Military Bases

Closure and Realignment Savings Are Significant, but Not Easily Quantified Gao ID: NSIAD-96-67 April 8, 1996

Savings from military base closures and realignments should be substantial. The Pentagon's accounting systems, however, do not provide Congress with an accurate picture of actual savings. The Defense Department (DOD) is counting on significant savings to pay for a host of initiatives--from force modernization to child care support. DOD will have difficulty funding these programs should the savings fall short of expectations. This report examines cost and savings estimates for past base closures and realignments. GAO discusses (1) the extent to which the Defense Department (DOD) is achieving actual savings from the base closures and realignments and (2) the adequacy of DOD's process for developing the cost and savings estimates reported in its annual budget submissions.

GAO found that: (1) its analysis of base support costs in the Future Years Defense Plan and at nine closing installations indicates that BRAC savings should be substantial; (2) however, DOD's systems do not provide information on actual BRAC savings; (3) therefore, the total amount of BRAC savings is uncertain; (4) if DOD does not fully achieve estimated BRAC savings, it will affect DOD's ability to fund future programs at planned levels; (5) DOD has complied with the legislative requirement for submitting annual cost and savings estimates, but there are limitations to the submissions' usefulness; (6) for example, the Air Force's savings estimates were not based on budget-quality data, and the Army's estimates excluded reduced military personnel costs that the Navy and the Air Force included in their estimates; (7) further, BRAC cost estimates excluded more than $781 million in economic assistance to local communities as well as other costs; and (8) consequently, the Congress does not have an accurate picture of the savings achieved by the BRAC process.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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