DFAS center needed as northern Maine’s anchor

It was truly shocking to learn on Saturday that the Defense Finance and Accounting Service center in Limestone was included on the base closure list, especially when it had been widely recognized as a facility that featured highly skilled and motivated employees, as well as the latest technology, making this center a model operation for the Department of Defense.

Not only was this an efficient and cost-effective center but also it was built on a solid foundation of rational thinking.

So, let’s stop and take a look back 10 years. At that time it was felt that as much as we might criticize the federal government for it’s lack of common sense and it’s ongoing pork barrel mentality the decision to locate a DFAS center on the closed Loring Air Force base was a really good idea! This would utilize a remote area of a rural state, an area with high unemployment yet blessed with a population of proven hard working, conscientious individuals.

Furthermore, it would make use of an area being devastated by the closure of a military base, a base that had historically accounted for so much of its economy and vitality. It also recognized that this area did not have the advantages of a major highway system, nor a rail system, nor a deep-water port, nor any significant commercial air traffic to stimulate economic growth and was also being badly hurt by a recent crackdown on cross-border shopping from Canada.

So a way was found to give the economy a shot in the arm by providing a large number of well-paying positions that depended not on road, nor rail, nor air, nor ocean infrastructure but primarily on technology, telephone lines and computers as well as the quality and work ethic of the local population. And just to make it even more logical, those in power recognized that the federal government had just built a new $30 million hospital that was now being abandoned due to the base closure and could be converted to a business center with a reasonable amount of effort. And, just think, the DFAS center would provide the closed base with an “anchor store” one that would be the stimulus for further economic development not only for those many abandoned military acres but the entire geographic region.

And it worked. The Defense Finance and Accounting Service center was opened on the former Loring Air Force base in Limestone in 1995 and has been a model of success ever since, capitalizing on the hard working folks from Aroostook County and serving to support the further development of that former SAC base, now known as the Loring Commerce Center. It has been effective, has won awards and been recognized for superior performance. As senator Olympia Snowe noted this week: “..the center has been praised for its low operating costs and quality work force.”

“This is a facility that has earned the ‘Heroes of Reinvention’ award for its accomplishments in making government work, in this instance through superior customer service.”

Two years ago the 145,000-square-foot building even underwent a $6 million renovation, with an expectation of expansion.

But now comes a new round of base closures and for some yet totally unknown reason the Limestone DFAS is surprisingly included on the list of those facilities being closed. Remember this was the anchor given to northern Maine to help offset the earlier base closure and it provided some of the best-paying jobs in northern and central Aroostook County.

Wouldn’t the logic have been, assuming there is sufficient reason for cutbacks and consolidation in DFAS, to expand the Limestone facility? So what is the explanation? Payback, a lack of concern for truly rural areas, a lack of memory about earlier decisions, Florida, Texas and Tennessee needing the economic stimulus more?

I certainly am not close enough to anyone in power to know the real rational. But I do know that this is another devastating blow to a wonderful area that has been trying very hard to pull itself up by the bootstraps and has been doing it with hard work, sweat and class. It really is hard to believe tat they would close the same area twice.

And before anyone jumps too quickly on Sens. Collins and Snowe as being penalized because they have stood up for all of us in their roles as Senate moderates, remember that when Loring was closed Senator George Mitchell was Senate Majority leader and Senator Bill Cohen was a senior member of the Armed Services Committee. Even in those roles, they couldn’t prevent the closure. They, along with then Congresswoman Snowe, were competent, dedicated and very influential and played by the rules but the bureaucracy prevailed. So we shouldn’t be too quick to throw darts at our two senators.

Certainly most of the attention in Maine will be directed at trying to reverse the decisions to close the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and prevent the “re-alignment” of the Brunswick Naval Air Station. But don’t forget Limestone, its 362 employees and their families as well as the economic spin-off that those jobs bring to Aroostook County. Those folks deserve our support.

As Sen. Susan Collins so appropriately commented after hearing of the proposed shutdown of the Limestone facility: “After the devastating and ill-advised closure of Loring Air Force base during the round of BRAC in 1991, the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (through the Department of Defense) made a commitment to help facilitate economic recovery in the Loring area and activated this facility in 1995. It doesn’t make sense to close such an efficient operation that saves the taxpayer money and contributes to our defense mission by providing support services to our men and women in uniform.”

Amen.

Jack McCormack, a resident of Gorham, was the chairman of The Loring Readjustment Committee and is a former resident of New Sweden.