President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month requiring federal agencies to prepare for “large-scale reductions in force” in an effort to reduce federal debt.
As part of this federal overhaul, the Department of Defense, which oversees the U.S. Department of the Air Force, is looking to downsize its civilian workforce by 5 to 8%.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is a major Miami Valley employer and is overseen by those entities.
WYSO has compiled a list of information to offer context on what’s been happening and how the Dayton area could be impacted.
1. Wright-Patterson officials declined to comment on how many, if any, employees have been dismissed in relation to the Defense Department cuts. The Department of Defense has also declined to comment. And as of publish time, the Department of the Air Force didn’t respond to specific questions from WYSO.
2. Wright-Patterson is the largest single-site employer in Ohio, with 38,000 employees according to the base’s website. Of those, 15,000 to 16,000 are civilian employees, said Michael Gessel, vice president of federal government programs for the Dayton Development Coalition.
According to JobsOhio, the state’s private economic development corporation, Ohio ranks third in the nation for Air Force civilian employees.
And it’s a significant economic driver in the Dayton region; defense related-activities create an $11 billion economic impact.
3. The deadline for agencies to submit its first round of reduction-in-force reports was on Thursday. That’s according to guidance published last month by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and U.S. Office of Personnel Management.
Agency leadership were required to submit information on “initial agency cuts and reductions,” with potential for another wave of layoffs to take place in April. These reports will be reviewed and approved by these offices, the guidance reads.
4. Uniformed military personnel are exempt from these layoffs, according to the executive order published last month. That means active or reserve, combatant or noncombatant.
5. The Defense Department is looking carefully at its probationary employees. DefenseOne reports that the Defense department has roughly 55,000 probationary employees – often those that have been in their position for less than two years. According to NPR, probationary employees “may be let go without any prior notice or severance” and usually don’t have the right to appeal termination.
The Department of Defense released a statement at the end of last month saying that approximately 5,400 of its probationary employees were going to be released from their positions.
6. Defense contractors may also be impacted, said Gessel. “The Defense Department is undergoing a review of the major defense contractors. And when that review is completed, the Defense Department may choose to take some action that will modify some of the contracts,” he said. Gessel said this area has been “off the radar screen.”
Specifically, agencies were directed to look at their consulting contracts.
NPR reports that the Pentagon is seeking to reduce its annual budget by 8% over the next five years — an annual decrease of about $50 billion. No agency would respond to how many WPAFB contractors might be, or have been, impacted.
7. Agency heads have the ability to file exemptions for positions they deem “necessary to meet national security, homeland security, or public safety responsibilities,” according to Trump’s executive order.
That is the likely reason that Ohio’s U.S. senators, Bernie Moreno and Jon Husted, sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this month inviting him to visit Wright-Patterson.
“The more that Secretary Hegseth sees of Wright-Patterson, and the more he understands the important missions that take place here that are so important to national defense, the better off we are,” Gessel said.
