Nearly a quarter of the Army’s infrastructure is in poor condition or failing and installation management officials would rather close or consolidate those facilities than spend the $10 billion a year needed to bring them back up to snuff.
At least 22 percent, or 33,000 of the Army’s individual facilities are in worse than poor condition, according to J. Randall Robinson, acting assistant secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment. The Army spends about $500 million a year just maintaining its infrastructure at its current condition without any major capital improvements, he said March 23 at a forum on Army installation management hosted by the Association of the U.S. Army at its headquarters outside Washington, D.C..
“The Army for years has taken risk in installations to fund training and unit readiness,” Robinson said. “Resourcing installations has not been part of the Army’s focused investment strategy. I can say that we have been on a failed funding strategy with our installations and facilities.”
Instead, the Army has used funds available in a single year to place Band-Aids on what Robinson called “critical needs” at the Army’s various and sprawling installations. Military construction funding has been a bill payer in the Army’s last several budgets for near-term readiness and some modernization and to cover rising personnel and sustainment costs.
“The result is a trend where we are sending our scarce resources to fix the worst of the worst rather than investing in a deliberative strategy in support of readiness,” he said. “Additional topline funding is unlikely in the immediate future.”
Lt. Gen. Gwen Bingham, Army assistant chief of staff for installation management, said it would require $10.8 billion to bring the service’s failing facilities back to good or adequate condition. Robinson said it would take six years to complete the work.
“The Army needs a bold shift in its installation resourcing strategy over the next 10 years,” Bingham said.
Senior Army leaders have repeatedly asked Congress for authority to conduct another round of base realignment and closure (BRAC), but the process is politically unpopular because it entails shuttering bases in some lawmakers’ home districts. Bingham said both Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and the Trump administration recommend launching another round of BRAC.
The Army has 161 million square feet of excess infrastructure that could be consolidated or closed to save significant money, Bingham said. Previous rounds of BRAC have saved about $1 billion per year, she and Robinson said.
“That’s not all contiguous space. That’s why it is inefficient and bodes well for us to have another round of BRAC to allow us to become proficient and more efficient at what we do.”
Robinson said the Army “definitely needs a BRAC,” but it does not have the authority even to study how another round of base consolidation would be conducted. The 2005 BRAC resulted in about $1 billion in annual savings for the Army. Coupled with previous consolidation efforts, the Army annually sees about $2 billion in savings and Robinson said another round should be commensurate with those examples.
“We do know that we can consolidate units, consolidate functions, consolidate activities – moving things around to optimize space, maximize efficiency,” he said. “We know we will see great benefits from a base realignment and closure.”