Cascade County Commissioners voted unanimously during their Sept. 9 meeting to accept a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation to fund a temporary community installation liaison for the Sentinel project.

The community economic adjustment assistance for advance planning grant provides $179,949 with a $20,058 in-kind county match over 18 months.

The grant includes six deliverables to be completed by March 2027:

• a communications strategy plan
• a community readiness implementation plan
• develop a community infrastructure priority needs list for the Sentinel project
• create informative briefing materials pertaining to the grant scope during the grant term
• formalize the Central Montana Defense Coalition Sentinel Project Task Force
• develop and implement a performance measure reporting system

The grant will fund a temporary full-time Cascade County employee who will report directly to the commission as well as most of the travel and other expenses associated with the effort.

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Commissioner Joe Briggs said that the county will manage the grant, but it will focus on all of the counties, cities and entities within the Malmstrom Air Force Base missile field.

Other than Cascade and Lewis and Clark counties, the others included in the Malmstrom missile field are “rural counties with small populations and constrained resources that will make their ability to manage the significant impacts of the modernization very difficult,” according to the county staff report.

The county position will work with Lt. Col. John Mayer, who earlier this year, assumed command of the Sentinel Site Activation Task Force, Detachment 11, which was established in April.

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The grant “supports Cascade County, Montana, and regional partners to coordinate the necessary adjustments to local public services and infrastructure for the Sentinel system at Malmstrom AFB and its missile field. This initial effort will enhance the lines of communication between the missile field counties, local government entities and the Air Force in support of the [Secretary of Defense] priority to modernize the nuclear triad, ensuring strategic deterrence and rapid global strike capabilities,” according to the grant documents.

Briggs said that the grant stemmed from discussions between the county, Great Falls Development Alliance and Patrick O’Brien, OLDCC director, regarding potential impact to the region from the Sentinel upgrade.

Briggs said it’s expected to be the “first in a series of grants related to mitigating the impacts of the missile system conversion and will allow the region to better understand the project, identify concerns and allow OLDCC to help us develop a strategy to overcome the hurdles and ensure the Sentinel project’s successful implementation in a way that enhances the entire region of the Malmstrom missile field.”

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The federal office has previously provided local funding for a regional economic diversification study, the Malmstrom joint land use study, the Malmstrom compatible land use study and the $10 million grant to the City of Great Falls for the new indoor aquatic and recreation center.

The Air Force canceled Sentinel town halls in Montana and Nebraska in August, saying it had “determined that additional time and effort is required before proceeding” with the town halls.

The Air Force “understands the value of public engagement on [its] Sentinel weapon system’s replacement of the Minuteman III weapon system,” at the three missile wings, including Malmstrom Air Force Base, “and is committed to obtaining public comments about this project.

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An Air Force Global Strike spokeswoman told The Electric in late July that the Air Force was still working to finalize proposed actions following the review and restructuring of the Sentinel program triggered last year by a significant cost overrun.

The Air Force said they may have updates later this fall.

In January 2024, the Air Force notified Congress that the Sentinel program exceeded its baseline cost projections, causing a critical breach under the federal Nunn-McCurdy Act, which occurs if the program or average unit procurement cost increases by 25 percent or more over the baseline.

The total program acquisition cost for a “reasonably modified Sentinel program” are now estimated at $140.9 billion, an increase of 81 percent compared to the program’s Milestone B decision in September 2020 when the Air Force awarded a $13.3 billion GBSD engineering and manufacturing development contract to Northrop Grumman.

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The Sentinel program cost increase isn’t included included in an April report by the Congressional Budget Office indicating the costs to operate and modernize the U.S. nuclear force through 2034 are projected to rise to $946 billion, 25 percent higher than a 2023 estimate, Reuters reported in April.

In the Nunn-McCurdy review, the Defense Department determined that the root causes of the cost overruns were, according to a Sept. 10 Government Accountability Office report, which is a public version of the classified report that was issued in April, pertaining to ICBM modernization:

• an unrealistic delivery schedule
• ineffective systems engineering and incomplete basic system design and
• an atrophied ICBM industrial base

DOD also concluded that “the Air Force’s organizational construct was insufficient for a program of the Sentinel ICBM program’s size, cost, and complexity,” according to the GAO report.

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The Sentinel program hasn’t been halted, but “the Air Force has suspended work on specific parts of the project while the program office determines the best way forward,” which includes restructuring the program and assessing the acquisition strategy from a technical and contractual standpoint, Capt. Kaylee Schanda, a public affairs officer for the Secretary of the Air Force, told The Electric in March.

In May, The Electric met with Maj. Gen. Colin Connor, director of intercontinental ballistic missile modernization, Site Activation Task Force at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and Brig. Gen. William Rogers, Air Force program executive officer for intercontinental ballistic missiles and director of the ICBM Systems Directorate at the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Hill Air Force Base in Utah.

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Connor and Rogers told The Electric then that the program is progressing and an updated acquisition strategy is expected late this summer or early fall.

Rogers said that through the Nunn-McCurdy process, the Air Force looked at alternatives or reasonable modifications to launch facilities/silos, system engineering processes and managing risks.

Through that process, in his office at the ICBM Systems Directorate at the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Hill Air Force Base in Utah, there’s been adjustments to the organization structure, bringing in more senior leadership and experience.

Initially, the Air Force had planned to operating Minuteman III through 2030 and the draw down the weapon for anticipated retirement in 2036 and shifting to Sentinel, but the service is now developing a new timeline to account for Sentinel delays, according to the GAO report.

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AFGSC told The Electric on Sept. 11 that due to operational security, they couldn’t discuss timelines for the project.

In July, the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee wrote in a report attached to the military construction appropriations bill that “the committee believes that the Nunn-McCurdy review of the Sentinel program presents an opportunity to identify cost-saving measures and explore options to accelerate deployment of the new missile. As part of that effort, the committee recognizes the potential benefits of a revised schedule that allows for concurrent construction of Sentinel launch facilities across the three missile bases and supports further evaluation of that approach. Therefore, the committee directs the Secretary of the Air Force to submit a report to the committees on appropriations of both houses of Congress within 180 days of enactment of this act that includes (1) the updated schedule for construction of all Sentinel launch facilities, (2) a comparison between the current schedule and the schedule in place prior to the Nunn-McCurdy review that illustrates the extent to which concurrent construction may occur across the three missile bases, and (3) a year-by-year estimate of the construction budget required to execute the concurrent schedule.”

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During an July 22 earnings call, Northrop Grumman CEO Kathy Warden said that they’d made progress on restructuring Sentinel and “in close partnership with the Air Force, we reached agreement on a restructure approach, which will lead to reestablishment of the program baseline. The work suspension on most aspects of the command and launch portion of the program was lifted, and we’ve resumed work on launch facility requirements and design. We continue to ramp on the program and make progress through development, testing and risk reduction activities.

Sometime in recent months, the Air Force decertified LF 5E10, a silo in the F.E. Warren Air Force Base missile field. F.E. is in Cheyenne, Wyo.

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“The LF 5E10 administrative decertification is the first operational [Minuteman III] silo to be taken offline as part of the transition to Sentinel, a significant step forward in the ICBM modernization effort,” an Air Force spokesperson told The Electric. “During the transition process, there will be no degradation of the land-based leg of the nuclear triad. The administrative decertification of LF 5E10 has no impact to the number of ICBMs that can be on alert in accordance with national policy and Air Force Global Strike Command continues to meet ICBM alert requirements providing the same level of readiness and reliability to U.S. Strategic Command and the President. This decertification does not pose any threat to our ability to respond decisively if called upon.”

Decertifying the silo involves removing the missile, critical equipment, isolating the silo from the network, according to AFGSC, and the removal and disposal of non-critical equipment has begun.

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Taking the silo out of the current ICBM system will allow the Air Force to use it to “validate work concepts and provide valuable information and practice for the transition,” according to the Sept. 10 GAO report.

The Air Force currently maintains 450 silos, but only 400 are armed with a missile at any given time, under the rules of the New START arms reduction treaty with Russia, which is set to expire on Feb. 4, 2026.

The other 50 silos are empty, allowing for maintenance, but can be armed at any time if needed and the Air Force dubbed those silos as being in “warm status.”

“While the U.S. Air Force has modernized its ICBM force in the past, the Sentinel ICBM program is one of the largest modernization efforts ever undertaken by the U.S government, similar in scale to the President Eisenhower’s interstate program. Air Force Global Strike Command continues to move forward to enhance our command and control, improve security, integrate new technologies, and ultimately, ensure a weapon system that can respond to an increasingly complex world,” an AFGSC spokesman told The Electric.

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The GAO report that was publicly released on Sept. 10 is a version of the classified report that had been issued in April found that the Air Force hasn’t developed a risk management plan, which would outline how to anticipate, analyze and solve problems for the transition from Minuteman III, which is more than 50 years old, to Sentinel.

The report determined that the Air Force may need to operate the existing ICBM system for another 25 years due to delays and increasing costs for Sentinel.

It needs a plan to address the risks associated with maintaining the aging system, such as the potential lack of necessary parts, which has long been a challenge in maintaining the aging system, according to multiple Air Force sources over the years.

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The GAO report also found that the Air Force hasn’t yet developed a schedule for construction of a Sentinel test facility, which is what operators, maintainers and security forces would use to prepare for the transition.

Development of that facility was delayed as part of the overall Sentinel restructuring, but GAO recommends that it and other necessary training and evaluation for airmen who operate, maintain and protect the weapon system, be developed as soon as possible.