All of us are Taxpayers

  • Published
  • By Maj. Brian Hoybach
  • 92nd Comptroller Squadron commander
FAIRCHILD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. --  Besides all of us being assigned to Fairchild and members of the Air Force, we share something else in common. We all pay taxes. I don't know about you, but every month that I look at my leave and earnings statement, I pray the folks who are spending my tax dollars are using them for something important.

If you have had an assignment to the five-sided building in Arlington, Va., (or as my oldest son AJ who is a Harry Potter fan likes to say, "The place we shall not name") you may have heard of the Air Force Group, Board and Council. These members are involved in mapping out the future of the Air Force. Whether its force structure or fiscal decisions, these Air Force members decide where our taxpaying dollars are going to be spent.

Here at Fairchild we have a similar structure. The Financial Working Group is made up of Comptroller personnel and Group and Squadron Resource Advisors. Since we have finite resources and can't buy everything, these members tackle the fiscal issues and propose a roadmap of spending to the Financial Management Board. Fairchild's board is chaired by the Wing Commander and made up of the Group Commanders.

Since the Fiscal Year just closed out, I wanted to let you know some of the projects that we spent our tax dollars on. For those members with children at the Child Development Center, General Arthur Lichte, Air Mobility Command commander, gave us funds from his 'checkbook', so that we could upgrade the playground with fall zone cushion.

Additionally, his funds provided $140 thousand for Outdoor Recreation to "refresh" equipment that we can all check out. For those of you living in the dorms, we have funded four dorm renovation projects. For those of you working in the Control tower, you will be glad to know that we are replacing the decades old heating and cooling system. For those of you working on computers, we have funded a much needed communication technical refresh. For those of you who use the flight simulator, we are going to repair the leaky roof in that facility. For those of you who use the gym, and thanks to the civil engineers hard work, we are going to replace some trusses to keep the gym going until we get a new fitness center. For those of you in maintenance, we have funded additional fall arrest systems for the hangar (we have 2 bays complete, and we bought systems for the remaining two bays). For those men and woman who guard our gates and keep us safe, we have funded some much needed equipment shortfalls. For all of us who are involved with integrating with the 141st, we have funded a good portion of your requirements. These are just a few examples of what our tax dollars were spent on. With certainty, I know that our tax dollars were spent on every member of team Fairchild.

Fairchild received over 26 million dollars from Headquarters AMC during the last month of the fiscal year, and as a taxpayer, I feel that my tax dollars were well spent. So if you see something on base that needs to be fixed or bought and it's worth spending your tax dollars on, let your squadron leadership or Resource Advisor know so we can start tackling the funding process to make it happen.