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JMTC Commander discusses concerns for Arsenal workload declining

At a press conference Monday, December 8, 2014, the commander of the Rock Island Arsenal’s Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center addressed concerns ab...

At a press conference Monday, December 8, 2014, the commander of the Rock Island Arsenal's Joint Manufacturing and Technology Center addressed concerns about a decline in public-private partnerships.

"I know there have been some concerns over the past few days or months. There's been a drop in the public-private partnership over the past few years at the Rock Island Arsenal JMTC. While it has declined, it has always made up only one to three percent of our total workload throughout the last several years," said Colonel David Luders.

The partnerships have been seen as a way to bring money and jobs to the Arsenal as the military transitions out of war. But in the last two years, work from the public-private partnerships has declined by millions of dollars.

In the fiscal year 2012, they had $5.2 million dollars worth of work for private companies. In fiscal year 2013, that number went to $3.6 million and in fiscal year 2014, it dropped to $500,000.

"I definitely think this is going to work. There is a place for private-public partnerships. There's just certain elements that have to be brought together and stabilizing our rate is part of that," said Col. Luders.

The rates the Arsenal charges private companies for work is set by the Army and depends on how much workload JMTC has. The less work, the higher the rate.

"As your workload goes down, you still have this many people you have to pay, so you have to recover that cost somewhere, so the way you recover that cost is increase your rate," said Rhys Fullerlove, Public Affairs Officer for JMTC.

"In the past, our rates were such that they were not stable, which caused certain commercial industries to get nervous with us, because one time our rate will be competitive, and the next time our rate will go high, partly because of the decrease in the amount of workload that we have here in the Arsenal in the past," said Col. Luders.

$110 million that Congress appropriated for the Arsenal in June has helped stabilize the rates, allowing JMTC  to be more competitive.

For fiscal year 2015, JMTC is expecting $253 million in new orders for the overall workload. Traditionally, 1 to 3 percent of the overall workload comes from public-private partnerships. In fiscal year 2014, JMTC had $166 million in new orders. In 2008, they were at almost $400 million for the overall workload.

"Rock Island JMTC is here today and will be here tomorrow. With any business, there are cycles and although P3's haven't been as successful as everyone wants them to be, they're a portion of our business and we'll continue pushing that as our business grows," said Col. Luders.

Col. Luders says they are actively commercial business with private and public partnerships.

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