Military base closure costs skyrocket again

[unhappycamper]

Military base closure costs skyrocket again
By Bill Bowman - Asbury Park (N.J.) Press via Gannett News Service
Posted : Wednesday Aug 8, 2007 21:00:36 EDT


The total one-time cost for the military’s nationwide base realignment and closure project has increased another $500 million since mid-May, and the Defense Department cannot explain why.

That increase brings the cost of the military’s largest-ever round of base closings and realignments to $31.2 billion, according to Defense Department spokesman Chris Isleib.

In mid-May — 11 weeks ago — Isleib pegged the total BRAC cost at $30.7 billion.

The latest figure is about $9 billion more than the $22.3 billion Isleib said in May was the Defense Department’s original total cost estimate. The new estimate is also about $10 billion more than the roughly $21 billion figure approved by the 2005 BRAC commission, the panel that oversees realignment and closure recommendations.

~snip~

An Asbury Park Press investigation found that the cost of closing Fort Monmouth has doubled, from $780 million to $1.5 billion, since 2005. It also has revealed that Defense Department officials knew that the official cost estimate to close the fort was wrong and that they chose to ignore the information.

Isleib said the projected 20-year savings from the fort’s closing has been reduced about 67 percent, from the original $1.1 billion to $365 million. And the period over which the Defense Department expects its $1.5 billion investment in the Fort Monmouth closure to be repaid has doubled, to 10 years, Isleib said.

~snip~

(John Poitras, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 1904) “This is typical of what the Army does with taxpayers’ money,” he said, “and this should be reversed as soon as possible before we spend any more money or time on this unworthy project.”


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[UKProPeace]

1. There seems to be a simple answer

to the questions about costs of base closures....don't build as many of them...maybe it's just me though?

[RiDuvessa]

2. They haven't built a new military base in years.

Almost all the bases they're talking about closing have been around for decades.