Army Training

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the Army's overall training land acquisition plans and procedures, focusing on: (1) the extent to which the Commission on Base Realignment and Closure's work affected the Army's acquisition plans; and (2) whether a failure to expand Ft. Riley would make it vulnerable to closing as part of any future base-closing efforts.

GAO found that: (1) the Army did not follow established land acquisition procedures or have a basis for determining relative training land needs among installations; (2) individual commanders initiated most of the land acquisitions for specific installations, rather than considering Army installations' collective needs; (3) although the Army was making changes to its outdated training land acquisition process, it had not established a completion date and had conflicting information on the planned acquisitions at Ft. Riley; (4) Army requirements for alternatives to land acquisition early in the process did not precede preliminary land requirement decisions and was usually done at the installation level under limited decisionmaking authority; (5) although the Commission indicated that the Army needed additional land at 13 installations to satisfy its requirements, the Commission did not suggest closing Ft. Riley; and (6) the potential impact of uncertain future force reductions was unclear.