Lawmakers urge colleagues to support provision protecting DFAS jobs in Rome

ROME, N.Y. — Three New York lawmakers are urging their Congressional colleagues to support a provision in a defense bill that would provide protections for more than 950 jobs at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) in Rome.

U.S. Senators Charles Schumer (D–N.Y.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D–N.Y.) and U.S. Representative Richard Hanna (R–Barneveld) are urging members of the Armed Services Committee in both chambers of Congress to preserve language in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that the House has already approved.

The NDAA provision provides “additional protections” for DFAS that the lawmakers hope the bill’s final version for fiscal year 2015 will include.

Gillibrand’s office highlighted the lawmakers’ concern in a news release distributed on Friday.

The House and Senate Armed Services Committees are working to agree on legislative language before the bill goes to the Senate floor so it can move with “less opposition,” the lawmakers said.

The House bill, passed in May 2014, includes language that requires a briefing by the Department of Defense (DoD) regarding any process that could alter activities that DFAS carries out.

The request follows the U.S. Army’s preliminary discussions that “could impact more than 950 jobs in Rome,” according to the news release.

Schumer, Gillibrand, and Hanna are pushing to include the House-passed language from legislation that ensures continued Congressional oversight over any Department of Defense activity that would alter DFAS’s structure. 

The Senate has not yet passed its version of the NDAA.

More than 950 DFAS employees in Rome earlier this year became concerned that their largest customer, the U.S. Army, would be “restructuring and internalizing a large portion” of DFAS’s functions. Their concerns are related to the Army’s new enterprise-management system that seeks to make financial management more “auditable and efficient,” according to the lawmakers’ news release.

Calling DFAS “cost-effective, productive and efficient,” Schumer said he’ll look for opportunities to ensure the jobs are “as secure as possible, including through legislation,” Schumer said in the news release.

“That is why I am urging the Armed Services Committees to preserve language in the final Defense Authorization bill that would institute much-needed protections for DFAS and its 950 employees in Rome,” said Schumer.

DFAS Rome employees have “consistently” proven their ability to work “very efficiently,” Hanna contended in the news release. “The House voted overwhelmingly to maintain transparency and accountability in these processes. Congress simply must maintain its oversight role and provide a voice for the Mohawk Valley in any future discussions,” said Hanna.

The Pentagon created the Defense Finance and Accounting Service in 1991 to standardize and improve accounting and financial operations for DoD.

It provides payroll services for DoD military and civilian personnel, retirees and other major contractors and vendors. 

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com