Holding a BRAC round isn’t the only strategy the Defense Department is pursuing to find savings from underused facilities. By the end of the year, officials expect to complete a plan that will recommend ways “to reduce underutilization” at military hospitals and clinics, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told lawmakers Thursday during a hearing on the Pentagon’s fiscal 2014 budget request …
While describing the balancing act officials strived for while crafting the service’s fiscal 2014 budget request, the Air Force’s top budget official made no secret that the service sees a new base closure round as an essential means to pare its excess capacity. “We also want to foot stomp that we’re very much in favor of BRAC,” Maj. Gen. Edward Bolton Jr., deputy assistant secretary for budget, told reporters …
In his first congressional hearing since being confirmed, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Thursday attempted to make the case to hold a BRAC round in 2015 before a number of critics in the House Armed Services Committee. Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Va.), chairman of the Readiness Subcommittee, pressed Hagel as to whether now is the right time to pursue base closures, given the challenges facing the military, including sequestration, the drawdown in Afghanistan and the pivot toward Asia …
The Department of Veterans Affairs’ $63.5 billion fiscal 2014 budget request calls for a Veterans Job Corps to invest in veterans’ skills and experience, and place tens of thousands of veterans into civilian jobs. Features of the initiative include: $1 billion in mandatory funds to help unemployed veterans; a target of putting 20,000 veterans to work within the next five years in conservation, law enforcement and infrastructure jobs on public lands; developing back-to-work programs for veterans with other federal agencies, including the Interior and Agriculture departments, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Army Corps of Engineers; and supporting job-producing projects with contracts and grants with nonfederal organizations, such as states, nonprofit organizations and private businesses.
The Pentagon’s fiscal 2014 budget request for $526.6 billion represents a healthy 8 percent increase over current year funding, but because it ignores the reality of sequestration it is unlikely to be realized. Instead, the White House has proposed a set of tax increases and spending cuts to reverse sequestration and the $500 billion in automatic defense cuts it requires. DOD still would need to absorb $150 billion in spending reductions over the coming decade, but those cuts would be deferred until after FY 2018 …
Along with requesting a new base closure round, the Pentagon is proposing further cuts in its civilian workforce as part of new money-saving initiatives included in its fiscal 2014 budget request. The two actions are intertwined, as DOD Comptroller Robert Hale explained to reporters Wednesday. The proposed restructuring of the civilian workforce could result in a 5 to 6 percent reduction from fiscal 2013 to 2018 …
The BRAC round the Pentagon is requesting for 2015 would be patterned after the 1993 and 1995 rounds, Pentagon Comptroller Robert Hale said Wednesday, offering a sharp contrast to the sprawling 2005 round and its focus on transformation and realignment. When combined with the $2.4 billion implementation cost officials are projecting for the prospective base closure round, Hale’s description paints a picture of a BRAC process with very little in common with the most recent round …
The Pentagon is requesting a new base closure round in 2015, but in a change from last year’s request for additional BRAC rounds, officials allocated funding in the new budget proposal to cover the upfront costs of carrying out the process of trimming DOD’s infrastructure. If nothing else, the decision to include $2.4 billion over the next five years to pay for a new base closure round should inoculate the Obama administration against accusations that it’s not serious about paring its infrastructure …
Despite recently auctioning off a high-profile property in Northwest Washington, D.C., the federal government still has a way to go in its effort to streamline the process for agencies to dispose of excess properties. Last month a development team submitted the winning bid of $19.5 million to purchase the Georgetown West Heating Plant, a vacant property over the past decade that has cost $3.5 million in annual upkeep. Still, only a minority of the savings made in response to President Obama’s initiative to cut real estate spending has come from getting rid of some of the federal government’s 14,000 excess properties …
Reports of BRAC’s death have not been greatly exaggerated, at least according to the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. On Tuesday, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said he didn’t expect the Obama administration to request new base closure rounds in its fiscal 2014 budget request since Congress already made it clear last year that it was opposed to authorizing additional BRAC rounds …