Marine Corps Faces Initial Hurdles in Long-Term Vision to Upgrade Barracks
The Marine Corps touted its ongoing barracks improvements on Tuesday but acknowledged the effort has hit some early snags -- and uncertain funding from Congress threatens to extend the already far-off expected completion in the late 2030s by nearly a decade.
The improvement effort, known as Barracks 2030, is a top priority for the commandant, Gen. Eric Smith, and has added furniture, renovations and big-ticket items such as air conditioning to the on-base housing, which is home to more than 80,000 Marines. But at least one pilot program is at risk of fizzling out for legal reasons, and the Pentagon's ongoing hiring freeze has delayed bringing on more than 100 civilian housing specialists.
Meanwhile, funding may be the biggest challenge for the initiative, according to presentations this week at the Modern Day Marine expo in Washington, D.C. If Congress does not allocate enough money in the next several years -- a total price tag of roughly $11 billion -- Barracks 2030 could get pushed into the 2040s, long after most current junior Marines have left the barracks.
Read Next: GOP House Chairman Asks Justice Department to Investigate Top Biden VA Officials
"There are still many areas where our Marines -- for the next year or two -- will not live in conditions that we want them to, but we are actively getting after," said Maj. Gen. Jason Woodworth, head of Marine Corps Installations Command, or MCICOM, who also oversees the service's facilities. "That's why it's going to take us to 2037 if fully funded" to get facilities where they need to be.
While Marine Corps officials said barracks conditions were improving, they have not been adequate homes in recent years for Marines. As of March 2023, 17,000 Marines were living in substandard housing, according to a Government Accountability Report that year, citing information from service leaders.
Military.com reported early last year that Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, California, had a pilot program where eight staff noncommissioned officers moved into the barracks "for the purpose of advocacy, mentorship, and the maintenance of good order and discipline for all residents," Maj. John Parry, a spokesperson for MCICOM, said at the time.
It was likened to a resident adviser program, such as those common at universities, and mirrors a similar Navy program. But more than a year later, that program may be in jeopardy because of a legal issue revolving around how many entitlements those staff NCOs would receive under the initiative.
"We ran into some legality issues," Eric Mason, the unaccompanied housing team lead for MCICOM, said Tuesday during a presentation at the expo. "It seems that our Marine Corps legal team doesn't see things the way the Navy sees them, meaning that if we have a senior or staff personnel that lives in the barracks that are getting [basic allowance for housing], it requires them to have two entitlements. And we couldn't get behind that. So our legal team is still looking at how we do this."
Another such initiative was to replace Marine barracks managers with trained civilians. Previously, young Marines were charged with handling barracks, from managing repair requests to in-processing newcomers into housing, juggling those difficult responsibilities with their military duties.
Now, Mason said the service has hired and trained 347 civilians across the fleet whose sole focus is to manage the day-to-day operations of the barracks. That took 532 enlisted Marines off the hook for those responsibilities, according to Mason's presentation.
The Pentagon's recent hiring freeze under the Trump administration has delayed the staffing of 115 of those civilian barracks managers who were supposed to be onboarded in February, Mason said. He said the service plans to hire those individuals once the freeze is lifted.
"How do we measure success at the end of 2037, or 2045, or however long we go to, how do we measure if [the] Barracks 2030 initiative was successful?" Mason said.
Tracking progress data was one way to identify the program's outcomes, Mason said, but he added that another litmus test will be to gauge how Marines feel about the barracks being their "home."
"No Marines identify barracks as home," he said. "When you start hearing Marines say I am going to my home, and they're referring to barracks, I think that's a great way to measure" the program's success.
Mason could not provide an exact number of how many Marines are currently living in substandard housing, but said "that [17,000] number has decreased and will continue to decrease" as the service works to fulfill its initiative, hopefully by the mid-2030s.
Much of that progress relies on steady funding from Congress. Mason said that "if, for some reason, God forbid, we don't get all the money we're asking for, then we have a backup plan, an alternate plan, which takes [us] out to about 2045, 2043, depending on how much we end up getting."
Meanwhile, the service has poured the facilities money it currently has into barracks renovations as well as programs and systems in the near term.
In 2023, MCICOM saw to it that installations began using QR codes to generate barracks maintenance requests. By the fall of that year, the division began developing a program called QSRMax that is meant to institutionalize the practice. Now, the system is getting 1,000 requests per week, officials said.
Officials added that a pilot program at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, South Carolina, will begin soon allowing Marines to use their Common Access Card, or CAC, to enter their barracks instead of having to rely on key cards that may get lost more frequently.
Last spring, the service completed a massive wall-to-wall inspection of more than 60,000 barracks rooms around the world. A year later, the Marine Corps has not released the results of that effort, but Maj. Jose Castillo, an official with MCICOM, said it has directly informed their efforts.
Common trends that officials saw included "water intrusions," meaning plumbing issues and leaks, ventilation and security concerns regarding broken locks, for example.
Castillo and other officials said the Marine Corps has contracted the Urban Collaborative LLC design firm to collect data on the entire Marine Corps portfolio of unaccompanied housing and provide the service with data in the next year or so.
"This is going to tell us what barracks we need to keep, what barracks we need to refurbish or renovate, and what barracks we simply need to get rid of," Mason said.
The company did not immediately return Military.com's request for an interview on Wednesday.
Service leaders have admitted barracks fell by the wayside during the Global War on Terrorism. Poor conditions such as squatters, mold, vermin, ventilation issues and general dilapidation became common.
"The idea is not to fix it and forget it. It's to fix it directly and then maintain it," Lt. Gen. James Adams III, the deputy commandant for programs and resources, said on Tuesday. "Because, quite frankly, we got ourselves in the position we're in now because we didn't fix it and we did forget it."
Related: Marine Corps Says Half of Barracks Had Issues, Though Only 118 Marines Moved, After Worldwide Inspection
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Boston Globe
an hour ago
- Boston Globe
Trump's tariffs could pay for his tax cuts -- but it likely wouldn't be much of a bargain
The Congressional Budget Office, the government's nonpartisan arbiter of tax and spending matters, says the One Big Beautiful Bill, passed by the House last month and now under consideration in the Senate, would increase federal budget deficits by $2.4 trillion over the next decade. That is because its tax cuts would drain the government's coffers faster than its spending cuts would save money. By bringing in revenue for the Treasury, on the other hand, the tariffs that Trump announced through May 13 — including his so-called reciprocal levies of up to 50% on countries with which the United States has a trade deficit — would offset the budget impact of the tax-cut bill and reduce deficits over the next decade by $2.5 trillion. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up So it's basically a wash. Advertisement That's the budget math anyway. The real answer is more complicated. Actually using tariffs to finance a big chunk of the federal government would be a painful and perilous undertaking, budget wonks say. 'It's a very dangerous way to try to raise revenue,' said Kent Smetters of the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Wharton Budget Model, who served in President George W. Bush's Treasury Department. Trump has long advocated tariffs as an economic elixir. He says they can protect American industries, bring factories back to the United States, give him leverage to win concessions over foreign governments — and raise a lot of money. He's even suggested that they could replace the federal income tax, which now brings in about half of federal revenue. Advertisement 'It's possible we'll do a complete tax cut,'' he told reporters in April. 'I think the tariffs will be enough to cut all of the income tax.'' Economists and budget analysts do not share the president's enthusiasm for using tariffs to finance the government or to replace other taxes. 'It's a really bad trade,'' said Erica York, the Tax Foundation's vice president of federal tax policy. 'It's perhaps the dumbest tax reform you could design.'' For one thing, Trump's tariffs are an unstable source of revenue. He bypassed Congress and imposed his biggest import tax hikes through executive orders. That means a future president could simply reverse them. 'Or political whims in Congress could change, and they could decide, 'Hey, we're going revoke this authority because we don't think it's a good thing that the president can just unilaterally impose a $2 trillion tax hike,' '' York said. Or the courts could kill his tariffs before Congress or future presidents do. A federal court in New York has already struck down the centerpiece of his tariff program — the reciprocal and other levies he announced on what he called 'Liberation Day'' April 2 — saying he'd overstepped his authority. An appeals court has allowed the government to keep collecting the levies while the legal challenge winds its way through the court system. Economists also say that tariffs damage the economy. They are a tax on foreign products, paid by importers in the United States and usually passed along to their customers via higher prices. They raise costs for U.S. manufacturers that rely on imported raw materials, components and equipment, making them less competitive than foreign rivals that don't have to pay Trump's tariffs. Advertisement Tariffs also invite retaliatory taxes on U.S. exports by foreign countries. Indeed, the European Union this week threatened 'countermeasures'' against Trump's unexpected move to raise his tariff on foreign steel and aluminum to 50%. 'You're not just getting the effect of a tax on the U.S. economy,' York said. 'You're also getting the effect of foreign taxes on U.S. exports.'' She said the tariffs will basically wipe out all economic benefits from the One Big Beautiful Bill's tax cuts. Smetters at the Penn Wharton Budget Model said that tariffs also isolate the United States and discourage foreigners from investing in its economy. Foreigners see U.S. Treasurys as a super-safe investment and now own about 30% of the federal government's debt. If they cut back, the federal government would have to pay higher interest rates on Treasury debt to attract a smaller number of potential investors domestically. Higher borrowing costs and reduced investment would wallop the economy, making tariffs the most economically destructive tax available, Smetters said — more than twice as costly in reduced economic growth and wages as what he sees as the next-most damaging: the tax on corporate earnings. Tariffs also hit the poor hardest. They end up being a tax on consumers, and the poor spend more of their income than wealthier people do. Even without the tariffs, the One Big Beautiful Bill slams the poorest because it makes deep cuts to federal food programs and to Medicaid, which provides health care to low-income Americans. After the bill's tax and spending cuts, an analysis by the Penn Wharton Budget Model found, the poorest fifth of American households earning less than $17,000 a year would see their incomes drop by $820 next year. The richest 0.1% earning more than $4.3 million a year would come out ahead by $390,070 in 2026. Advertisement 'If you layer a regressive tax increase like tariffs on top of that, you make a lot of low- and middle-income households substantially worse off,'' said the Tax Foundation's York. Overall, she said, tariffs are 'a very unreliable source of revenue for the legal reasons, the political reasons as well as the economic reasons. They're a very, very inefficient way to raise revenue. If you raise a dollar of a revenue with tariffs, that's going to cause a lot more economic harm than raising revenue any other way.''
San Francisco Chronicle
an hour ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Here's what to know about American Samoans in Alaska who are being prosecuted after trying to vote
WHITTIER, Alaska (AP) — FOR MOVEMENT AT 9 A.M. EASTERN ON SATURDAY, 6/7. WITH VOTING-AMERICAN SAMOANS MAINBAR. They were born on U.S. soil, are entitled to U.S. passports and allowed to serve in the U.S. military, but 11 people in a small Alaska town are facing criminal charges after they tried to participate in a fundamental part of American democracy: voting. The defendants, who range in age from their 20s to their 60s, were all born in American Samoa — the only U.S. territory where residents are not automatically granted citizenship at birth. Prosecutors say they falsely claimed American citizenship when registering or trying to vote. The cases are highlighting another side of the debate over exaggerated allegations of voting by noncitizens, as well as what it means to be born on American soil, as President Donald Trump tries to redefine birthright citizenship by ending it for children of people who are in the country illegally. Here's what to know about the prosecutions in Alaska and the status of American Samoans when it comes to voting. What is the Alaska case about? The investigation began after Tupe Smith, a mom in the cruise-ship stop of Whittier, decided to run for a vacant seat on the regional school board in 2023. She was unopposed and won with about 95% of the vote. That's when she learned she wasn't allowed to hold public office because she wasn't a U.S. citizen. Smith says she knew she wasn't allowed to vote in federal elections but thought she could vote in local or state races, and that she never would have voted if she knew it wasn't legal. She says she told elections workers that she was a U.S. national, not a citizen, and was told to check a box saying she was a citizen anyway. About 10 months later, troopers returned to Whittier and issued court summonses to her husband and nine other American Samoans. While Smith appeals the charges against her, the state filed charges against the others in April. The state argues that Smith's false claim of citizenship was intentional, and her claim to the contrary was undercut by the clear language on the voter application forms she filled out in 2020 and 2022. The forms said that if the applicant did not answer yes to being over 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, 'do not complete this form, as you are not eligible to vote.' Why can't American Samoans vote in the U.S.? The 14th Amendment to the Constitution promises U.S. citizenship to those born on U.S. soil and subject to its jurisdiction. American Samoa has been U.S. soil since 1900, when several of its chiefs ceded their land and vowed allegiance to the United States. For that reason, Smith's lawyers argue, American Samoans must be recognized as U.S. citizens by birthright, and they should be allowed to vote in the U.S. But the islands' residents have never been so considered — Congress declined to extend birthright citizenship to American Samoa in the 1930s — and many American Samoans don't want it. They worry that it would disrupt their cultural practices, including communal land ownership. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cited that in 2021 when it declined to extend automatic citizenship to those born in American Samoa, saying it would be wrong to force citizenship on those who don't want it. The Supreme Court declined to review the decision. People born in all other U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam — are U.S. citizens. They can vote in U.S. elections if they move to a state. American Samoans can participate in local elections on American Samoa, including for a nonvoting representative in Congress. Have other states prosecuted American Samoans for trying to vote? Supporters of the American Samoans in Whittier have called the prosecutions unprecedented. One of Smith's attorneys, Neil Weare, suggested authorities are going after 'low-hanging fruit' in the absence of evidence that illegal immigrants frequently cast ballots in U.S. elections. Even state-level investigations have found voting by noncitizens to be exceptionally rare. In Oregon, officials inadvertently registered nearly 200 American Samoan residents to vote when they got their driver's licenses under the state's motor-voter law. Of those, 10 cast ballots in an election, according to the Oregon Secretary of State's office, but officials found they did not intend to break the law and no crime was committed. In Hawaii, one resident who was born in American Samoa, Sai Timoteo, ran for the state Legislature in 2018 before learning she wasn't allowed to hold public office or vote. She also avoided charges. Is there any legislation to fix this? American Samoans can become U.S. citizens — a requirement not just for voting, but for certain jobs, such as those that require a security clearance. However, the process can be costly and cumbersome. Given that many oppose automatic citizenship, the territory's nonvoting representative in Congress, Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, has introduced legislation that would streamline the naturalization of American Samoans who do wish to become U.S. citizens. The bill would allow U.S. nationals in outlying U.S. territories — that is, American Samoa — to be naturalized without relocating to one of the U.S. states. It would also allow the Department of Homeland Security to waive personal interviews of U.S. nationals as part of the process and to reduce fees for them. ___ Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska, and Johnson from Seattle.
Hamilton Spectator
an hour ago
- Hamilton Spectator
Here's what to know about American Samoans in Alaska who are being prosecuted after trying to vote
WHITTIER, Alaska (AP) — FOR MOVEMENT AT 9 A.M. EASTERN ON SATURDAY, 6/7. WITH VOTING-AMERICAN SAMOANS MAINBAR. They were born on U.S. soil, are entitled to U.S. passports and allowed to serve in the U.S. military, but 11 people in a small Alaska town are facing criminal charges after they tried to participate in a fundamental part of American democracy: voting. The defendants, who range in age from their 20s to their 60s, were all born in American Samoa — the only U.S. territory where residents are not automatically granted citizenship at birth. Prosecutors say they falsely claimed American citizenship when registering or trying to vote. The cases are highlighting another side of the debate over exaggerated allegations of voting by noncitizens , as well as what it means to be born on American soil, as President Donald Trump tries to redefine birthright citizenship by ending it for children of people who are in the country illegally. Here's what to know about the prosecutions in Alaska and the status of American Samoans when it comes to voting. What is the Alaska case about? The investigation began after Tupe Smith, a mom in the cruise-ship stop of Whittier, decided to run for a vacant seat on the regional school board in 2023. She was unopposed and won with about 95% of the vote. That's when she learned she wasn't allowed to hold public office because she wasn't a U.S. citizen. Smith says she knew she wasn't allowed to vote in federal elections but thought she could vote in local or state races, and that she never would have voted if she knew it wasn't legal. She says she told elections workers that she was a U.S. national, not a citizen, and was told to check a box saying she was a citizen anyway. About 10 months later, troopers returned to Whittier and issued court summonses to her husband and nine other American Samoans. While Smith appeals the charges against her, the state filed charges against the others in April. The state argues that Smith's false claim of citizenship was intentional, and her claim to the contrary was undercut by the clear language on the voter application forms she filled out in 2020 and 2022. The forms said that if the applicant did not answer yes to being over 18 years old and a U.S. citizen, 'do not complete this form, as you are not eligible to vote.' Why can't American Samoans vote in the U.S.? The 14th Amendment to the Constitution promises U.S. citizenship to those born on U.S. soil and subject to its jurisdiction. American Samoa has been U.S. soil since 1900, when several of its chiefs ceded their land and vowed allegiance to the United States. For that reason, Smith's lawyers argue, American Samoans must be recognized as U.S. citizens by birthright, and they should be allowed to vote in the U.S. But the islands' residents have never been so considered — Congress declined to extend birthright citizenship to American Samoa in the 1930s — and many American Samoans don't want it. They worry that it would disrupt their cultural practices, including communal land ownership. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cited that in 2021 when it declined to extend automatic citizenship to those born in American Samoa, saying it would be wrong to force citizenship on those who don't want it. The Supreme Court declined to review the decision. People born in all other U.S. territories — Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam — are U.S. citizens. They can vote in U.S. elections if they move to a state. American Samoans can participate in local elections on American Samoa, including for a nonvoting representative in Congress. Have other states prosecuted American Samoans for trying to vote? Supporters of the American Samoans in Whittier have called the prosecutions unprecedented. One of Smith's attorneys, Neil Weare, suggested authorities are going after 'low-hanging fruit' in the absence of evidence that illegal immigrants frequently cast ballots in U.S. elections. Even state-level investigations have found voting by noncitizens to be exceptionally rare. In Oregon, officials inadvertently registered nearly 200 American Samoan residents to vote when they got their driver's licenses under the state's motor-voter law. Of those, 10 cast ballots in an election, according to the Oregon Secretary of State's office, but officials found they did not intend to break the law and no crime was committed. In Hawaii, one resident who was born in American Samoa, Sai Timoteo, ran for the state Legislature in 2018 before learning she wasn't allowed to hold public office or vote. She also avoided charges. Is there any legislation to fix this? American Samoans can become U.S. citizens — a requirement not just for voting, but for certain jobs, such as those that require a security clearance. However, the process can be costly and cumbersome. Given that many oppose automatic citizenship, the territory's nonvoting representative in Congress, Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen, has introduced legislation that would streamline the naturalization of American Samoans who do wish to become U.S. citizens. The bill would allow U.S. nationals in outlying U.S. territories — that is, American Samoa — to be naturalized without relocating to one of the U.S. states. It would also allow the Department of Homeland Security to waive personal interviews of U.S. nationals as part of the process and to reduce fees for them. ___ Bohrer reported from Juneau, Alaska, and Johnson from Seattle. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
