Federal funding snarl hurting Arizona contractors, Sinema told

The months-long delay in passing the fiscal 2022 federal budget is posing challenges for government contractors, including the University of Arizona and local defense firms, Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema was told at a roundtable discussion at the UA last week.

Sinema, who took a tour of the UA’s recently expanded and upgraded wind-tunnel facility, said she expects Congress to pass the budget for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 within the next couple of weeks, before the latest in a series of stopgap funding resolutions expires March 11.

“We’re going to get it done,” Sinema said at a discussion focused on defense and aerospace issues. “They’ve been jerking around with it for months and months and months, but I actually think this next time is the real one — only six months late.”

That couldn’t come soon enough for folks like Roberto Furfaro, professor in the UA Department of Systems and Industrial Engineering and a UA team leader for NASA’s NEO Surveyor project to map hazardous objects across the solar system.

Furfaro said his UA team is still on track, but the lack of a budget makes it very difficult to forecast costs and could potentially delay the mission now set for 2026.

“It costs taxpayers money, and we risk losing people on the team,” he said.

Shai Patel of Sargent Aerospace & Defense in Marana said that as a parts subcontractor to major defense contractors, the company often gets last-minute orders for complex, engineered parts because of uncertainty over program funding.

Founded locally in 1980, Sargent makes precision components like hydraulic parts and valves for programs including Lockheed Martin’s F-35 stealth fighter jet and employs about 400 workers.

“In order for us to get in tooled up, get people in place, there are a lot of moving parts and pieces, and in many cases we struggle and we can’t do it,” Patel said. “So we’re trying to talk with people we know in government and in different industries to understand, hey, what are the priorities, what do the funding profiles look like? Because if we have a good feeling that things will get funded, or move forward, oftentimes we’re willing to take the risk ourselves.”

Sinema said she would ask her staff to look into the issue and help develop ideas on how contractors could get a better sense of the funding picture for specific programs without violating current rules.

Backing hypersonics

The senator said she was proud to support the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2022 including keeping the A-10 ground-attack jet flying at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and “lots of money for hypersonic capabilities.”

The Pentagon and defense contractors including Tucson-based Raytheon Missiles & Defense are scrambling to catch up with China and Russia on development of a new generation of hypersonic missiles, which can fly at speeds topping Mach 5 and maneuver at low altitudes to evade interception.

The UA is working with Raytheon and the Defense Department on accelerating hypersonics research with the help of federal and state funding of more than $10 million to expand its hypersonic and subsonic wind tunnel facilities on campus.

UA associate professor Jesse Little, director of the UA Turbulence and Flow Control Laboratory, said the wind-tunnel expansion and upgrades have vaulted the UA to among the top schools for hypersonics research.

“We have plans continue to expand — we want to do more things we’re doing well now and enhance those capabilities to do more,” said Little, who with colleague Alex Craig has led projects to upgrade new wind tunnels while expanding the capabilities of its existing equipment.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

Misty Holmes, who leads Raytheon’s advanced technology business-development effort including hypersonics, thanked Sinema for her support of hypersonic missile research.

“We’re moving very aggressively to develop hypersonics, unfortunately, I think it’s well-known that we’re not moving quite as fast nationally as our adversaries, so we want to really increase those university and industrial-base partnerships,” Holmes said.

Sinema, a Tucson native whose father is a Raytheon/Hughes Aircraft retiree, said hypersonics is one of her funding priorities.

“Many of our adversaries have pretty advanced technologies and I want to make sure we’re catching up,” she said.

Finding workers

Several roundtable participants said they face ongoing challenges in attracting talented employees including skilled blue-collar workers like machinists.

Sargent’s Patel said the company works with a local industrial partnership with high schools to train and certify students in machinist and related skilled jobs, but despite stepped-up efforts that’s still a challenge and the company typically has 40 to 60 open positions.

“In addition to that, young kids that are coming out of college that want to go to big cities, that kind of thing,” Patel said, wondering if a national-level approach might help.

Sinema said improving infrastructure in Tucson and across Arizona could help the city and state compete for business and workers nationally, citing her co-sponsorship with Ohio Republican Sen. Rob Portman on an amendment that became the Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act.

The infrastructure bill, signed into law in November, includes $550 million in new federal spending on transportation, bridges, water systems, broadband internet and electric-vehicle charging networks.

“It’s my goal to make sure that we’re investing in the future and whether it’s broadband or roads or bridges, that we’re continuing to build the infrastructure that will be attractive to the kind of talent we need,” Sinema said.

Sinema noted that Tucson International Airport is getting more than $30 million from the infrastructure funding bill, under a formula that applies to all airports based on their size.

But TIA can also apply for additional, competitive funds under the infrastructure act, and Sinema said her office is already working with the Tucson Airport Authority to identify those funding opportunities and provide technical assistance.

“As the chair of the aviation subcommittee in Congress, this is a top priority for me, and I know it’s a priority for Arizona, and we’re a hub for tourism down in Southern Arizona, not only for recreation and for incredible science, but also for things like birding,” she said.

“We know that we’ve got to be competitive in our infrastructure, both on ground infrastructure as well as our ports of entry in our airports, so that people want to continue to come to Arizona.”