Under
Secretary
of
Defense
(Comptroller)/Chief
Financial
Officer
Mike
McCord
delivers
remarks
at
a
Business
Executives
for
National
Security
industry
discussion
at
the
National
Defense
University,
Washington,
D.C.,
April
11,
2022.
(DoD
photo
by
Lisa
Ferdinando)
WASHINGTON
—
President-elect
Donald
Trump’s
stated
plans
to
tee
up
the
firings
of
thousands
of
federal
employees
has
shaken
many
in
the
career
workforce
and
is
damaging
productivity,
the
Pentagon’s
chief
accountant
warned
today.
Mike
McCord,
the
Pentagon
comptroller,
also
predicted
the
current
continuing
resolution
would
stretch
until
March
and
the
fiscal
2026
budget
will
not
arrive
before
April
or
May.
Near
the
end
of
his
first
term
in
office, Trump
signed
an
executive
order
reclassifying
thousands
of
government
employees
—
often
the
type
who
typically
remain
in
place
regardless
of
presidential
administration
—
as
new
“Schedule
F”
staff
without
employment
protections,
essentially
making
them
at-will
workers
who
are
easier
to
fire.
Critics
lambasted
the
move
as
politicizing
the
bureaucracy
and
an
attack
on
civil
servants
amid
calls
by
Trump
to
purge
the
“deep
state.”
Now,
as
Trump
prepares
to
return
to
the
White
House,
critics
fear
the
policy
could
make
a
return
after
it
was
quickly
rescinded
by
President
Joe
Biden.
Trump
has
campaigned
on
reviving
the
Schedule
F
approach.
“I
would
certainly
hope
that
the
next
administration
can
resist
the
temptation
to
[impose]
self-inflicted
wounds
on
the
workforce
with
the
Schedule
F-type
approach,”
McCord
said
today
in
a
keynote
address
at
the
Professional
Services
Council
Vision
2024
Federal
Market
Forcecast
conference.
“I
can
tell
you
that
the
career
workforce
is
worried
—
those
that
I
talked
to
already
in
anticipation
of
what
might
happen,”
McCord
said.
“It’s
not
helpful
for
productivity.”
“There’s
a
lot
of
hard-working,
dedicated
people
in
the
Defense
Department,
and
if
you
work
with
them
instead
of
trying
to
stomp
them,
I
think
that
we
will
get
to
a
much
better
place,”
McCord
said.
Budget
Woes
Based
on
the
results
of
the
November
election,
McCord
also
said
he
anticipated
the
current
continuing
resolution
(CR)
for
the
2025
fiscal
year,
set
to
expire
in
December,
would
be
stretched
out
to
March
as
a
new
Republican
congressional
majority
asserts
its
influence
—
though
he
characterized
any
gains
the
GOP
could
make
on
its
priorities
as
marginal.
“There’s
a
time
value
of
money
we
all
know
in
our
personal
life,
and
having
a
bill
in
December
and
a
two
percent
better
bill
in
March
would
be
a
bad
trade
for
most
of
us,
but
that’s
not
how
things
tend
to
get
looked
at
here,”
McCord
said.
“So
I
think
we’re
headed
toward,
probably,
the
two
percent
different
bill
in
March
than
what
we’d
like
to
see
in
December.”
The
Defense
Department,
along
with
the
rest
of
the
federal
government,
is
well-acquainted
with
CRs,
which
military
officials
have
long
complained
set
back
modernization
efforts
by
freezing
spending
at
prior-year
levels
and
preventing
the
start
of
new
programs.
By
McCord’s
count,
there
have
been
15
CRs
over
the
last
16
years,
averaging
four
months
a
year.
“A
third
of
the
year
wasted
in
CRs
consistently
over
15
straight
years,”
he
said.
“Ridiculous.”
Despite
the
current
CR
and
uncertainties
ahead
of
the
November
election,
Pentagon
officials
still
put
together
an
FY26
budget
through
the
regular
process,
McCord
said.
That
budget
has
almost
been
finalized,
he
said,
details
of
which
can
then
be
shared
with
the
incoming
administration.
However,
McCord
noted
Trump
officials
have
still
not
signed
transition
documents,
largely
preventing
current
officials
from
communicating
with
their
successors.
Even
when
those
documents
are
signed, the
process
of
bringing
on
new
staff
from
the
incoming
administration
and
formulating
a
new
budget
likely
means
the
Pentagon’s
FY26
spending
plan
won’t
be
released
until
April
or
May,
he
added.
Freed
from
constraints
of
the
Fiscal
Responsibility
Act,
which
capped
defense
toplines
for
both
2024
and
2025
—
though
Congress
circumvented
those
limits
in
April
by
passing
a
$95
billion
supplemental
defense
bill
anyway
—
McCord
said
the
DoD
would
recommend
getting
back
to
the
levels
of
topline
growth
defined
by
budgets
in
years
like
FY23
and
FY24.
“This
year,
we’re
working
to
a
higher
[topline],”
McCord
said
of
the
FY26
proposal.
“But
there’s
no
agreement,
and
there
is
going
to
be
a
new
decision
from
the
new
team
about
what
their
topline
looks
like
that
will
help
inform
their
look
at
what
program
mix
we’ve
left
for
them.”