[CPEO-IRF] Armed Forces Reserve Centers

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

Military Base Realignments and Closures: Plan Needed to Monitor 
Challenges for Completing More Than 100 Armed Forces Reserve Centers

Government Accountability Office
GAO-07-1040 (33 pages)
September 13, 2007

Summary

The Army is implementing 44 base realignment and closure (BRAC) 
recommendations to construct 125 new Armed Forces Reserve Centers (AFRC) 
and close 387 existing reserve components facilities. The Department of 
Defense (DOD) expects the new AFRCs to increase recruiting and retention 
and create greater efficiencies by fostering jointness and consolidating 
functions. GAO (1) assessed the extent DOD's cost and savings estimates 
to implement the recommendations have changed from BRAC Commission 
projections and (2) determined the extent the Army has identified 
potential challenges that could affect BRAC implementation and has 
developed a plan to address these challenges. GAO analyzed DOD's 
publicly available BRAC budget data and interviewed officials at Army 
offices, including Reserve Command, National Guard Bureau, and the 
National Guard in five states. This report, prepared under the 
Comptroller General's authority to initiate evaluations, is one of a 
series related to the BRAC 2005 round.

Since the BRAC Commission issued its projections in 2005, DOD's cost 
estimates for implementing the reserve component recommendations have 
increased at the same time savings estimates have decreased. 
Implementation cost estimates increased from $2.9 billion to $3.2 
billion--a 13 percent or $363 million increase in constant 
dollars--mostly due to higher military construction cost estimates. 
Annual recurring savings estimates decreased from $323 million to $288 
million--an 11 percent decrease in constant dollars. However, GAO 
analysis suggests that these savings could be significantly less than 
currently estimated because over 90 percent of these savings are 
associated with eliminating positions currently held by military 
personnel without corresponding decreases in end strength in the force 
structure. GAO and the BRAC Commission have previously reported that 
military personnel eliminations are not a true source of savings because 
DOD does not expect to reduce end strength correspondingly but rather 
intends to reassign or shift these personnel to vacant positions in 
other areas. Although GAO agrees that transferring personnel to vacant 
positions may enhance capabilities and allows DOD to redirect freed-up 
resources to another area of need, GAO does not believe that such 
transfers produce a tangible dollar savings that DOD can apply to fund 
other defense priorities outside the military personnel accounts because 
these personnel will remain in the end strength--continuing to receive 
salaries and benefits. However, DOD's treatment of military personnel 
savings represents a long-standing difference of opinion between DOD and 
GAO. The Army has identified several potential challenges in 
implementing the 44 reserve component recommendations. These include 
completing many construction projects in a compressed time frame, 
realizing efficiencies based on limited testing of new military 
construction processes, potential increasing land and supporting 
infrastructure costs, and changing force structure and mission 
requirements that may affect facility capacity. The Army has started 
construction on 5 of the 125 AFRC projects, and the extent these 
challenges might occur remains uncertain until the Army receives and 
evaluates more AFRC construction proposals and more AFRCs are built. 
However, because the Army does not have a plan to routinely bring 
together the various key stakeholders involved in the construction of 
these facilities, including the state Army National Guard when 
appropriate, the extent the Army is able to monitor and quickly address 
potential challenges is unclear. Best practices suggest that involving 
stakeholders in planning can help create a clearer understanding among 
the stakeholders of competing demands, the limited resources available, 
and how those demands and resources require continuous balancing. 
Without a plan that brings together key stakeholders, it could be more 
difficult for the Army to monitor for implementation challenges and work 
through alternatives to mitigate them in a timely manner.



For the original summariy and links to the full report, go to
http://www.gao.gov/docdblite/details.php?rptno=GAO-07-1040
--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



_______________________________________________
Installation_Reuse_Forum mailing list
Installation_Reuse_Forum@list.cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org/mailman/listinfo/installation_reuse_forum