Airmen submitted more than 11,000 cost-reducing ideas during the Every Dollar Counts campaign, a month-long initiative that allowed airmen to recommend areas of savings for the Air Force, according to a service release. Of those recommendations, 38 percent had to do with personnel policy, 23 percent involved logistics and installation support, and 11 percent dealt with changes in information technology, according to the June 5 release. “Today’s fiscal constraints are the tightest our Air Force has experienced in many years,” wrote Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Larry Spencer in a June 5 letter thanking airmen for their ideas. “Your overwhelming response during the Airmen Powered by Innovation Call for Ideas has emboldened us all with confidence that our Air Force will persevere through these tough times and emerge a more effective and efficient fighting force for America.”
A three-month continuing resolution that ended in December inflicted less pain on the Department of the Air Force than it had expected, as procurement and construction continue in the new year. The federal government operated under a stopgap spending measure that stretched from the beginning of the fiscal year on…