Some Air Force officials are concerned by the service’s innovative deployment model, a new government watchdog report revealed, with some wing and command leaders saying the idea leaves bases short-staffed and under-resourced and creates logistical headaches for home bases.

The Air Force Force Generation model, referred to as AFFORGEN, was unveiled last year as a revolutionary way to train, rest and move forces for deployments. But a probe by the Government Accountability Office revealed in a report last week that the plan “continues to face a variety of ongoing challenges” and has triggered worries from officials at multiple bases and major commands.

Guidance on how to implement the new deployment model with Air Combat Command, Air Force Global Strike Command and Air Mobility Command was described as “policy by PowerPoint presentations and emails,” characterized as a “concept ahead of Air Force processes” or lambasted as “speed of change faster than speed of communication,” the report detailed.

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The AFFORGEN deployment model was touted by the Department of the Air Force as a major change “for the first time in more than 20 years.” Prior to the new model, the service would deploy airmen for six months at a time, followed by approximately 12 months back at their home base.

That old rotational model meant the service was bringing people from a variety of bases together for a deployment, often not providing time for those airmen to train together. The new model is aiming for more cohesion, hoping to pull units that already have some familiarity with one another from their home bases.

But deploying all that manpower from one place presents growing pains, according to officials interviewed for the GAO report.

Officials from the 5th Bomb Wing at Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota, “expressed concerns that the AFFORGEN process requires the use of whole units for deployments, which could degrade the wing’s ability to support its home base,” the report said.

Other testimony in the report from officials at Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina, said that providing the people required during a deployment last year “would have led to the closure of three out of seven gates at the base due to insufficient numbers of remaining personnel to staff them” and added that “the Air Force later reduced its request for personnel.”

Katherine Kuzminski, the director of the military, veterans and society program at the Center for a New American Security think tank, told Military.com that it’s often a balancing act — juggling requirements for combatant commanders and the joint force, as well as needs within the service itself — and that isn’t easy.

“The underlying challenge is that the demand for Air Force assets continues to grow at a time when force structure is relatively stable and the services are facing a tough recruiting environment,” Kuzminski told Military.com. “The trade-offs are thus either short staffing or burnout and impacts to readiness.”

The GAO suggested completing “a service-wide assessment of U.S. Air Force base minimum staffing needs,” as well as assessing “potential gaps and risks associated with reduced in-garrison support for base-related missions,” among other recommendations in the report.

Lt. Col. Phillip Ventura, an Air Force spokesman, told Military.com in an emailed statement Tuesday that “we are neither slowing down nor attempting to implement a perfect solution,” but that the Department of the Air Force is “testing concepts, listening to feedback from the field, and iterating in real-time.”

Ventura added that many of the GAO recommendations are already in the works within the department.

“The Department of the Air Force agrees with the substantive findings within GAO’s report,” Ventura said. “As those who read it will find, our organizations are largely aligned in understanding the threat and need for change. Ours is a fast-moving effort, and we were already moving out on most of the recommendations even as the report was being written.”

He added that AFFORGEN will be “tailored to specific unit and command needs.”

The latest watchdog report marks the second major Department of the Air Force initiative to be caught under the GAO’s magnifying glass. A probe into the ongoing ambitious reorganization plan designed to keep the Air Force and Space Force competitive against China was completed in September, but was deemed not releasable.

Though Gen. David Allvin, the Air Force chief of staff, told reporters at a Military Reporters and Editors Conference in October that he “was very, very pleased” by the results of the earlier probe, those findings have still not been made public by the GAO or the service.

Soon, the Department of the Air Force will likely have new civilian leadership under President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration.

While some government watchdogs and defense policy experts previously voiced concern to Military.com over whether the plans established under Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall’s tenure will have staying power, Kuzminski said that uniformed leadership will continue to carry on those plans from one administration to the next.

“What the GAO’s findings in both of these cases presents is a clear list of areas for improvement from new Air Force civilian leadership — but it’s also important to emphasize the uniformed (nonpartisan and thus not tied to any specific administration) role in informing and leading any kind of transformation,” she said.

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