The Idaho National Guard holds a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate the grand opening of its first free child care center at Gowen Field on June 8, 2024. (Joseph Morgan/U.S. Air National Guard photo)
The yearlong continuing resolution that is funding the Pentagon for fiscal 2025 has slowed the building of new barracks and child care centers, top enlisted service members said Tuesday.
The stopgap measure passed by Congress last month to fund the federal government through September at essentially the same amounts as in fiscal 2024 has already impacted the military, and it could get worse, according to the most senior enlisted members of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and Space Force. The top enlisted troops testified on military quality-of-life issues before the House Appropriations Committee’s military construction subpanel as it begins building a fiscal 2026 budget plan.
“The loss of the FY25 budget in [the continuing resolution] did have a lot of effects on us — we’re not putting shovels in the ground to build new barracks, we’re not putting shovels in the ground to build new [child development centers],” Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy James Honea said. “All of those things … we’re not getting any of that work done this year, so hopefully we’ll find good money in [2026] to get after all those projects.”
Though Congress can add some funds for specific projects to continuing resolutions, military services are typically unable to start new projects that had not been previously funded without an appropriated budget. The 12-month continuing resolution that the federal government is now operating under is the longest in U.S. history.
Projects to upgrade on-post day care centers at Patrick Space Force Base, Fla., and Peterson Space Force Base, Colo., could be axed or significantly delayed under the continuing resolution, Chief Master Sgt. of the Space Force John Bentivegna said. A dorm improvement project at Buckley Space Force Base, Colo., is also at risk, he said.
“This is why the stability of funding is so important to the planning phase, to execute, especially when it comes to quality-of-life initiatives, to make sure we stay on time, on target, to deliver that quality of life to our service members,” Bentivegna said, noting Space Force has operated under a continuing resolution for more than 51% of the time since its founding in 2019.
The 2025 continuing resolution came as the Pentagon has spent years trying to improve quality of life for its troops, especially in on-post housing where issues such as mold and pest infestations have plagued installation barracks and family housing. While all the services have committed to improving on-post housing, the enlisted leaders said appropriated funding from Congress is critical to ensuring they can do so in a timely manner.
The stopgap funding measure has also limited other quality-of-life issues, including a drop in military personnel funding in the Air Force, the service’s top enlisted airman told lawmakers.
The Air Force has prioritized funneling as much money as it can into recruiting. The service has added nearly 500 recruiters in the past year after falling short of its enlistment goals in 2023, Chief Master Sgt. of the Air Force David Flosi said.
The effort has paid off — the service reached its 2024 recruiting goal and is on pace to meet its 2025 goal, he said. But it has left a funding gap that will likely affect units on rotations for training or combat and individual airmen who will change their home station this year.
“CRs are unhelpful,” Flosi said, adding later, “We’re thankful for a yearlong CR, I guess, only [in comparison] to a government shutdown.”
House appropriators agreed the yearlong continuing resolution was a problem.
“We don’t like CRs. We know you don’t like them. We don’t like them either,” said Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, the subpanel’s chairman. “The best work is done by the appropriations committee in Congress. We’re the only people who get things done and then they throw us out like the trash” and pass a continuing resolution.
The services should ensure their upcoming fiscal 2026 budget requests fully reflect those quality-of-life programs that have been impacted by recent continuing resolutions, said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, the subpanel’s top Democrat.
“We cannot backtrack and sideline these types of projects,” she said. “Even great plans to improve quality of life will fail if they are not accompanied by appropriate funding. Moreover, I hope the FY26 budget request, when we get it, contains a robust request for quality-of-life projects.”
