State leaders vow to fight DFAS cuts Baldacci, Maine delegation attend Limestone meeting

LIMESTONE ? Gov. John E. Baldacci and Maine’s entire congressional delegation vowed Sunday night to fight the U.S. Department of Defense’s proposal to cut the Limestone Defense Finance and Accounting Service Center.

Baldacci, U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, and U.S. Reps. Michael Michaud and Tom Allen attended a meeting with business, industry and local government officials and employees of the center.

The proposed closure was called “a gross error” by Baldacci, “unconscionable” by Collins, “inconceivable” by Snowe, “outrageous” by Michaud, and “unthinkable” by Allen.

The governor told the nearly 100 people gathered in the Applied Technology Facility at the Loring Commerce Centre that the state has hired a consulting firm to fight all of the cuts proposed in Maine, including the DFAS Center.

“We have the first team with us here tonight, and none of us agree with the recommendations made Friday,” Baldacci said. “We are here to hear firsthand your information, which we will use to take their case apart piece by piece. This center is [the] corner piece of the Loring redevelopment process of the last 10 years. It will be a full-court press, an all-out effort, and the state will do whatever it has to do.”

The cuts proposed in Maine amount to more than 7,000 jobs from Limestone to Kittery. Baldacci and Maine’s Washington delegation met with people in Brunswick on Saturday, Limestone on Sunday and will be at Kittery today.

No one at Sunday night’s meeting could say why the Department of Defense called for closing the center, which has garnered awards over the years for the work ethic of employees and for doing the work at the lowest cost across the system. In addition, the Department of Defense listed the number of employees at the Limestone center as 241 on Friday, but the center’s director, Larry Conrad, said Sunday night it has 362 employees. Defense department officials also did not come to Limestone before adding the office to the list, meeting attendees were told.

Ron Rosse worked for DFAS in Ohio and moved his family nine years ago to come to work at the Limestone center. He is a leader in the department that works on foreign military sales for the center.

“I was surprised and disappointed when the news was given to us,” Rosse said Sunday after the meeting with the governor and the delegation. “This is one of the best offices in the organization, and it has the best employees in DFAS.”

Diane Porter has been with the center only two months, and works as an accounting technician. She said she was shocked and surprised by Friday’s announcement.

“We thought we might lose some work from the cuts in the military,” she said. “We never thought it would be a direct hit.”

Many people look at the DFAS closure as Aroostook County’s “second base closing.” The center was one of the first major employers on Loring Air Force Base after it closed in 1994. Over the years, even last month, the facility and its employees received many awards from the Defense Department and the federal government for the work they have done.

DFAS was opened at Loring by the Department of Defense to assist in the reuse of the facility after Loring Air Force Base was closed. The closure of DFAS would eliminate 25 percent of the jobs that it took the Loring Development Authority 10 years to produce after the base closed. The authority estimated that the annual payroll of the facility, where jobs average $32,000 to $35,000 per year, amounts to between $11 million and $12 million.

The facility is located in the former Air Force base hospital. The $28 million facility was built in 1988, just six years before the base closed. In the last three years, $6 million in renovations have been done to the facility.

Several people called the DFAS Center office building, 145,000 square feet on three floors, one of the nicest office buildings in Maine.

A coalition of businesses and industries in Aroostook County has started organizing for the fight, which will last until DFAS is taken off the military’s closure list, or until Sept. 8, when the final decision will be made.

The Aroostook Partnership for Progress, a new organization seeking to bring jobs to Aroostook County, said it will fight the closure. It will work with the Northern Maine Development Commission, Maine Public Service Co. and Leaders Encouraging Aroostook Development in the effort, as well as with local town and education officials.