Bracing for Closure

ike most military communities, San Antonio rallied the troops in 1995 when Congress and the Pentagon began weighing which military bases weren't needed and should be closed.

Thousands of federal workers at the city's two Air Force installations, Brooks and Kelly, staged "save our base" rallies. Lawmakers were warned of payback at the ballot box if thousands of federal jobs, which had created one the nation's largest Hispanic middle classes, were eliminated. Employees brandished economic studies showing the bases were worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the community. "Our whole focus was let's keep it from closing. Let's use political clout and show how important the bases are to us," recalls Robert Sanchez, a small business owner and community activist in San Antonio.

At first, the strategy appeared to pay off. When the Pentagon announced the winners and losers in the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process, Brooks, on an early list for closure, had been spared. But before celebrations could begin, San Antonio was stunned to learn that Kelly, by far the larger of the city's two bases, had replaced Brooks on the hit list.

"Obviously, our strategy did not work. Our choice was we could either pick ourselves up and do things differently or we could blame the whole world," says Sanchez.

Now that the Pentagon has announced it wants to close more installations beginning in 2003, scores of military bases and their surrounding communities across the country are facing choices similar to those that confronted San Antonio.

Excess Bases

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld says there's no question that the Defense Department has more bases than it needs. "Most people you talk to who are knowledgeable about it believe we are carrying something like 20 to 25 percent more base structure than we need for our force structure," Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee on June 21.

Gen. Henry Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told lawmakers at the same hearing that since 1990, military forces have been cut by 40 percent, but facilities have been cut by only 26 percent. "We think that it's time to go back and look at all of our installations, our facilities, and try to identify where we've got excess capacity," Shelton said.

Shelton said four previous BRAC rounds, during which 97 of the military's nearly 500 bases were closed or realigned, have saved the Defense Department $15 billion thus far and will continue to save $6 billion annually through reduced operating and maintenance costs. Another round of base closings could bring $3.5 billion in additional annual savings, he added.

Most defense budget analysts say saving money by closing bases is the only way the Bush administration can make good on its campaign promise to beef up Defense spending, especially in light of the recent tax cut and flat economic projections.

The Clinton administration repeatedly sought additional closings after the last round in 1995. But legislators claimed Clinton politicized the 1995 process by allowing some work at bases in voter-rich California and Texas, including San Antonio's Kelly, to be privatized rather than transferred to other states. As a result, they repeatedly rebuffed Clinton's requests. Lawmakers and BRAC backers say Congress is far more likely to permit closures now that George W. Bush is President.

Taking Action

San Antonio began picking itself up after Kelly's closure was announced by approaching the Air Force to discuss the future of the Brooks facility. Though the base had been spared, city officials knew it had huge operating costs and was vulnerable to future closure. The city and the base found they each had something to offer the other. San Antonio wanted to create more high technology jobs; the base had land and facilities that could attract new technology businesses. The Air Force wanted to reduce Brooks' maintenance costs-among the highest in the service-and the city was willing to provide fire, police and maintenance services to help cut Brooks' overhead. Several studies, dozens of meetings and a few pieces of legislation later, the city and the base agreed on an unprecedented public-private partnership known as the Brooks City-Base Project. The deal calls for the Air Force to turn over ownership of the base to San Antonio this year and then lease back land and space at no cost under a long-term agreement. In return, the city will provide all municipal services at no cost and split any profits from commercial leasing or other business it generates on the base with the Air Force. The Air Force says the deal will save up to $10 million annually by 2005, while San Antonio says it could make millions developing the base's land.

Sanchez says the deal does not guarantee Brooks will stay open. But, he says, the base would have been a prime candidate for closure if it had not cut operating costs. "The best way to help military bases [remain open] is for communities to help them solve their problems," he adds.

Brendan Godfrey, the senior civilian official at Brooks, says the Air Force "is not in the business of protecting bases from BRAC." The service entered into the agreement with San Antonio solely as way to cut operating costs, he adds. The Brooks City-Base Project often is cited as a model for partnership and cooperation between military bases and local communities, states and regional groups. But it is far from the only effort under way.

States and communities already are spending millions of dollars to improve the infrastructure surrounding bases. They are forging partnerships with the facilities and hiring lobbyists and consultants to find out which bases are most vulnerable and how to keep them off the closure list. They are acting as though BRAC already is back.

"There is a feeling amongst the communities that there will be another BRAC and they are being proactive a lot earlier," says Paul McManus, chairman and chief executive officer of the Spectrum Group, an Alexandria, Va., consulting firm that represented 18 communities during the last BRAC round. Already, he says, Spectrum Group has done studies for the governors of Arizona and Florida to determine whether bases in those states are vulnerable.

With such planning already occurring, the Defense Department's biggest challenge may not be convincing lawmakers to allow base closings, but finding bases that can be shut down. "The easiest decisions were made before and now everyone understands the game so it will be a tougher for them," says William Jefferds, a retired Army general who now directs California's effort to save its bases.

Out in the States

Not surprisingly, California and other large states such as Texas, Florida and Georgia-which stand to lose the greatest number of bases and jobs if there is another round of shutdowns-have been working for several years to strengthen local military facilities. These states view bases as multi-billion-dollar industries. Each state has programs to provide grants to local communities to study ways to retain bases, as well as to form partnerships with the military, and to invest to improve infrastructure around bases.

Kellie Jo Kilberg, who oversees the Florida Defense Alliance, a state office dedicated to protecting and improving military communities, says Florida has spent nearly $10 million in the past three years improving infrastructure. Projects have included building pedestrian bridges, improving roads adjacent to bases, laying fiber optic cable lines and examining ways to improve access to bases.

Kilberg says the improvements may help keep bases open, but also will benefit the local communities should bases close. "Just to do it for BRAC would be pretty shortsighted," she says. Advance planning also helps state officials choose which bases they want to protect. "We could say, 'If we have to give up something, we want to give up this,' " she says.

Georgia has been pumping millions of dollars into improving roads around its bases. Phil Browning, a retired Army general who serves as executive director of the state-funded Georgia Military Affairs Coordinating Committee, says the money has been used for improvements near key bases such as the Army's Fort Stewart and naval facilities at Kings Bay, Ga.

"We are not approaching this as 'Don't close our bases,' but rather we are asking what we can do to improve the bases' missions and the quality of life for the people who live and work there," says Browning. He notes that bases would not be willing to cooperate if improvements were proposed merely to avoid closure.

Browning says Georgia now is taking an active approach after its reactive stance in 1995 nearly cost two of 13 bases. In 1995, the state didn't enter the BRAC fray until after the Pentagon had announced it wanted to close bases in Georgia. State officials already have spent a year planning how to combat future closures.

California has seen 29 of its bases closed over the past decade and is determined to help protect the remaining 61 installations. In 2001, the state will dole out $400,000 in "retention grants" to help local communities keep their bases open and protect key weapons programs. For example, the state awarded Lancaster, Calif., $50,000 to study the design and cost of an instrumentation and calibration system for testing the Joint Strike Fighter at Edwards Air Force Base.

Other grants have gone to study ways to link military bases with state universities and high schools to share in research, to perform economic analysis of base assets and the potential for public-private partnerships, and to consider exchanging military land with private developers in return for building new base facilities. In addition to the grants, the state will provide money beginning in 2002 to hire lobbyists and consultants to battle base closings.

Texas, meanwhile, is poised to turn a state office that distributes $20 million development grants to shuttered bases into a lobbying operation and resource for local communities whose bases are at risk. The shift will take place as soon as lawmakers approve more closings, says James Christoferson, director of the Texas Office of Defense Affairs. State officials also are encouraging partnerships like the Brooks City-Base Project.

"Our communities are not out rallying around bases, but seeking partnerships to make sure bases are operating efficiently," Christoferson says.

Plans and Promotions

From New Hampshire to New Mexico, community-based business groups are monitoring the ongoing debate about military strategy in Washington, D.C., scrutinizing budget trends and listening to base commanders' concerns to find clues about their bases' futures and tips on how to keep them open.

John Armbrust, vice president of the Manhattan, Kan., Chamber of Commerce, is far outside the Beltway, but he is awaiting the results of the Quadrennial Defense Review as eagerly as any Defense lobbyist. Armbrust's community is adjacent to Fort Riley, one of Army's largest training bases, with about 70,000 acres. Armbrust knows that if the Army cuts divisions, its next move likely will be to cut back large training installations like Fort Riley.

Along the New England sea coast, William McDonough, retired Navy captain and head of the Sea Coast Shipyard Association in Portsmouth, N.H., keeps close tabs on Defense personnel trends and spending at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. McDonough says he's "cautiously optimistic" that Portsmouth, which the Navy has considered closing since the 1960s, will remain open. He says the best evidence is the Navy's investment in moderizing shipyard facilities and a steady increase in workers from 3,348 in 1998 to 4,077 today.

Debbie Witherspoon, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees local union at Letterkenny Army Depot in Chambersburg, Pa., says a handful of managers at the maintenance facility began meeting every two weeks this spring to plot strategy for dealing with the base-closing process. Previous closures have hit depots hard. The Defense Department reduced the number of depots from 38 to 19 in the past decade. With large workforces and high operating costs, the remaining repair centers are likely targets.

Witherspoon says depot backers will argue that they have been cut enough-especially since depots account for less than 1 percent of the Defense budget. They also will contend that additional cuts would jeopardize readiness and that the highly skilled depot workforce could not be replaced or relocated easily. Nevertheless, she concedes, "any depot out there would be crazy not to be somewhat prepared for BRAC."

McManus, of the Spectrum Group, says base supporters and employees should track defense reviews and budget and personnel decisions, but he cautions against putting too much stock in these analyses. "Some bases with $100 million construction projects under way have been [closed]," he says.

Joshua Gotbaum, who oversaw the 1995 BRAC round as assistant secretary of Defense for economic security, says military communities should focus on the future value of their bases by emphasizing existing strengths and new partnerships with the military. "Our advice to the communities was always the same . . . make sure the strengths of your facility are known," he says. In 1995, the Pentagon was well aware that thousands of jobs and millions of dollars were at stake in local communities, but ultimately decided which facilities to close based on cost and affordability, he adds.

In Louisiana, communities surrounding Barksdale Air Force Base in Boosier City, La., are pursuing partnerships as a way to improve quality of life on the base. Murray Viser is president and chief executive officer of Barksdale Forward, a nonprofit community organization in Shreveport, La., formed in the mid-1990s to promote Barksdale. Viser says his group offered to build and refurbish more than 300 housing units on the base-at no additional cost to the service-after hearing for years about inadequate base housing. "We thought it would be in our best interest to help Barksdale solve its problems," he says.

The Air Force is weighing Barksdale Forward's offer as well as another from a developer. But, regardless of which proposal is accepted, Viser says, the community is "doing its homework," rather than waiting to defend and promote the base until another round of closings begins.

In Albuquerque, N.M, Stuart Purviance heads the Kirtland Partnership, which is spending about $100,000 annually promoting Kirtland Air Force Base as a government office park with room for future growth. "We are not a typical defense installation, but more a federal installation. We think we would be an ideal recipient base [for additional Defense and federal work], not a donor base, in the next round," says Purviance. He notes that Sandia National Laboratories and other Energy Department facilities already are located on the base.

Competing Proposals

While the Defense Department has decided to close bases, it has yet to determine how many or how to pick them. "I do not know whether it's two rounds [of base closings] or not," said Dov Zakheim, Pentagon comptroller, at a June press briefing. "Some people are suggesting two rounds, some people are suggesting one round . . . don't even think in terms of rounds, think in terms of identifying bases. I mean, we are all across the map on this one in terms of people's suggestions."

In the past, the Pentagon and Congress have relied on independent base closure commissions appointed by lawmakers to review Defense recommendations for base closures and realignments, hear testimony for and against, and make final recommendations to legislators and the President. Both Congress and the President had to accept or reject the final list in its entirety.

Congress now is considering two base closing bills that differ on the number of bases to be closed and the method for choosing them. Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and John McCain, R-Ariz., introduced legislation earlier this year that calls for closing additional bases in 2003 and 2005 using an independent panel that would make recommendations to Congress and the President, as in previous rounds. "Every year that we delay another base closure, we waste about $1.5 billion in annual savings that we cannot recoup," said Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, when he introduced the legislation.

But the measure already faces opposition. "I have serious concern about us going through that, putting every community in America that has any kind of a military installation into an absolute froth of anxiety,'' said Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo., at a June House Armed Services Committee hearing. Hefley suggested alleviating some of that anxiety by excluding certain bases from closure before a BRAC commission convenes.

Rep. Vic Snyder, D-Ark., has introduced legislation that would exempt many Defense installations. The proposal calls for Defense to fence off "core" military bases from closure because they are vital to national security. "The sooner you can eliminate the community anxiety, the better it will be for everyone," says Snyder, adding that his bill calls for just one more round of closings in 2003. Richard Hearney, a retired Marine general who now heads Business Executives for National Security, a defense policy group in Washington, says choosing bases to close will be more difficult now than ever because all the easy decisions have been made and communities are more seasoned BRAC fighters. "But that does not mean it's not necessary. And it's not going to get any easier by delaying it," he adds.