Federal Manager's Daily Report

The Pentagon has dropped, at least for this year, its long-running request to conduct another round of base realignment and closures, or BRAC, of the sort that in the past has caused the closing or restructuring of dozens of major facilities and many more smaller ones and the loss or transfer of tens of thousands of federal employee jobs.

During the last several years of the Obama administration and again last year under President Trump, DoD has argued that it has more than 20 percent excess capacity and that the money spent on maintenance and other costs would be better used elsewhere. However, Congress has balked for reasons including over-optimistic projections of cost savings in prior rounds–the most recent was in 2005–and a desire to have capacity readily available if defense spending were increased substantially.

The recent budget deal raising prior limits on defense–and non-defense–spending allows for just such an increase, which the administration’s new budget proposal reflects.

DoD comptroller David Norquist said at a media briefing that “we’ve asked for it for a number of times in the past without much success. And so I think we’re looking at doing two things, going forward. One is, working with Congress to find common areas where we can make reforms and changes that don’t create the same types of obstacles.

“The other is that we are undergoing a financial statement audit that includes a look at property, and assets and investments and improving the accuracy of the data behind it. And as a view of being able to take advantage of the data coming out of that process, to help us make better decision-making on real property,” he said.