Incirlik commissary will not close an additional day

Published May 30, 2013
By Staff Sgt. Eric Summers Jr.
39th Air Base Wing Public Affairs

INCIRLIK AIR BASE, Turkey -- Base commissaries will be affected by furlough actions, but some more severely than others. The most visible change will be the closing of commissaries for an additional day. Incirlik Air Base is able to avoid the additional closure thanks to their high local national population, but minor changes will still occur.

"We have enough local nationals to operate the store so the direct impact to the Incirlik community is going to be minimal," said Aurthor Tellers, Incirlik Commissary store director.

Store staffs overseas include a mix of U.S. and local national employees. Because they are not U.S. government employees, local national employees are not subject to this furlough actions. Select locations overseas will open if they have an adequate local national staff. However, if an overseas store is closed, its local national staff will report to work and perform other store-related duties.

The announcement comes as the Defense Commissary Agency follows Department of Defense protocols related to the automatic federal government budget reductions, known as sequestration, which began March 1. Like most DOD activities, DeCA is mandated by DOD to furlough its civil service employees. Furlough notices are scheduled to be delivered to DeCA employees between May 28 and June 5.

The closures for affected commissaries will be for up to 11 days between July 8 and Sept. 30.

While the impact here will be minimal Incirlik members should be aware when traveling to another installation commissary operating days may be different.

In January, DOD released guidance to allow defense components to plan for potential budget cuts by reducing operating costs. In line with that direction, DeCA later executed the following budget-cutting measures, some of which could affect Incirlik in a less visible manner.

-- A hiring freeze on all outside hires;

-- Curtailment of official travel for all conferences, training, and any other events and activities considered noncritical to the agency's mission;

-- Cancellation of the agency's May Worldwide Case Lot Sales for all commissaries. Instead, stores are conducting smaller-scale events such as outdoor sidewalk sales;

-- Curtailment of all overtime and compensatory time unless deemed mission-critical;

-- Review of contract services to restrict any increases;

-- Curtailment of all monetary awards unless legally required; and

"We are in this together," Jeu said, "and though limited in our ability by circumstances we cannot control, I assure you we will do all we can to mitigate the impact of sequestration on our patrons, employees and industry partners, and on our mission."

Editor's note: Information in this article was taken from the "Commissaries plan for Monday furlough" written by Kevin Robinson, Defense Commissary Agency.