RESERVIST MAGAZINE HEADQUARTERS UPDATE My fellow SELRES members and Reserve managers, I want to address the 1 May drill entry deadline, acknowledge some of the roadblocks, explain the current state of the response, and present the way forward. Why the 1 May deadline? Following a three year deficit in the AFC 90 appropriation (reserve training budget) causing an “all stop” at the end of fiscal year (FY) 16, it was determined that the existing controls proved to not be sufficient to accurately manage the expenditure of reserve training funds. The CG’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) directed additional requirements and controls to ensure this wouldn’t occur again. Instituting a deadline in Direct Access (DA) earlier in the FY was one of those controls developed to plan and account for funding with the uptick in reserve training during the summer months. It ensures funds are available for all members throughout the FY to prevent another “all stop”, while monitoring drilling costs to redistribute money if and when possible. Ideally, we’d have funds available to send to the field in August and September for additional training. For three years after the implementation of the 1 May deadline, we discovered members/commands completed tasks contrary to policy that were not in alignment with the CFO’s requirement, including: - Entering/approving drills throughout the FY retroactively. - Re-entering drills previously canceled/deleted due to not being authorized. - Continuing to enter/approve paid drills after the 1 May deadline. Why the added DA Lockdown? Because there were no budgetary controls within DA to track, monitor, and account for spending, the drill pay account (where all IDT, RMP, ATPs expend from) did not accurately project the FY closeout for the reserve training appropriation. In order to prevent continued abuses of policy, CG-R82 worked with the DA programming staff instituting the lockdown where members/commands are unable to enter or alter paid drills submitted after 1 May. Of course, few plans ever execute perfectly, and there are a few issues/concerns we weren’t counting on when we implemented this lockdown. First off, COVID-19. As with all contingencies, this threw us all for a loop. With the reserve call- ups, travel restrictions, and difficulty planning, it’s made it much more difficult for members/units to schedule IDT drills and ADT. Our recommendation was to enter drills and have them remain in a pending status, so the dates could be changed once restrictions were lifted and plans solidified. This didn’t work as anticipated, due to a drill cap glitch in DA that wouldn’t 42 RESERVIST � Issue 2 • 2020 allow members or commands to make these changes. Due to the hard work and hours of testing by the CG’s database programming teams at PPC/OSC/1B1 this issue has been corrected, but it did require multiple units to submit rescheduling requests to CG-R82. Of note, all of these date change waivers/requests were approved by CG-R82, with the exception of requests that were for rescheduling retroactive drills (350 approved waivers, 20 denied). I personally apologize to everyone for this unexpected burden and frustration. It’s important to us not just to provide accountability for how the Reserve manages its money, but to make sure our reservists have the tools to navigate the system. Got questions? We’ve got answers! Why does this need to be implemented? You know how many reservists there are and what our annual training should cost. The reserve training appropriation is not managed like any other CG appropriation, since we are not purchasing “things” but rather paying for training and salaries. Since reservists are entitled to 100% of IDT/ADT, CG-R82 needs to ensure we are able to support all drilling activity. This activity is very fluid and changes year to year based on contingencies, deployments, and EAD/ADOS opportunities. Just as it is important to ensure there is enough money to support Reserve training, it is equally important to ensure there isn’t a mass amount of unused funds at the end of the FY. Good stewardship of training funds means ensuring they’re reallocated in support of other training opportunities (i.e. additional ATPs, “C” schools, etc.). Historically, reservists use about 88-93% of their IDT/ADT, depending on voluntary and involuntary active duty opportunities. If reservists complete ADOS/EAD/Title 10/Title 14, the funding comes from a different pot of money and is not charged to the reserve appropriation. This situation frees up their training funding. If we can plan for what IDT/ADT will actually be used, we can maximize our reserve training budget and put the training funds where they are most beneficial. Not only will we not overspend, we potentially could have more funds to distribute for training later in the year. Why is the field being burdened so much, and why do all requests/waivers need to go to HQ? Can’t RFRS/DXR staffs manage this? The reserve training budget is managed and audited at the HQ level. Without oversight of which drills are entered/scheduled/ approved in the system, the correct dollar amount cannot be set aside to fund each drill. Delegating this authority to the field would not alleviate this issue. The CG-R82 staff goes through every request/waiver to ensure funds are available to pay members. Just to be clear, this is neither a trust issue nor a desire to overly burden staffs, but rather a mechanism to ensure the reserve training appropriation is solvent. Due to COVID-19, we have
