Military Bases

Opportunities for Savings in Installation Support Costs Are Being Missed Gao ID: NSIAD-96-108 April 23, 1996

The Defense Department (DOD) has long recognized that support costs for military bases located near to one another could be reduced if the military services relied more on each other for base support--known as interservicing. However, the services have not taken advantage of opportunities to achieve significant savings through greater use of interservicing. Differing service traditions and cultures as well as concern about loss of control over support assets often cause military commanders to resist interservicing. Other factors, such as differences in service standards and resource constraints, also affect commanders' willingness to embrace interservicing. Although these factors have hampered interservicing of base support functions on a limited scale, military officials suggest that they could prove to be even greater impediments to interservicing on a larger scale, such as having one base commander responsible for providing all base support to collocated bases of two or more services.

GAO noted that: (1) although DOD is aware of the potential for reducing base support costs through interservicing, it is difficult to determine the amount of the potential savings, since interservicing has never been fully or correctly implemented; (2) the services have not taken sufficient advantage of the potential savings in base support costs from interservicing; (3) the services have been considering a broad array of initiatives, including regionalizing and privatizing some base support functions; (4) consolidating these functions through advanced interservicing agreements could enhance the potential for greater efficiencies and cost savings; (5) many commanders resist interservicing because they fear losing control of their assets and service standards; and (6) an even greater impediment to interservicing on a large scale is the possibility of one base commander having to provide base support for several services.

Recommendations

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