Military Base Closures

A Senate report on the 1998 Military Construction Appropriations Bill requested that GAO continue its annual review of the Defense Department's base closure accounts and its budget request for base closure activities. Specifically, GAO discusses opportunities for offsetting the budget request for fiscal year 1999, including the validity of two proposed military construction projects included in that request.

GAO noted that: (1) DOD and the military services have reduced the previous high unobligated balances in the 1990 base closure account; (2) however, there are opportunities to offset the 1999 budget request; (3) GAO's analysis of the 1990 account and the FY 1999 base realignment and closure (BRAC) budget request raises questions about the need for $131.1 million included in the request; and (4) specifically: (a) from the 1990 base closure account, $35.7 million in proceeds generated by BRAC activities that has not been reported to Congress; $12.5 million previously allocated but not needed for BRAC 1991 MILCON projects; $7.8 million allocated but not needed for BRAC 1991 operation and maintenance activities; and $8.5 million previously allocated but not needed for BRAC 1991 environmental projects; (b) from the FY 1998 BRAC appropriations, $26 million previously withheld but ultimately was not needed for other higher priority programs; and (c) from 1999 BRAC budget request, $40.6 million requested for two separate MILCON projects may no longer be needed because the requirements for one project have not been determined and the other has already been funded.

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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