thank you for coming and thank you for your service. i yield back. >> thank you, mr. peters. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i represent the kenneth nuclear reactor training site in new york. the infrastructure investment into this site is critical to dod's successful training mission which directly impacts our national security. the unique training and rd missions demand sustainable infrastructure, facilities, and equipment to train sailors on how to safely operate nuclear reactors that run submarines. thankfully congress recently fully funded this important infrastructure program which maintains the viability of the site and enables an effective mission and distinctive capability to continue. but what concerns me is the method of moving funds that are already allocated to infrastructure and are being redirected to operations, which could be deemed a higher priority. and as i see it, this can have

significant impact on our navy's readiness. vice admiral smith, my question is to what extent do you anticipate the method of redirecting funds from sustaining accounts over to priorities? how much of this will continue to occur? is there a potential for this redirecting to directly have an impact on readiness training facilities? >> thank you, ma'am. as you indicated, kessler is funded. that's a department of energy facility as you know and are aware and that has been fully funded. as when funds are shifted from the maintenance to the operational, we go back to that priorities in making sure that it does not impact or affect the nuclear triad and the strategic facilities and requirements we need to meet, so that is our

number one priority. up there from a quality of life perspective, which we have right now, we make sure that the quality of life mission is being met up there at saratoga springs and kessler. the found do get shifted out. that's when we go to our priority list. we're making sure we're meeting our top line requirements and then work down a priority list. >> great. you mentioned this earlier and you sort of touched on this in your response. you said you've taken a deliberate level of risk. so how are unique substantial nuclear training locations like kessler prioritized when making such a consideration? >> i can't say they're at the top of the list. they're at the high end of the list. specifically where they fall, i don't know off the top of my head here, but we pay close attention to them. obviously we got make sure those crews are properly trained to do their mission at sea. if we do not provide the resources, the facilities, the instructors, and the curriculum

to properly train them, they're not going to be able to do their mission at sea. we focus on those strategic assets. >> great. thank you very much. i yield back. >> thank you. we'll now go to mrs. davis. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i certainly want to join my colleague in welcoming all of you here today, but particularly admiral smith for the exceptional work he did in san diego. when you're in charge of navy regent southwest, southeast, you're really the navy mayor for the city. that makes a big difference to san diegans. i think what was striking and i think always encouraging was the support for the men and women

who serve in our navy and really being focused on the quality of life. and i know within that context it must be especially discouraging when you say in the statement you see some readiness disparities in the living conditions for sailors who are unaccompanied and those who are residing in family housing. you note that there are 50% readiness disparities for sailors living in the barracks and 77% of those residing in family housing. how do we square that? what can we do to balance the cost of modernizing while maintaining the safety of our most valuable asset, which is the sailors below the 50% level? >> yes, ma'am. thank you. i'm going to ask the skipper to talk about specifics there. before i yield to him, as we

focus on those top line priorities, we also need to focus on the quality of life, as you mentioned, with barracks and housing. so we do take care of those. not as fast as we would like because of the funding challenges, so that timeline to get them to the quality that we want is taking longer than we desire, but we are systemically moving through those. lou has barracks he's working on right now. so i would ask lou to talk specifics at his installation number of facilities you got and which ones you're getting fixed and what that means from a timeline perspective. >> yes, sir. thanks, ma'am, for the question. at oceania we have 13 barracks. currently ten of them are rated substandard. we have a new barracks that are being built. a $30 million project that we're

grateful for. that should be online in march. of those ten we have five that are currently being programed and funded to get rectified and brought back up. the moniker i use around oceania as far as when i look at public works, boilers, roofs, and fire protection. we want our sailors and marines to have hot water in the morning. we want them to be able to go back into a cool room. although we still have a ways to go, i think that goes to the thought that we need to have a systematic look at it. >> regionally we make sure we understand the condition of all

of our unaccompanied housing and have projects on the books to be able to work through modernization of those. i'd like to give you an example of a case where we worked through a situation where some of our rooms in unaccompanied housing, in this case it was new orleans, where because of some mold and some ventilation problems we had to take the rooms offline. we cannot have people in those rooms, so we took them offline. we didn't have the inventory of additional rooms, and it had a direct impact to the operational forces that are working out in new orleans. we had to recode navy gates and suite rooms to be able to move those service members into those rooms until we were able to put a repair for the ventilation and address the environmental issues in our uh. so we didn't fix the problem

again holistically, but we put a band aid repair. we did that by working very closely with our customer, talking to them about their throughput of personnel and making sure we were taking care of them. sometimes it is about moving people and rooms around the chess board. same thing occurs when hangars go down. >> that's a great example of how we continue to meet mission when these kind of challenges pop. we didn't put any single sailors out on the street. admiral jackson and her team at the base in new orleans took care of them. folks that would have used the on base hotel now had to go to a hotel out in town. not optimal, but it took care of our sailors and ensured they were being taken care of until we got the problem resolved and were able to bring them back into our barracks. we do that in all our major leagues -- missionaries all the

time. >> thank you, mrs. davis. we'll now go to mr. russell. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you for your service and testimony here today. in the 2016 nbaa we were careful to try to make the dollars more fungible so if they can be related to contingency support, you might have have some flexibility at your installations for that support. you spoke about hangars, airfields. those are mission essential elements. can you speak to the impact that that may have or will you be able to make good on some of that? >> i'm going to have to go look and see exactly where we're spending our oco dollars. i don't know where we're dividing those and specifically where we're using that budget line and what resource, what

facilities to take care of. i owe you that. >> okay. >> sir, in fy-'11 and '12, in my region we were dependent on oco. it was in the millions. last year we were at half a million in oco funds. it went into a programs primarily for contracts to take care of boss support in my ports. i think we tried to work hard not to be dependent on oco. >> we would all like not to be dependent on oco. i think in a bipartisan fashion what we saw was there was a need and we tried to provide a little flexibility. it is bailing wire and duct tape, but maybe it can go -- you spoke on quality of life and having spent a career in the military, i understand how important that is, especially during deployments. can you address that specifically on what your concerns are on the shortfalls because it's not often addressed?

it's usually last on the list. and i would be interested in your thoughts there. >> so when sequestration occurred, we had to reduce a lot of our quality of life facilities. so we reduced hours in the gyms. we reduced hours in our single sailor facilities. we've now been able to buy some of that back, but when the budget starts getting pressurized more, that's where we go. we still provide gym hours and the resource. we just don't provide the volume of it. this year we have gone back and increased our gym hours an additional four hours every day. that's been very well received. we're increasing right now some of our cdc hours. our single sailor hours have come back. i really watch that in our facilities in what i refer to as over the horizon, so not metro areas where there's not much to do outside the gate.

we also from a priority standpoint focus on quality of life. lou, you can give a couple of examples' installation level how you focus on quality of life and how you prioritize what you do and don't do. >> thanks for the question, sir. i know for fleet and family support center services, those are crucial for quality of life for our sailors and our families. that peace of mind when that sailor is deployed their family can go a resource where they know they can get support. but i think it is a zero sum game. a program we're in the process of phasing out is the relocation assistance program. in a perfect world we'll be able to keep all these programs.

but we know that's not the reality. how do we mitigate that? we ask other entities on our installation to see if they can help out in the relocation assistance program. >> you bring up a good point on the mitigation. in fact, there's a lot of political hay made why do we have commissaries, base exchanges, why do we have those sorts of things. i don't think there's a clear understanding the impact of those dollars that come in to the nwr programs. if you have sailors in a gym they are fifth sailors. that affects readiness. could you speak to that a little bit? >> i know for a fact that our sailors and our families love the activities that we have on the installation. my mwr team is very robust. whether it is family fests we have quarterly or events around the holidays, especially for those families whose husbands or wives or children are deployed, it's invaluable.

it goes a long way. they are a great part and making sure that readiness there. speaking from firsthand experience, i know when i'm flying combat missions over afghanistan, what allows me to do that comfortably is knowing my family is well cared for back home. both within the fence line of oceana and twin community of virginia beach. we have a wonderful relationship with the community there. >> so we have an expectation that our commanding officers are getting a pulse on what their commands need. sometimes it is hard to quantify whether they're happy and getting the resources that they need. that happens through the communications, the constant drum beat with the tenants, through the senior enlisted command, and then we tailor it. admiral smith talked about what we might do at an over the horizon location because of where they are. maybe they're remote.

maybe they've better resources in town. we can tailor and modify it. we have the ability to modify the hours or the services they're getting or provide more of one thing like more outdoor recreational facilities because of where they are versus another. then another layer to that is what we do outside with the community and those relationships with the community and building support so that it's not just very insular at the installation, but it is layered and we get amazing support from all of our communities. but it's about our team getting out there and educating and making those relationships. >> if i may, i've had the privilege of visiting 69 of our 70 installations. if you want to been what i focus on is i go and i say i want to see your worst stuff.

i want to see what you're most proud of. and i want to see your quality of life stuff. i get into the gyms. i go to fleet and family service center. i want to see that stuff, but i want to understand it because we are pressurized and we have challenges. i want to know that installation x has a challenge and installation y has a challenge and i want to know which one is worse because that's the one i'm going to focus on and get fixed. we also look at remote areas. in saratoga springs we don't have a gym on that facility, so we have a partnership with the ymca locally. we buy membership for our sailors and families. i want to make sure that they can be out in the community. i want to make sure they have a place for their kids to do stuff. they can do the gym. i can't do that on the base, so we do that at the ymca. we focus on that very carefully wherever we are to make sure our families are being taken care of we're an all volunteer navy. we're an all volunteer force. we have to provide for our sailors and our families. >> thank you to the witnesses. admiral smith, i'm trying to

again sort of get the timeline of the 2013 budget resolution, the one we just passed in the fall, the omnibus, and how that sort of is flowing into your decision making process. you just described a moment ago how you were able to restore some gym hours, which was probably sometime in 2015. so obviously you were still living with the two-year 2013 budget resolution and the prior omnibus. we have a new omnibus that's three weeks old. can you tease that out a little bit in terms much what you're anticipating. have you digested it yet even? >> there are some things we've been able to buy back. so we take risks in grounds maintenance.

we have bought back some grounds maintenance. grounds maintenance isn't about how pretty the base looks, which i think it is important because if it looks good, you work good. it is important around our airfields. he is very concerned about his ground maintenance around the airfields. it brings in rodents and birds. it brings in air strikes. that becomes a safety and a mission impact, so we've been able to buy that back a little bit. we've been able to buy back some of the hours in the gym. we've been able to buy back some of the hours in our child development centers. it's not huge gains. it's incremental gains. >> can you give a percentage? is it like half? you're saying gains. obviously you're using -- >> let's just use the gym for example. my hours may be off just a little bit. we were -- i think we were at 96 hours a week. we have gone up to 112. that's an example. child care was 12. we're trying to go to 16. in some places we're going to 14.

so it's a couple hours here, couple hours there. but in the case of child care if you have someone who has to be at work at 5:00 in the morning and the cdc isn't open at 5:00 in the morning, they open at 6:00, we're starting to slowly roll out and get them open at 5:00. i just can't turn a switch to do that. i have to do the hiring process. i have to do the security training, vetting. we're slowly working that. it's small stuff, but it does make a difference to the quality of life for our families. >> i think probably having these nail biting moments when we finally get stuff done doesn't make it any easier for you in terms of planning, but we finally have an omnibus in place. the horizon is clear at least october 1. we have a budget resolution that goes into 2017. in terms of your job, is that --

are you in a better place than you were in 2014? >> i am in a better place. yes, sir, i am. >> admiral, you look like you want to jump in. >> we get the operating report down to the region and it gives us predictability. it gives us the ability to articulate to our tenants what operating levels they can expect. it takes out that angst of not knowing the common operating level of services they might get. we're able to articulate that and then there's a better understanding, so that's good. it also gives us the ability to stay online with preventive maintenance. we're still, though, in reactive mode often, but that predictability planning and then planning our projects, having them on the shelf and ready so we can execute early as opposed to waiting, waiting, waiting is

also very valuable. >> the two-year budget resolution, i think, was healthy moving forward. hopefully we can continue that and stop torturing you guys. admiral, you're welcome to come up to your old stomping grounds anytime. >> i was up there last winter and i'll be up there the thursday before easter visiting the base. >> thank you, mr. courtney. >> thank you, mr. chairman. thank you to each of you for your service. appreciate what you do. i was wondering giving the trend of funding that no con accounts below the level in the past few years over what per of time do you think will be necessary to fully restore the readiness of

our installations and facilities? >> the current funding level is not going to be able to fully restore our installations. there's very little military construction dollars coming. the amount that we get budgeted for does not meet the requirement that we have. so, while the budget we have now is helping us make progress and moving forward, it does not meet the need that we have over the long term. >> you indicated that earlier that you're decreasing -- you have 90% and you talked about an index of 80 and something about it's decreasing at 2.5% or something. i don't remember those numbers. but can you give us the dollar amount? how much money would you want congress to invest in this

infrastructure in order to help make up the short fall and to help you catch back up to where you need be. >> yes, ma'am. can i get back to you on that. >> yes. admiral? >> ma'am, maybe i can give you some numbers that we've looked at in our region. so in region southeast we have 16,000 facilities. of those facilities the plant replacement value for those facilities is 23.3 billion. i have condition indices for all of those facilities and the percentage by value of those facilities that are in the poor or failing category is 42%. so, 42% of 23.3 billion and then what you need to get them better will give you a rough idea.

but that's a number i have used. thank you ma'am. >> i look forward to getting those figures because it's important that we have at least an idea of the goal to fully have our infrastructure be where it needs. that's very helpful. just as we go out and talk to the public and others about this, reduced readiness and the concerns that we've had with the budget cuts it really helps to have the specific examples that we can use and i appreciate your example, captain, about the hangar issue. that makes sense as people come back from deployment be able to get in there. but can you give me some more specific examples of a decrease in readiness of our navy because they haven't had the money that you have needed for the infrastructure investments that we have. so, if you can give me three or four examples like the hang jar. >> so mr. courtney just left but

i can give one out there to new london. pier 15 up there which is the pier the floating dry dock act. we did our periodic inspection and found it was more deteriorated than we thought so when he to take that pier off line. we have mitigations in place in case we have to do emergency dry docking go to an electric boat, lease their floating dry dock if we have to put a submarine in dry dock in an emergency. we want that thing back online as soon as possible for the next scheduled dry docking. so we're fixing that but we've taken those resources from other things we would have gone and fixed lesser, of lesser importance to get that pier back. so we're still meeting mission, but we're deferring maintenance on something else because that was an unexpected challenge that popped up. we realize that's top priority challenge because i got to get that floating dry dock, i got to get the fix sod i can use the

floating dry dock. that's an example. i know mary you got a couple. >> ma'am, in king's bay, the facility has a dry dock and we have chillers in that dry dock that are critical to the building of the dry dock to operate. the chillers have reached the end of their life cycle. we have not been able to update the chillers and do the controllers with it. we replaced the chiller but not able to replace the controlling chillers. so we're in a condition where we have to operate those chillers manually as opposed to the way they were originally an ideally designed. that's one example. another example that we'll drill zoin specific numbers is i have every naval aviator going through training so a lot of aviation training. one of my biggest customers is chief of naval air training.

my airfields such as whiting, jacksonville, meridian we're looking at everything from pavement indis, whether a pavement on the runway is appropriate, hangar facilities, just envelopes of buildings. so an example in pensacola is that we have a hangar suppression system that is not operating. again, it's towards the end of its lifecycle. it has band aid repairs to it. in the past four years we had it dumped, suppressed eight times, which is not ideal to happen on aircraft, causes problems to the war fighter directly. that means we don't use those portions of the hangar and that core relates to 17% less available space for those training wings that are trying to operate out of those hangars. that's an example that has some specific numbers. >> i can give you another

airfield example. so a naval station norfolk where the amc terminal is the apron there. that's part of the apron that need be repaired. it's got challenges. we can make it work because the sailors and airmen go out every morning and do a walk down of the apron for 35, 40 minutes, 25 sailors airmen to go out and do that. they go out and police it and make sure there's no foreign object or debris on the apron. then we can use the apron. that's 45 minutes of an individual that's gone out doing that instead of something else, instead of training or -- whatever the requirement, repairs and ana inspiration. we make it work but that's a project we would like to get funded but right now it doesn't meet the priority so it's impacting the sailors and the airmen. i know you have an example lou. >> we have a facility that the navy marine corps intelligence training center where sailors

information warfare specialists are trained. in 2015 we had 57 calls that the fire department had to respond to. these were not fires. they were water leaks. they were orders. sensor faults. each time that call goes out you have to have all these students leaving the building. it's disrupting their training. we mitigated that, of course. the instructors, and the sailors and their students eventually got their training done and they are executing very well out in the fleet right now. but in the short term putting a band aid on it. we have a couple hundred thousand dollars going towards it's. it's an one funded project to fix the problem. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. we'll now go to mr. gibson. >> thanks, mr. chairman. i appreciate our witnesses here today. thank you for your leadership and your families for your

sacrifice. much of what i was interested has been addressed specifically with regard to base operations and quality of life and the impact on retention, of high quality sailors and marines. but perhaps we can put a finer point on it. let me frame it, be very interested in your feedback. is there any specific data in analysis of this stress that you've done well communicating in terms of impacts on retention and maybe a little bit more on systemic programs you have in terms of getting feedback? some of that has been addressed but if there's anything more you want to mention in terms of how you get the feedback from your sailors and marines and then with regard to specific programs we've heard today about housing, child development, mwr, single sailor and that was helpful to get that report and in particular thank you for being creative in your support of families. you talked about the ymca membership. that's very helpful. i'm thinking in terms of -- one

of the things i frremember from the army which we were gaining in some experiences you guys were dealing with forever and that's the repetitive deployments and one of the ways the army addressed that is we had the program building strong and ready families where after a deployment a family would actually be funded to do an offsite and family would go together, be a nice place, by the water or maybe up in the mountains and there would be then experts who would come in and help with the reintegration process. chaplains would head the program and they had counselors that came in and just a lot of insight. it was very helpful. similarly, we brought forward a program that had like life counselors that were brought on the base to help particularly the younger folks just dealing with the stress of everything that's going on. i'm interested in perhaps some thoughts on that. then finally schools, any impact in terms of any of that?

so really an open ended question to pursue a lot of i think the great testimony you alreadying brought forward on quality of life but maybe with a finer point on how that's impacting retention? >> yes, sir, thank you. so, i'm going to defer to lou in a couple of minutes to talk specifically how he works at the installation and he has a process in place to do that to get the feedback that you asked for. much of what you described in the army, it's force master chief right back here on the deck pilates, out and about, talking to sailors, talking to families. it's me out and about talking. it's all of us out talking. what are the challenges. what do you need? we have our fleet and family service center. we do return reunion seminars with our squadrons. we have a place where families can sign up and spend a weekend.

our schools we have our school liaison officer program that helps transitioning families from one location to another, getting them integrated to the school. the program is working superbly. very good. what i'm giving you are informal processes to get that feedback, to understand what the pressures in our families, what the challenges and concerns are so we can go off attack them, stir up new programs or are programs working correctly in our fleet and family service center. i would ask lou to talk specifics how he gets feedback. >> thank you. thanks for the question. thanks for your service as well. there's on a higher level on the installation level but a senior level survey that goes out yearly. as admiral mentioned my best feedback comes from walking around and talking to sailors

and families which i do all the time. we also have other avenues, mwr and through the cdc and child development centers and child youth development programs. there's boards there that the parents chair provide some feedback and i see those as well. there's a lot of different avenues. a specific quantifiable data point i don't have for you, sir, but you asked about schools also, continue the admiral's thought, that at oceana beioceae schools are amazing. a lot of times sailors and their moms and dads have network at 5:00 a.m., 6:00 a.m. so there's a program where they drop their children off on the installation at one of our buildings and then we have bus, mwr will bus the students out to city schools and

vice versa. that relationship is, you can't put a number on that and it veal a great peace of mind for families their kids are cared for before and after school and of course while they go to some wonderful institutions of learning in the cities. >> sir, i would like to brag about two programs in southeast that, again, have talked to the tailor availability of being able to respond to a request. we start ad pilot program where out of fleet and family we developed a curriculum so that people who want to learn about how to take care of ailing parents. that's an example of something that wasn't part of our normal curriculum and the courses and the counselling we provided but we realized there was a real demand. we put that together, piloted it. another example is we continue to work towards resiliency of our force and sexual assault and prevention. we started some self-defense courses that had not previously

had in our toolkit and now we've added that. so those are examples of the closer we are to understanding the needs then we have the ability network within some of the controls that we already have to be able to provide these resources which are so valuable to our force. >> i thank all the witnesses for that testimony. just one quick followup chairman if i may. so i know this goes across jurisdictional or functional lines so you haven't just to confirm there's been no red flags as far as retention is concerned for the navy based on the stress on base operating support and quality of life. you're not getting any feedback from the navy, that's something that -- >> i'm not personally aware of. >> that's great. great report. thank you. >> thank you, mr. gibson. i want to draw the association between what you've laid out

with installation support, infrastructure, and readiness and you all had laid out a number of those different elements. but captain i want to go to you to get your perspective as a base commander. as you look at the things you have to deal with, you have decisions and directives coming down from corporate navy saying here's the installation support you need provide, here's the infrastructure we want you from provide. you get that direction. obviously you have to respond because there's the unexpected elements of what goes on. your job is to provide that mission support for training and operation there's on the base. so you have to reconcile those two things. your job is to do those two things while making sure you're generating readiness. so my question is this. as you are juggling all those different pieces, give us a specific example. and you've given some. but take the next step further. what doe that mean as far as

operational readiness. while you may not be able to keep aircraft there what does that mean as far as training missions? what happens in reduction in training missions? what happens in deployment schedules? what happens with all the things that potentially stack up? if you can take the next step and that is in generating readiness making sure as your air wings are coming in there doing pre-deployment training or doing work ups to go for the carrier to leave give me an example about how that infrastructure, how that installation support, how that facilities capability totally affects what you're having to generate every day. >> thanks for the question, sir. what helps is i was a recipient of this customer service for the last 24 years and having operated oceania for a majority of my career both as a young pilot and squadron level i recognize making sure the runway is available when we have

sorties available. we have a $100 million project to replace the ageing lighting on our airfield. it's 1950 technology. when i first came in the first night we had one of the elect c electrical vaults went out. for a base that was very disconcerting. this $100 million is greatly needed and that's an example of the process working. those requirements articulated well before i got there. we finally had the funding. but to continue with that discussion or thought, at oceania we have a fleet replacement squadron. the home of the east coast training for new pilots and weapons system officers to become fleet aviators. they are held to structure and their through put is crucial to

feed the squadron so they are fully manned when deployed so we can't afford a whole lot of delays whether it's lack of air traffic controllers or airfield lighting problems or hangar challenges where they can't get the maintenance done because the hangar is not equipped. i work closely with the commodore and we speak every day and we speak about our needs and challenges and he works up the chain of command. that works well. we're constantly checking and make being sure the readiness is available. i'll say that at least since i've been there in that position since the uss george bush in 2014 with three squadrons from oceania, theodore roosevelt, now truman those squadrons deployed ready. but it will, as we described the airfield renovation are greatly needed. if those are delayed any further i think that would be a great impact. the hangar situation as i described i think to have that

predictable funding will go a long way. >> sir, i think we're very good at finding alternatives when we need to, and we know the war fighter can't do any longer what they need to do. they can't produce the pilots or train. we also work very hard to make sure the process by which we look at all these projects are racked and stacked and that we are able tore articulate from an installation perspective the direct correlation to the readiness as you've asked. so an example is at mayport we have a waste water treatment plant is that is currently not meeting environmental criteria and we're operating under a consent order. the relationship that we have with the florida department of the fdq, our relationship with

them is important. but it is also equally important that as i prepare these projects and push them up my chain of command i'm able to articulate what will happen if we no longer are able to weighs that waste water treatment plant and what that means to ships they may have to go a different port or we may have to move move to the waste which now has high levels of metals because we increased the ship loading in mayport and articulate that sooits unified front from the war fighter to the installation all the way up to articulate that readiness and it's easier to articulate in specific projects than it is across the entire enterprise. >> let me expand upon that a little bit. as you look at your mission overall and then your job in supporting that mission we know that you're looking at infrastructure, you're looking

at installation support, trying to manage risk within that area while at the same time our effort now is to re-establish full spectrum readiness. it's an arduous path to get there and you're managing that through that resource gauntlet that we've gone through here recently. let me get your perspective. as you are making those decisions and looking how you balance those things, trying to get to full spectrum readiness as quickly as we can, as mr. courtney pointed out we're now with some certainty in a two year budget. give us your perspective on how far you believe you can get within your mission to get to full spectrum readiness and then secondly where do you see yourself in a ten year window down the road in a scenario of either level funding from this point on, or back to sequestration levels because that also introduces a fair amount of risk and the reason i ask for static funding levels is

we're trying to regain readiness. so we've lost some in the last three years. to regain that, obviously, is a challenge but also the slope of the curve we have to ascend to get there is also steeper. so give me your perspective within those scenarios about how you get back to full spectrum readiness? >> i suppose i'm not as optimistic as perhaps others that we will get to full spectrum readiness. so sequestration takes us a step back. where we are today is holding. a little bit of improvement as admiral smith articulated to get to 100% funding still doesn't get us to full spectrum readiness because we have degraded so significantly over time. so it is hard for me to imagine how we get so far, as far as we

need to the get to full spectrum. >> at our current funding, if you continue that out, we will continue to lose ground. and if we were to get to the osd funding level of 90%, that's only 90% of an already deteriorated infrastructure. so to get back to 100% you got to shoot ahead of the duck and we're not shooting at the duck. >> let me get this perspective from you too. not only are you having to look at recapitalization on existing asset, you're also faced with new mission sets. you have total combat ship. you have the p.a. you have an upcoming ohio class replacement. those new mission requirements create new demands on infrastructure. so how does that exacerbate your challenge in just trying to maintain status quo when those

null mission sets are upon that and the challenges you have to face there with infrastructure and ininstallation support? >> so, a couple of things i would like to talk to. first is the process and how we accommodate those new mission sets and how we understand what the requirements are. so we have a strategic laid down dispersal process where those new mission sets come out and we as a navy and as our operators, our forces decide we want those assets need be to meet our country's mission, we then go and look at those installations whether it's the skipper or one of the other 69 c.o.'s and say you're getting this asset, whatever it is, can you accept them with what you've got. do you have the pier, do you have the runway, do you have the hangar capacity, do you have the housing, do you have the child development centers, what does it do to your wait list and those different things and then they come back and feed that into the regional commander and

then she racks and stacks that and i want doums. we know what the requirement is and what our gaps are and what we need to do. those gaps generate requirements that lou at oceania create and pass through the regional commander and then that then gets pushed up. we know what we have. then we go down with the priorities, those are going to take the priority to make sure we can meet those new mission sets and when those come in that gets to your question that pressurizes the discretionary funds we have to do existing things. so, those are directed so they are going to get funded and that's a good thing because we need that capability. but it does as you say indicate pressurize us further on existing assets that we have that are declining. >> in your rack and stack scenario if you are pushing that now requisite requirement and you have to have installies support for that does it push out other things that's on your

recapitalization list and we can't do that because we have to have additional requirements. >> yes. that's what puts us in the reactive mode. how mary in new orleans reacted to the mold challenge. >> one last question. how are these new mission sets affecting the size of the things or the number of items that get pushed out because of that? if you don't have it now you can take it for the record and get back to us. i think that's critically important for us to understand because that gives us a measure of the magnitude of the issue we're dealing with. >> i'm trying to quantify in my mind. i can't do it justice here. >> if you can do that. that will be extraordinarily important for us. people have to understand the magnitude and the reason behind these hearings is make sure we draw a direct association between infrastructure installations and facilities

support with operational readiness in restoring full spectrum readiness. we need to get a gauge where the gaps are and back to the provid, that would be great. now i'm going to miss perdalia. >> thank you, mr. chairman, and vice admiral smith or the other witnesses here, could you please describe at what level the connections are being made between the training requirements of a unit and the ability of an installation to support those training requirements, and how often are they re-evaluated? and as a follow-up, have you found the facility condition index to be an effective system for tracking maintenance needs? >> yes, ma'am. i'll stt off and ask the two of them to add on. bottom line, those decisions are being discussed at all levels. the skipper talks to it with his tenants and requirements and needs, and ms. jackson does at

her level and i do at my level. we talked about the strategic laydown, process, general requirements, the facility conditioning index code that you talk about that's very accurate. we track that closely so we know what the condition is of every single one of our facilities that then feeds into the priority list that we've talked about. so when it comes time to talk about what we're going to fund, we use an integration process at the region level, so mary will take all of her installation requirements and all of those projects and we have a formula we use based on necessity and condition in her region. she will prioritize that out, push it up to me at the enterprise level, and then i'll take in all 11 regions requirements, and then i sit down -- and she's already done

this at her level with the fleet at the region, and then i do it with the fleets. i sit down with pat's fleet, i sit down with fleet forces command, i sit down with syscoms and we determine what we're going to fund. to double back to your original question, we address that at all three levels and we use the facility index code, condition index, very closely to do that. i would turn it over to your area and ask lou at his installation level. >> ma'am, i've been doing installation business for about five years starting in a naval station in norfolk, and i would say in those five years we have gotten much more rigorous in understanding how we have to articulate our requirements tied to readiness as we go forward. and we do that, admiral smith said, at all levels. our installation ceos as the landlord have to be talking to their tenants to be able to quantify that. i say this somewhat in jest, but

it does become a bit of a competitive requirement. every co is fighting for their projects, and they have to have it as clear and concise and as tight as they can as they move it up to me at my level at the region. and the process that admiral smith articulated through a regional mission integration group up through the smig is very valuable. and we have war fighter representation at the region level, we have it at the cnic level as well. it's not like we're doing it without them. another process that admiral smith has continued in his tenure as installations command is something called the warfare enterprise flag officer assignments in which he has regional commanders usually tied to their warfare specialty assigned to be the linkage with that warfare enterprise. so for myself, i'm a surface warfare officer, so i support the surface warfare enterprise, and i have a regular drumbeat to talk globally, not just to my region, about those projects and

those things that are going on in cnic that should be of interest to surface warfare enterprise and vice versa. they talk to me about what they're concerned about, so we get that unified front. that warfare enterprise assignment officer exists for surface warfare, for strategic programs of which i also have, aviation, dominance and undersea enterprise. it's another layer by which we are able to make sure we understand the requirement. >> thank you, ma'am. >> captain? >> yes, ma'am. thank you for the question, and as i mentioned before, i was the recipient of customer service for many years and now i'm the provider of that. around my installation when i talk about it, i talk about providing great customer relationships, not just service, and that communicating with all my warfare commanders in leadership, whether it's the commander of the air wing, even if they had a bad weather day and we have to fly on the

weekend, i'm aware of that that day. i mentioned the example about the intelligence school which was having a lot of firearms go off and how that affected their training. by my regional officer called me up and when they meet, i bring those topics up. i can speak eloquently -- i like to think i can -- because i've spoken to those folks and their decision is also in that process. aviation is also there as well as aviation dominance. through that, i think i'm comfortable that the requirements that our tenants are looking to achieve are articulated on our side so we can provide the facilities necessary, prioritizing of such. >> so i'm gathering, then, that systems are working. >> yes, ma'am. >> i have another question real quickly. this is to rear admiral jackson or perhaps the captain. earlier you gave an example of hangar maintenance and how the lack of predictable ssrm funding

can impact facility maintenance plans. can you provide similar examples on the base operating support program, specifically how repeated reliance on continuing resolutions, late appropriations and the lack of predictable funding has impacted base operating support. >> i can start, ma'am. thank you. when -- commonly when someone from my family, for example, we talk about readiness and going out to war and doing combat missions. they think about the aircraft i'm going to fly and is that ready, but there is a lot more to it. so when you mentioned base operating support, do the sailors have a room to go back to that's comfortable and heated and hot water? do they have a galillo galley t ready, do they have a fleet that's providing the services? it's not just the runway. so a fleet family of support

affects readiness. as we've spoken and both admirals have articulated, we are taking risks. the mission is to be met. but i think if it's not properly funded out, the risks will be greater. >> and in a timely manner. >> yes. >> rear admiral? >> ma'am, when we started decreasing our boss because of the continued resolution and skwes tis he -- sequester, the areas we saw it the most were strategic ground vehicles and also utilities. so our customers feel the effects of that, and it's more than just cosmetic, to give you an example in ground maintenance. so the higher grass may mean increased pest control. it may increase greater risk in the bash program for our a

aviators. that is where we have felt it in terms of boss, and of course as we have been able now to increase those common operating levels and articulate that back to our customers, that is good. >> vice admiral. >> yes, ma'am. so a cr -- it just makes the process harder. it creates uncertainty for our work force. >> you're awarding contracts on top of each other. we can't spread the workload throughout the year. we're doing nine months, six months, whatever the requirement is, and that increases workload, increases stress, but it makes it harder.

we still get it done but it makes it harder. >> and every time you have to change the contracts, it takes time. it's not free. so as you decrease moderator levels, it takes time, so that has a drain as well. >> thank you very much, and i yield back, mr. chairman. >> i want to thank our witnesses today. thank you so much for joining us. thanks for your responses today. we would ask that you provide the written responses that we had asked for. we will be using them as we put together this year's national defense authorization act which, by the way, is going to take place earlier this year by a three-week window. we'll push things to the left, hopefully get our jobs done more quickly so we can get the appropriations part of this done more quickly, too. again, thanks for your service, thanks for your perspective today. this is very, very helpful to us and we will continue the conversation with you. thanks again. and our subcommittee heari