FAREWELL TO ALL BRAC

How often does Maine celebrate while losing 4,000 jobs? That’s what the base-closure process will do to a state: make it grateful that things weren’t worse and jubilant over the status quo. The added jobs at Limestone knock hardly a dent in the number lost in Brunswick, but those too are warmly received. They are, at the very least, evidence that the current employees at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service center have performed their duties well.

The base-closing commission voted Thursday not only to spare the Defense Finance and Accounting Service center but to add a minimum of 250 jobs, a victory for Aroostook County and Maine. Those jobs can be added with minimal need for new infrastructure and lots of potential for more work later. The base-closure commission rewrote the Pentagon’s plans for DFAS so the schedule for the expansion was not entirely clear yesterday but should proceed in the next several years.

A few lessons from the base-closure process:

. None of the Maine facilities emerged as the Pentagon had proposed, and the military’s numbers in a dozen ways did not hold up to scrutiny. This problem likely was repeated elsewhere in the country and should tell Congress that the military must improve the way it analyzes its assets. Possibly, had the Pentagon worked with the same numbers the base-closure commission did, its recommendations would have been very different and many communities would have been spared the expense and worry over closure. As Rep. Mike Michaud observed, “It’s a terrible process. The recommendations were flawed, the numbers were inaccurate. The saving grace was keeping Kittery and Limestone.”

. Presence matters. Several commissioners mentioned their concern about draining New England of a military presence, both for reasons of defense and culture. Though they would have a hard time pointing to the criteria that requires the military to inhabit every region in the nation, they understood the practical benefit of this and acted on it.

. Perception changes with the outcome. With two of three facilities removed from the list, it would be easy to forget the scrambling that took place last May (and well before) when the Pentagon’s list was received. The state’s congressional delegation pushed aside nearly everything else to work on this issue, trying anything they thought would better position Maine. A Mississippi newspaper Thursday had a simple explanation for Kittery being saved though not its Pascagoula Naval Station: “But pure politics intervened for BRAC at the 11th hour to overrule the Pentagon and decide to keep the Portsmouth shipyard at Kittery, Maine [and other bases] …. Their congressional delegations successfully exercised their clout.”

Maine’s got clout?

The BRAC commission said it would act independently and it kept its word, even when the result was not to Maine’s liking with the closure of Brunswick Naval Air Station. Congress should ask it or another commission like it to review and make recommendations on improving the process under which it acted. Though no one loves the military more than when BRAC is in motion, the Pentagon’s conclusions were way off base.