Colorado lawmakers are calling to boost funding for civilian staff at the Air Force Academy in a letter to the secretary of the Air Force. 

Democratic Sen. John Hickenlooper and Republican Rep. Jeff Crank are asking for $10 million from unobligated operations and maintenance funds within the Department of the Air Force to help cover the civilian pay shortfall at the Air Force Academy. 

“We do not question the need for prudent resource management or responsiveness to fiscal constraints,” the lawmakers said in a joint letter. “But we caution that sweeping civilian staff cuts, implemented on abbreviated timelines, risk disrupting academic continuity, increasing class sizes, shrinking course offerings, eroding accreditation in technical disciplines, and undermining cadet learning outcomes.”

The money is meant to help bridge a funding gap and make staffing decisions taking into account course enrollment, departmental needs and other factors, the letter said. 

“To be clear, our request is not a demand to block all restructuring; rather, it is an effort to preserve institutional stability while change is considered,” the letter said. 

While the advocates welcomed the news, they noted that ongoing funding, rather than one-time money is needed to restore positions and help rebuild staff. 

An Air Force Academy climate survey done in October and shared with The Gazette during January showed that the number of people serving under the dean of faculty in all roles fell from 895 last year to 759 this year, or about 136 positions. The number included contractors, research technicians and various support roles and it was not a perfect estimate of the number of departures.

Teaching staff and others left the academy amid the Trump administration’s push for retirements and resignations during 2025 that coincided with a budget shortfall for civilian pay at the school. 

Some academic departments have lost one or two faculty members, while others are expected to lose up to 14 people by the upcoming fall semester, said a professor who spoke on the condition of anonymity. 

The professor expected an additional $10 million annually could restore an additional 40 to 45 positions. But he would like to see an ongoing commitment to funding staff rather than a one-time Band-Aid. 

The staff cuts were also highlighted in the academy’s Board of Visitors’ semiannual report to the secretary of defense, which called for an audit of the current faculty to determine if the school is properly staffed and to determine how many more staff are needed to increase enrollment from about 4,000 cadets to 4,400.

The academy’s enrollment was reduced because of budget cuts and increasing it again would bring it into parity with the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and the Naval Academy, the report said.  

Rebuilding the Air Force Academy’s staff after the cuts will take some time, in part because hiring cycles for colleges and universities tend to be long. Generally, interviews for open positions happen in the winter, offers are sent out in the spring and new faculty members are onboarded over the summer ahead of the fall semester, the professor said. 

So new money for civilian staff set aside this spring could be too late for the next school year, he said. 

The school also needs to work on its climate and commitment to education, said Tom Bewley, a former visiting professor at the academy who worked in mechanical engineering. 

“Money alone is not going to fix the problem,” he said, noting that a civilian provost could help provide needed continuity to the academic departments. The Air Force Institute of Technology has a civilian provost who fills this role, he explained.