As the Air Force works to cut 5,000 positions before October, the Air Force Academy expects to eliminate 140 jobs.
Acting Dean Col. Steven Hasstedt outlined the cuts and the $10 million budget shortfall for civilian employee pay in a Tuesday email that was shared with The Gazette and later on social media. The email stated that most of the positions have already been vacated through voluntary resignations earlier in the year and only 36 positions are filled.
The 36 people in "unfunded positions" have the opportunity to move into other positions at the academy. The other 104 jobs were left open as employees left through the Trump administration's deferred resignation or early retirement programs. Those jobs will be phased out. Additional civilian jobs will be cut in the next fiscal year, but the email did not say how many. The Defense Department's fiscal year runs from October through September.
Among the positions slated for elimination, 52 are faculty and staff and of those 19 are filled. An internal communication in April said the school employs 491 faculty members, with 308 uniformed members and 183 civilians.
Other civilians fill a variety of roles, including finance roles and academic registration. The school employed about 1,360 civilians in January.
It's possible some people of the 36 in unfunded positions could remain at the academy.
"Internal movement is a key part of how we aim to keep talented civilians on the team as we face new DoD budgetary and organizational requirements," said a portion of the email attributed to Superintendent Tony Bauernfeind.
A professor who declined to be named for fear of retaliation expected lateral moves will be few particularly on the faculty side because each person is hired for a particular kind of expertise.
"I can’t imagine a faculty member who is flexible enough to switch departments," he said.
In response to Gazette questions about filling civilian positions with active duty or reserve officers, the academy said they might bring in uniformed people to fill a small number of positions.
In addition to phasing out positions, the school is facing a $10 million shortfall in civilian pay during the current fiscal year and the institution needs to find operation and maintenance funds to cover the shortfall, such as reducing contracts and canceling all previously approved trips, the email said. The deferred resignations and retirements may not help cover that shortfall because the federal government promised to continue paying those employees through September.
Despite the cuts, the academy said in response to Gazette questions that it expects to retain enough faculty and staff to offer an array of accredited majors and there are no changes planned for the fall.
"Permanent Professors are leading a comprehensive review of the core curriculum to ensure alignment with future warfighting competencies and officer development," the acting dean's email said.
The academy said in its response to Gazette questions about staff cuts next year that staff would be retained to complete all of the institution's critical functions.
"We are committed to delivering world-class military training, academics and athletics, while sustaining and protecting our facilities and installation," it said.
While the school has not announced the elimination of majors, it is a step that could be phased in and make fiscal sense, said Tom Bewley, a distinguished visiting professor in mechanical engineering at the academy over the past school year. He is a faculty member at the University of California, San Diego. Upperclassmen would need the chance to finish their majors, he said, but they could be ended for freshmen and sophomores.
"They have a lot of expensive small majors," he said. So it could make sense to phase out majors with only 10 to 15 students, he said, to ensure resources are available for critical majors, such as aeronautical and astronautical engineering.
There could be room for some streamlining within technical degrees as well, such as folding the mechanical engineering degree into the aeronautical degree, he said.
Bewley also sees a need for more investment in the study of autonomous aircraft, because they will allow the Air Force to put up a more lethal fight. Many of the limitations on aircraft right now are based on the pilot.
More investment in astronautical engineering is also needed to help support the growing Space Force, Bewley said.
When he arrived at the academy in the fall, he found the civilian staff, many of them veterans, worked very closely and well with the uniformed staff and he wants to ensure the academic programs stay strong because they take many years to build.
But when the Trump administration offered deferred resignations and early retirements, faculty and staff started leaving in a haphazard way. It left big holes in some departments and none in others, said the professor who declined to be identified.
"The (Deferred Resignation Program) was completely nonstrategic," Bewley said.
Faculty who may have to leave over the fall semester face a tough situation because of a lengthy lag time they could face finding a new job. Colleges and universities tend to post jobs in the fall semester for jobs they will fill the following academic year, he explained.
Those who disagree with cuts could contact their members of Congress while planning is still underway, he said.
Cuts in faculty and instruction staff are likely to have to have an impact on the cadet experience, with students seeing larger class sizes and faculty having less capacity to teach to developing technologies, said the professor who declined to be named. If cadets see the quality of their majors declining, they could choose to transfer or decline an appointment to attend competitive programs at other schools, he said.
"I think everybody is hunkered down right now in their foxhole. How much forward-looking do you do when you are being shelled?" said the professor, referring to the cuts.
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