The U.S. government shutdown that has frozen funding to “nonessential” government services is having a direct financial impact on University of Portland students in the Army ROTC program.
On Monday, Army cadets learned in an email sent out by Col. Matthew Little that they would not receive their stipends because of the shutdown.
“There is not authorized funding for their stipends,” Little told The Beacon.
Normally, the cadets receive a bimonthly stipend that gradually increases the longer the cadet is in the ROTC program. As of right now, they don’t know if the cadets will receive back pay.
According to senior Cadet Blaine Bradburn, the absent stipend isn’t the only source of stress. The shutdown is also affecting the Portland Battalion’s transportation to training and recruitment events.
“(The) stipend which is really a small part of how (the shutdown has) affected ROTC,” Bradburn said, “One of the bigger ways is how it’s affected some of our training.”
The U.S. government provides vans for the cadets to get to different training sites. Difficulties arise when the cadets try to coordinate transportation because a few of the cadets attend Portland State University. Because of the shutdown, they are not allowed to use the vans.
“So now we have to coordinate with just personal vehicles and getting people from different classes, different sides of campus, different campuses altogether, all at the same time,” Bradburn said. “It becomes a logistical nightmare, especially in this situation when we don’t have that much time to plan ahead.”
During the weekend of Nov. 15, Army ROTC has a field training planned at Camp Rilea on the Oregon coast. Without a congressional budget agreement, they have no way of getting the cadets there.
“The freshman cadets and the sophomore cadets would miss out on a huge opportunity and just learning about a bunch of stuff we do,” Bradburn said.
The junior cadets, also called MS3s, use the training at Camp Rilea to help them do well at the Leader Development and Assessment Course (LDAC). The LDAC is an evaluation that can determine what kind of job a cadet can get after graduation.
“If (cadets) miss out on training now, it will affect them then because they won’t have as much hands-on experience,” Bradburn said.
It’s not just the cadets who are being affected by lack of transportation.
“We have some vehicles we use to get around recruiting events. We are not able to use those vehicles. It has limited our operations,” Little said.
In addition to transportation and cadet stipends, the funds for ROTC scholarships have ended. This doesn’t affect cadets who already have their scholarships, but it does affect cadets who are still waiting for their scholarships or who could qualify.
“We are unable to commit more money,” Little said.
The government shutdown may also affect UP students in Air Force ROTC Detachment 695.
“We have heard from our headquarters that the stipend may be delayed for some of our cadets due to the government shutdown,” Maj. Stephan Cummings said in an email Wednesday night.
