Photo By 1st Sgt. Jim Heuston | Staff Sgt. Brett McNeal, supply non-commisioned officer, 216th military police...... read more read more
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Arkansas Army National Guard lowered its excess inventory of “go to war equipment” from 1542 items to 38 items within the first quarter of fiscal year 2023. Within a fiscal quarter, Arkansas moved millions of dollars worth of Humvee’s and Helicopters back from a high of 6 percent to 0.06 percent which is below the National Guard Bureau’s goal of 0.5 percent in excess items.
This rapid disbursement of excess equipment over the previous year represents a value of more than $50,000,000 that was redistributed back into the Arkansas Army National Guard and the DoD supply chain. It is a battle of logistics and accounting that Soldiers and civilians in the supply and the property book offices across the Guard have to fight every day.
“So, it's a constant battle,” said Matt Anderson, property management officer Arkansas United States Property and Fiscal Office. “It’s never where you're going to get to the end and say, hey, we won the war because there's always new pieces of equipment that are getting fielded to our units.”
Each new piece of equipment creates an excess of equipment in the inventory it’s replacing. This can occur because of new equipment being added to a unit inventory like the 77th Theater Aviation Brigade’s new HH-60M “Mike” Black Hawk aeromedical evacuation helicopter, or a change in the unit’s MTOE/TDA, the equipment allowances based on a unit’s mission. The equipment replaced must be managed and processed out of the system before it becomes a drain on resources.
“You look at the deployments, the warfighter missions that are going on. It's just a constant cycle of other priorities that take you away from managing the excess, not to mention drill weekends or whatever they may have going on,” said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Lucien McConnell, Command Property Accountability Officer
Despite these distractions, the teamwork of constant vigilance across the Arkansas National Guard saves in costs associated with the equipment and the effort needed to maintain the equipment.
“You spend time and money in resources, on equipment that is taking away from the equipment that you're actually going to use to deploy or to train with,” said Chief Warrant Officer 5 Chad Ohl, Command Property Accountability Officer. “It goes back to the funding … funding and the demand on manpower. So, if I'm spending time servicing Humvee’s that are in excess, that is taking away money, and it's taking away time from the Humvee’s that I am going to deploy with. So absolutely, it effects readiness.”
When the excess is low it frees up time Soldiers can spend on their mission essential tasks. The financial savings can be seen on paper, but the immeasurable effects on manpower is considerable.
“By getting rid of all this excess property, reducing our excess down as small as we can, that allows us to put more operational maintenance dollars towards the equipment that we need for ATs [annual training], deployments and stuff. And, of course, eases the workload on all the people in the chain, all the maintainers because now, if they have less excess to take care of, they can focus more of their time and energy on on the pieces of equipment they need for their unit to operate,” said Anderson.
The excess equipment can then continue to benefit the Arkansas Army National Guard as it is shipped to units around the state that need the equipment, or the equipment can be shipped outside the state and even the country to benefit one of our allied partners overseas.
“So you have the burden that's created by that excess equipment. But the other side of the equation is, depending on where the equipment's going, there may be another commander somewhere else that's waiting on that equipment,” said Lt. Col. Bryan Shipman, supply and services division chief, Arkansas Army National Guard.
The property book officers are an integral part of the process in reducing excess at the brigade level. They’re responsible for making sure equipment is identified and put into the Decision Support Tool a database used to identifying items as excess.
“There's … steps to the process, equipment has to receive a technical inspection, what we call a T-I, making sure that all that equipment is operational because it may go to another unit, another state, or it may go to active duty, or it may be an allied nation that is getting this equipment,” said Anderson.
USP&FO provides the oversight of federal property to ensure it is being managed properly, and kept moving through the process; tracking it in the system, ensuring equipment is inspected, paperwork is in order.
“It’s a finite budget in the Arkansas Army National Guard,” said Anderson. “And so you have the folks over in logistics, they're having to prioritize. Do we put maintenance dollars towards operational equipment that we need for the next AT or for the next deployment, or do we slice off some of this money and take care of some of this excess property?”
Constant vigilance over the inventory of excess “go to war equipment” focuses every dollar on targeting the needs of the Arkansas Army National Guard. The excess inventory fluctuates from quarter to quarter, and its impact on readiness and lethality can be seen in the numbers.
“It was just amazing to see that on paper, to see that transformation,” said Col. Dean Martin, deputy Arkansas USP&FO when asked about the drop in excess items. “Why is this important? Why do we care about excess equipment? There's money, there's a price tag involved with this. It has a readiness impact all along the way.”
| Date Taken: | 07.12.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 07.12.2023 15:21 |
| Story ID: | 449046 |
| Location: | NORTH LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS, US |
| Hometown: | LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS, US |
| Web Views: | 172 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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