Two small boat crews from Coast Guard Cutter Stratton are underway for operations in the Bering Sea, April 30, 2021. Cutter crews use the small boats to conduct a variety of missions including search and rescue and law enforcement. U.S. Coast Guard photo courtesy Ensign Molly Dolan.
As if we did not know, the GAO is telling us the Coast Guard (unlike the rest of the Government) is having problems–OK I will stop being snide.
I really have not read any more than the highlights of this report, but there is something troubling here that might be turned to an opportunity.
GAO has found that the Coast Guard has not adequately determined its workforce needs. The Coast Guard has reported to Congress that it faces challenges meeting its daily mission demands because of workforce shortfalls. For example, in February 2020, GAO found that the Coast Guard had assessed a small portion of its workforce needs. GAO recommended that Coast Guard update its workforce plan with timeframes and milestones to meet its workforce assessment goals. As of May 2023, Coast Guard officials said they had not yet taken these steps but indicated it could be feasible to develop a rough estimate of how many positions it plans to assess in the next five years.
What I think this means is that not only has the Coast Guard been unable to fill its authorized billets, but the number of billets may be less than it should be. It may also mean the distribution of personnel may put too many people in some places and too few in others.
I think we have all seen this happen, no matter where we work.
But GAO is saying tell us what you really need. No doubt we should have been doing that all along, but it’s hard, and apparently it will take years to get an approximation.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 
I carpooled to CGHQ some 17 years ago with someone from the finance/budget shop and too often conversations ventured into this area and he always reminded me that a big problem CG has always had is that leadership has never grasped all of the intricacies of being successful at getting all of the budget it needs from departmental and congressional overseers. As a result, personnel and operational resources become poorly managed and mission success becomes minimized. Until this is permanently righted, we will lag in truly being the best we can be.
Chuck, it should not take years to determine manpower requirements. I argued for using science to determine requirements as a CWO/LT in G-P-1, when Bill Donnell was a CDR at the Pentagon. I retired (uniformed) in 1994, and began my second career arguing for the same issues. For a decade before I retired as a GS-15(10) in 2015, I was CG-1B, Director of HR Strategy and Capability Development. From my staff of 40 or so, I carved out a group of bright analysts, mil and civ, to build a Manpower Requirements Analysis office, including putting 3 at the Navy’s Manpower Analysis Center (NAVMAC) at Millington TN. Using work and workload, we used science to determine manpower requirements for units (Manpower Requirements Analyses or MRAs) followed with approved Manpower Requirements Determinations (MRDs) for unit types. And it is a science.
The problem became evident immediately. We always found that units were understaffed for the required workload. This was not unique to the CG, as the Navy folks were finding the same issues. NAVPERS and the CNO decided to fudge some numbers, making some assumptions about rest that were not accurate or justified. For some reason, Navy folks were always tired! GAO and the IG called the Navy out on this more than once, attributing many of the ship accidents that plagued the service during the 80s, 90s, and even more recently to fatigue — caused by faulty manpower equations. The Coast Guard took a different approach. Although we had developed a phased plan to complete analyses and publish formal Manpower Requirements Determinations (MRDSs) for all unit types, a decision was made to consider a MRD as ‘”guidance” rather than “requirements.” Thus the service ignores the science with our normal “we’ll figure this out and make do” philosophy.
When GAO recently said that the CG had developed requirements documents for only 15% of units I almost threw up. That was where I left things in 2015 when I retired.
When Jim Loy was Commandant he was very much against “doing more with less.” Apparently, we haven’t figured out that is a losing proposition.
Quick sea story. Not long after Loy took over, the OINC of a station (Booth Bay Harbor) realized that his troops did not have adequate time to train and fearing accidents decided to CASREP the station. Much to his credit, the District Commander agreed with the Senior Chief and developed a plan to cover the AOR with other resources. Most of the old salts shook their heads and waited for the OINC to be relieved. Surely this was not their Coast Guard!
At Loy’s first State of the Coast Guard event and report, he told the story of this OINC. Most of the senior folks in the room expected the relief announcement and were stunned when Loy made the Senior Chief out as a hero, not a villain. He said this action was exactly the right thing to do. You could have heard a pin drop. That’s where he coined the term we had discussed.
“We used to say ‘you have to go out, but you don’t have to come back.’ That’s bullshit. If the risks are reasonable, you have to go out, you have to come back, and you have to bring all your stuff (boats, crews, equipment, all assets) back with you because we will need it again tomorrow.”
I understand that some very senior people decided to retire after that speech. Again, not their Coast Guard.
I have no idea what the current situation is with CG-1B3, the Manpower Determination Branch in HQ and NAVMAC. When I retired in 2015 the branch was run by an O-6 or O-5 with a staff of 22, mostly officers and civilian analysts, all of whom I considered experts. I was proud to lead them, even though it was frustrating to see their efforts shunted aside. And it seems that’s where we stand today … without a clear understanding of work requirements and workload, leading to overwork, attrition, and poor morale. Add the exacerbating issue of difficult recruiting and here we are.
Ok, enough venting. Back to being retired.
Regards, Steve
P.S. If you ever want to see documents from that era, I’m sure I have them somewhere.
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