THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 19, 1995 TAG: 9502200206
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: BASE CLOSINGS:
THE FINAL ROUND
What's at stake for Hampton Roads?
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY AND DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Long : 190 lines
Eventually, the mournful farewell parties had to be limited to one a month at the Naval Undersea Warfare Center.
They were having several a week for a while. But the gifts and cookies and cakes and tears were too much as the 700 civilian defense workers started drifting away in the last year, relocating to Navy jobs in Newport, R.I., and Charleston, S.C.
Today, 257 civilians and one military worker are left at the center, their lives turned upside down by the 1993 base-closing commission's decision to realign the command. The last of them will be gone by Sept. 31.
``People have froze, become paralyzed. It's just devastated them,'' said an engineer at the Suffolk center, which works on submarine combat systems.
``I don't think anybody here feels good about this. A lot of people going to Newport don't want to go,'' he added. ``But they have no choice. They have been here their whole life. They don't know what else to do.''
Analysts suggest that the workers' plight could be a harbinger for other defense employees as the Pentagon completes recommendations for a fourth, and - barring any changes - final round of restructuring. They say the real threat from the list of changes that the Pentagon will release next week is not the sharp ax of base closings but the scalpel of realignments.
Here's the difference: Realignments usually affect portions of a command, rather than the entire unit. Unlike base closings, they can involve very few people or several hundred.
They are ``very difficult to predict,'' said retired Adm. Harry D. Train II, co-chairman of a state commission working to protect Virginia bases. ``The base-closure process gets high visibility, but the realignment mischief doesn't.''
Local examples tell the story.
The decision in 1993 to shut the Norfolk Naval Aviation Depot, a separate command employing 4,300 workers, was a base closing. Oceana Naval Air Station and Norfolk Naval Shipyard would be, too, but base defenders once fearful of that prospect say they're comfortable it won't happen.
Moving the Norfolk branch of the Undersea Warfare Center was a realignment. So was the decision at the same time to relocate a Navy systems engineering center away from Portsmouth's St. Julien's Creek annex, which cost the region 425 jobs.
With the ``easy'' decisions about major closings having been made in past deliberations of the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, Defense Secretary William Perry is promising a smaller round of closings this year than in 1993.
The Navy's point man in the process, Charles P. Nemfakos, said last summer that the worst may be over for his service - in large part because the Navy's 1993 base closings accounted for more than half the total. How that will translate to specific areas, including the Navy's two megaports of Norfolk and San Diego, remains a closely guarded secret until the list is released.
Fewer closings this year, experts in the process say, probably means a new emphasis on how similar functions being performed by two or more facilities can be combined at common locations. They suggest a scenario under which many bases will stay open but get radically different missions, with jobs lost and gained.
The 1993 base-closing commission, which followed panels that met in 1988 and 1991, ordered 130 bases closed and 45 realigned. Look for those proportions to be reversed this year, several analysts suggested.
``You're going to find a list (of base changes) that is more joint in nature,'' with Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force functions placed under common commands, predicted former Maryland Congresswoman Beverly Byron, who was on the 1993 base-closing commission.
Byron said she expects the Pentagon's jointness effort to include combining health care and equipment maintenance facilities. Look for more sailors to be getting their flu shots at Army clinics and for more Air Force mechanics to be working at Navy aircraft depots, she suggested.
The 1993 base-closing commission urged such arrangements and may have given a sign of joint operations to come with its decision on the Charleston, S.C., naval hospital. The Pentagon recommended that the hospital be closed, citing plans to dramatically reduce its active-duty presence in Charleston by closing the nearby naval station and shipyard.
But the commission preserved the hospital, saying that even with the Navy gone, the facility would be needed to treat Air Force personnel stationed in Myrtle Beach and Charleston and Marines from the Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort. The hospital operates today with an Air Force vice commander.
``We cannot afford to have redundant capabilities littering the landscape. And to the extent that one service can provide the support for the others . . budget analyst, said last summer.
Perry signaled the administration's interest in such changes almost a year ago, creating five ``joint cross-service groups'' to study issues involved in consolidating depots, test centers, laboratories, hospitals and training facilities.
The groups, including representatives of each of the services, made recommendations in January. During past base-closing rounds, each service worked independently to develop a list of proposed closings and realignments and there was little, if any, effort to combine functions.
The base-closing commission will not receive the Pentagon's realignment recommendations until March 1. But Rebecca Cox, the only 1993 commission member to be reappointed this year, disclosed last week that commission staff members already are studying possible cross-service realignments.
``There definitely is more interest in cross-servicing than there has been in the past,'' she said.
Paul Taibl, an analyst for Business Executives for National Security in Washington, suggested there also may be moves to combine various administrative functions now performed independently by each service branch.
``Most of the hard choices on operational bases have been made,'' he said. ``The management infrastructure is what they're trying to pare down.''
Rep. Owen B. Pickett, a Democrat representing Virginia Beach and Norfolk, has tracked the Pentagon's preparations for more than a year and says he is hopeful no major bases in Hampton Roads will be recommended for closing. But he warned that there may be realignments in the region's military structure that could cost jobs.
``Even one job, if it's yours, is major,'' said Pickett.
The transfer of small military units to other states could be a bigger potential problem for Virginia this year than any base closings, members of state Base Retention and Defense Adjustment Commission said.
Three facilities in Virginia were on the 1993 base-closing list, including the Norfolk Naval Aviation Depot. In a bigger blow to the state, the commission decided to realign six naval headquarters, moving them and their 6,000 jobs from Northern Virginia.
Overall, Virginia is losing 13,000 military and civilian jobs from realignments during the last two rounds of base closings, in 1991 and 1993.
By comparison, the state is losing 8,900 jobs in the closing of installations.
Many of the realignments came as a surprise in 1993, in part because they brought little in the way of cost savings. As an example, Train cited a Hampton Roads example - the relocation of the Naval Electronics Systems Center from St. Julien's Creek to Charleston, a move designed to cushion Charleston's bigger losses.
``So that realignment decision, intended to mollify somewhat the Charleston authorities who had made such an eloquent case of keeping Charleston open, did damage to the whole process of saving money,'' Train said.
Virginia also gained from realignments, but fell far short of offsetting the losses.
Local base defenders say politics may drive realignment decisions again, although officials in Washington said last week that preventive steps have been taken: Communities hard-hit on the Pentagon's list will have less latitude in adding competing bases for consideration.
The state's base defense commission must challenge realignments this year with the fervor once reserved for more conclusive base closings, state Secretary of Commerce and Trade Robert T. Skunda said in opening a commission meeting earlier this month.
Added Skunda, ``That is going to be like the shot that starts the race all across the nation.'' ILLUSTRATION: DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE COLOR PHOTOS
Graphics
AN EYE ON OVERLAP
The Defense Department's response this year to its base-closing
mandate will include more cooperation and less overlap among the
military services. The list of recommendations the Pentagon delivers
next week won't tinker with the missions of the Army, Navy, Air
Force and Marines, but it is likely to accelerate the merging of
some functions they all carry out. Among them: health care and
equipment maintenance.
As the 1995 round of base closings gets under way, here are some
key facts about the process:
THE SCHEDULE: Defense Secretary William Perry delivers his
recommendations March 1 to the Defense Base Closure and Realignment
Commission. The advisory panel decides whether to make changes and
sends it to President Clinton by July 1. The president and Congress
accept or reject the package as a whole by fall.
THE LIST: Getting off the original list is difficult. In more
than four of five cases during the past three rounds, the commission
has closed what the Pentagon recommended. Adding alternative bases
to the list, a tactic of communities hard-hit in the past, will be
difficult this year.
THE PUBLIC: Once the list is released, regional public hearings
will be scheduled within a day's drive of each affected base. Only
invited witnesses could testify at a 1993 regional hearing in
Norfolk, so the best hope for influencing the process is writing the
commission at 1700 N. Moore St., Suite 1425, Arlington, Va., 22209.
Phone: (703) 696-0504
THE RESULTS: The Pentagon has six years to close or realign bases
once a list is completed. Because of high short-term costs, only 20
bases have been closed so far. More than than 130 were ordered
closed in 1993 alone.
Photos
Top: MOTOYA NAKAMURA/Staff
Middle: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bottom: DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
KEYWORDS: MILITARY BASES BASE CLOSINGS by CNB