The S- Word

Sequestration.

I can honestly say that this was not a word in my vocabulary until recently.  If you aren't up to speed on the federal budget situation and the looming automatic spending cuts,  the National Military Family Association has several very good blog posts that give a glimpse of how this impacts military families.   Defense Secretary Leon Panetta issued a follow-up memo recently that states the vast majority of the DOD civilian workforce would be placed on Administrative Furlough if sequestration occurs. 

What we don't know right now is what those furloughs look like, despite being nearly two weeks into this and two weeks days away from the expiration of the current funding.  Will programs be closed completely?  Restricted in operating hours? Operating on reduced staffing?  Will Military Families be able to utilize services that we rely up on. Of particular concern for me is the Child Development Centers.  During previous "crisis" scenarios, they have been deemed mission-essential however there has been no guarantee for this yet.  Rumors are swirling that the services might be restricted to dual-service members or single-parent service members.   If this happens, spouses that rely upon this for civilian employment, may be left in the lurch.  There are quite a few military spouses that are employed as DOD Civilians, so in addition to facing furloughs they could face paying for childcare they won't use just to keep their slot reserved.

For my family, there's a fair amount of uncertainty. We are awaiting PCS orders. Mysteriously, the RFO and orders promised to us by January have been pushed to February and now "sometime in March or April."  This is purely speculation on my part, but I am a tad nervous that crazy budget-related things could happen to derail this much-anticipated (and very important from a career standpoint) PCS.  I've been looking into housing and schools at the new location. I've been unable to make any decisions about preschool for Bunny Girl since the CDC at the new location isn't confident they will have the staff to offer the Preschool program.
It's very sad to see how programs are being abandoned and fees are being raised for various programs. The net effect of these budget cuts are that military families are absorbing the cuts into our family budget.  (While facing fewer services, longer waits for necessary service like healthcare and other cuts.)

I don't know what the future will look like for Army families. I firmly believe that Army families are resilient and have proven themselves resourceful and adept at making-do, improvising and rallying to meet a need.  I just regret that the lessons we learned post 9/11 about supporting military families may be lost.