists, in the higher levels of CAP.

The money conversation here is always  about, what we would be taking away from another program or other vital Air Force project.

Thats a little self defeating and too touchy feely, we will never succeed with that thinking.

The real question is: Can CAP with all its missions, all of which we are successful at, financed by CAP members, asend to a needed higher level of operations.

And the other situation is, we are at War, the National Guard is being used up in other areas (overseas deployments), and the most recent opportunity is the announced Civilian Support Corps.

CAP needs to be expanded for the good of the country.

Are there funded unsuccessful programs in the federal budget, obvious failures, in the budget, that could be better allocated to another organization?

What do we have to do to influence congress and to form a plan of action?

If CAP is not worth 100 million in annual funding (with our 3 missions), then we have the wrong focus, the wrong leadership, and the wrong goals.

[lordmonar]

If CAP is not worth 100 million in annual funding (with our 3 missions), then we have the wrong focus, the wrong leadership, and the wrong goals.

Sorry...but bugeting does not work like that.

You take the missions that you have been given...find out how much it costs to accomplish that mission, plus how much it will cost to sustain/improve/modernise said mission and then you submit that dollar figure to congress.

Our mission is only worth $24M to the USAF....that's all they asked for and congress only funded $23M. 

You have got to remember that the USAF is getting rid fo 40K personnel in the next 2 years.  How can we justify to the USAF and Congress that they need to start paying us perdiem and giving us job protection and other benifits...when they are in the middle of a draw down.

As you asked in the underfunded over tasked thread...no we are not underfunded and no we are not undertasked.  I would say we are itching for some action....except that would mean that someone is in trouble and that is not a good thing to wish for.

[Major_Chuck]

Hmmm.  I find it ironic sometimes that people here that moan about the size of the Federal appropriations we receive and then go on rants about how we shouldn't seek outside funding.

Case in point.  The whole tagging and tracking of mountain lions a few months ago.  Here was a source of income supporting a state institution.  Virtually every wing receives some sort of support or funding from their home state but then we complain about the mission they float us in return.

Can't really have it both ways now can we?

[DNall]

Well, job protection is zero cost unless that person is a federal employee, and then that agency gives them paid time off, so that only touches AF if they are a civilian employee of the AF, which is almost no one, so yeah pretty much zero cost & doesn't apply to existing military obligations.

The potential per diem being proposed only kicks in after 48hrs, which is extremely rare, and intentionally so. It's not suppose dto pay anything for standard missions, but is supposed to defer the personal costs to make things like the Katrina deployments more reasonable for more people. So tiny tiny cost, probably a couple three grand a year most years.

To expand on what LM said. They determine how much it costs to do the mission to the level they want to see it done, determine how much of that they can afford in the big picture, and ask for the ebtter part of that from Congress. Then Congress makes a less emotional determination about how critical those missions are to the country & if the AF has made the right value judgement on the proportion of any cut or increase they've given to CAP versus other things. By the way, don't forget the cost of CAP-USAF, the Air Staff time spent on us, & facilities made available to us in figuring out what we're worth.

CAP is where it belongs in the world. You might think it's the best thing since sliced bread & worth a100mil to do it right, but some silly congressman up there seems to think that money is better spent on children's health insurance or spare parts for Army helicopters. It's not for us to say. It's also not appropriate after those value judgements are made for CAP to go insert itself in the political process & get more money, which means it has to be taken away from something else in the AF. CAP's place is to make & JUSTIFY requests to the AF to be considered in the bog picture. The best place to make progress is to better justify things & be a bit innovative in making use of what we got. After that point the only thing we can or should do is provide education/informational contacts w/ Congress to ensure they have the facts in making their decision. Now, unlike the general public, most congressmen already know about CAP & jjust need a little insight, but thay're already making an informed decision & that's where that budget number comes from.

Far as mountain lions... we don't make money on that, it just generates flying hours. If you look at it from the other end, a network of volunteer wildlife biologists that normally fly those missions in their own planes was blocked from doing so to use CAP instead. CAP flying hours are subsidized by the federal govt in a big way versus what it would be for a commercial company trying to pay off the plane, the training, maint not related to that flight, etc. And that's CAP doing commercial flying in a real gray area with the FAA, crossing a line a lot of people don't like. It seems greedy to steal the hours, & cheap to just go fly anything that's free to pilots no matter what it is. That's representative of a lot of people's fears that CAP is devolving to stupidity just so it can fly, and that eventually that'll be our downfall.

[Earhart1971]

If CAP is not worth 100 million in annual funding (with our 3 missions), then we have the wrong focus, the wrong leadership, and the wrong goals.

Sorry...but bugeting does not work like that.

You take the missions that you have been given...find out how much it costs to accomplish that mission, plus how much it will cost to sustain/improve/modernise said mission and then you submit that dollar figure to congress.

Our mission is only worth $24M to the USAF....that's all they asked for and congress only funded $23M. 

You have got to remember that the USAF is getting rid fo 40K personnel in the next 2 years.  How can we justify to the USAF and Congress that they need to start paying us perdiem and giving us job protection and other benifits...when they are in the middle of a draw down.

As you asked in the underfunded over tasked thread...no we are not underfunded and no we are not undertasked.  I would say we are itching for some action....except that would mean that someone is in trouble and that is not a good thing to wish for.

Budgeting doesn't work like that huh?

For a Cadet Program only mission what does the Air Force spend on AFJROTC per year?

[Earhart1971]

And by the way you can ask the Air Force, how many hours AFJROTC can fly for them this year.

[DNall]

There's a couple people on here that have worked as AFJROTC instructors, and you have to be very careful looking at those nbumbers. The Federal govt investment is meager. The majority of those programs are paid for by school districts.

[Earhart1971]

There's a couple people on here that have worked as AFJROTC instructors, and you have to be very careful looking at those nbumbers. The Federal govt investment is meager. The majority of those programs are paid for by school districts.

This information for FY 2005

Air Force JROTC (AFJROTC)

744 units as of Oct. 1, 2002
Projected Expansion: 945 AFJROTC by fiscal year 2005
Budget for this year is approximately $56.9 million

Cadet Program only $56.9 Million

[SAR-EMT1]

Any idea what the CG gives to the CG-Aux?

[RiverAux]

It would be very hard to figure this out.  As I understand it, operating funds for CG and CG Aux are co-mingled pretty extensively and at many different layers.  As far as I know there isn't any big line-item in the CG budget for CG Aux. 

[SAR-EMT1]

Yet another example of how badly we need to integrate within the Total Force structure.

[Earhart1971]

It has been discussed on here before, but if anyone is interested in the '07 budget from Big Blue (how much they are giving us) here is the link https://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/FMB/pb/2007/afoandm_3400/AF3400_FY07_PB_OM_Vol%201.pdf

'08 budget is expected to be released on Monday. 

And after looking at the depressing news on page 781

You might want to look at page 629 of the same PDF.

I rest my case.

[mikeylikey]

UPDATE!!!!!  Here is the link for Fiscal Year 2008 AF budget to CAP
https://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/FMB/pb/2008/afoandm_3400/AF3400_OM_Vol1_FY08_PB.pdf

CAP SPECIFICS begin on page 887

Not sure if it is good news    or bad news   

[lordmonar]

It has been discussed on here before, but if anyone is interested in the '07 budget from Big Blue (how much they are giving us) here is the link https://www.saffm.hq.af.mil/FMB/pb/2007/afoandm_3400/AF3400_FY07_PB_OM_Vol%201.pdf

'08 budget is expected to be released on Monday. 

And after looking at the depressing news on page 781

You might want to look at page 629 of the same PDF.

I rest my case.

I'm not sure what your point is?

[Earhart1971]

You have to read the pages to understand, did you do that?