Personnel Savings Figure Heavily in Base Closing Proposal

The Pentagon is counting on savings in civilian personnel to account for a quarter of the savings it is projecting from the recently proposed round of base closings and realignments, the Government Accountability Office has said in a new report. After the transition period, DoD projects annual civilian personnel costs of nearly $1.3 billion, second only to the military personnel savings of $2.5 billion among projected savings of about $5.5 billion. The effort is projected to result in a net loss of some 18,000 civilian positions, although due to normal attrition and separation incentives fewer than that number would be involuntarily separated—the Congressional Budget Office has projected 13,000 layoffs. The number of employees affected by transfers and other types of disruption, however, would be far higher.