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outlook, can best identify the needs and the approach that should be taken to meet them. To this end, the EAC utilizes a team of Federal experts in many different fields to work directly with community leaders to help them identify needs and opportunities for development action. The EAC team stays with the job until the community's program is well underway -- helping as needed to enlist assistance from the Federal resources available to complement and supplement the community's own resources.

Within this guiding philosophy, the Committee's assistance to a community normally falls into three distinct phases:

1. Organization Phase. An impacted community initiates an economic adjustment program by making a request to the Chairman or Co-Chairman of the President's Committee. The Chairman is the Secretary of Defense. The Co-Chairman is the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Installations and Logistics). A request may be made at any time by an official or officials of the town, city, county or State concerned, or by a member or members of the appropriate Congressional delegation.

Upon receipt of a request for assistance, EAC arranges a meeting with community leaders to discuss the Defense realignment action and its anticipated impact on the community; provide information concerning the disposal of excess land and facilities; outline the assistance available to the community from the Committee's member agencies; and discuss other related matters of concern to the community.

The active involvement and support of local public and private agencies and organizations, as well as regional and State agencies and organizations is essential to the success of any community economic adjustment program. For example, the local Chamber of Commerce or industrial development corporation may play key roles. The Committee staff, therefore, at this initial meeting asks the community to organize a leadership committee to work with the EAC and assume responsibility for the economic adjustment program. This leadership committee serves as the communication and liaison link between the EAC and the community.

2. Planning Phase. Once the community has established an adequate development organization and has a clear picture of the

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anticipated impact of the Defense action, it can begin to plan a development strategy for countering that impact. The EAC assists the community in analyzing the area's short and long range needs and deficiencies and in identifying the specific directions toward which community development efforts should move. Thus, a broad range of assistance is available. Whatever is needed is done -- from the preparation of in-depth technical analyses by the EAC's member agencies to the elimination of red tape in obtaining Federal grant funds.

The development strategy must take into consideration a great many interrelated factors if the community's development effort is to be successful. For example, analysis may reveal that the community lacks some important elements for attracting new industry, such as an adequate water and sewer system, the ability to provide the kind of skilled workers needed by a specific industry, adequate transportation, sufficient housing in desirable price range, recreational and cultural facilities, a hospital or a good educational system. In those communities where a Defense installation may be declared surplus, development plans must not only consider proposed new uses but must also consider the impact of future civilian operations on the local infrastructure. If, for example, a development plan concentrates only on formulating an industrial land use plan for a surplus installation and ignores these related elements, it is almost certain to be a failure. The development plan must be a "package" of all the interrelated elements necessary to ensure the success of the adjustment program.

3. Implementation and Management Phase. Local leaders have the major responsibility for planning and implementing the community's economic adjustment program. It is the EAC's responsibility to assist these leaders with the technical and financial resources of the Federal

government.

Experience has shown that many local projects (particularly those related to base conversion, industrial development and related purposes) are eligible for financial assistance under one or more Federal programs. However, delays may occur because funds are not immediately available to meet the impact situation. Occasionally, private funds may be used to alleviate this situation and such action is encouraged.

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Helping communities plan and carry out orderly development is a requirement of many Federal programs. Federal agency procedures, however, are not designed to respond quickly to the critical needs of a base closure. The essential task facing the EAC is to speed up these normally time-consuming processes. Stated another way, EAC's role is to help concentrate the right mix of Federal resources quickly on the community transition process.

THE IMPACT OF DEFENSE REALIGNMENTS

Historical Perspective

The April 17, 1973 announcements described 274 specific actions to consolidate, reduce, realign or close military installations in the United States and Puerto Rico. These actions are expected to save approximately 3.5 billion dollars over the next ten years. Fortytwo thousand eight hundred military and civilian positions are to be eliminated. Thirty-two states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico are affected.

These realignment actions scale down the Department of Defense base structure in line with the reduced force levels and training requirements resulting in large part from the end of the Vietnam conflict. Moreover, these realignments will make it possible to channel scarce Defense funds into high-priority areas, such as research and development, readiness and modernization of forces, and maintenance of strategic sufficiency.

When completed, these realignments will affect the military Services as follows:

Army strength will be down from 1.6 million military
personnel in 1968 to 804, 000 in June 1974. Army aviation
training requirements will be reduced from 6, 887 pilots
in 1969 to 1,502 by June 1974.

The Navy's active fleet ship level will be down from 917
to 523 ships and active fleet aircraft from 5,014 to 3,956
between June 1964 to June 1974.

The number of active Air Force aircraft will be reduced
from 12,535 in 1968 to 8, 313 in 1974. Pilot training
requirements will be reduced to a level of 3, 424 from the
peak 1972 requirement of 4, 440.

A glance at military cutbacks since 1961 provides some measure of the magnitude of the current realignment. The April 17th cutback is the smallest of five major realignments since 1961 and is significantly less than the realignments of 1969 and 1970. Realignment actions

totaled 1,387 in the 12-year period 1961-73. The last third of that period (October 1969-April 1973) accounted for 65% of the realignments but only 53% of the jobs eliminated.

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1 - 1969 and 1970 packages included many horizontal reductions (RIFs) at a great many bases with a total of 22 major closures, whereas the current package consists primarily of closures (40).

2 - Eliminated = Jobs abolished.

The realignments announced in April are spread across the country. However, some regions are hit more severely than others. Furthermore, 199 or 73% of the actions are cuts in the Navy. This contrasts with the fact that major previous realignments involved primarily Air Force facilities. Now Naval shipyards and Naval air stations are being closed.

The recent actions differ from previous realignments inasmuch as past cuts were "horizontal" in nature; that is, repeated manpower reductions at most Defense establishments across the country. Thus, many communities were affected in varying ways. The April 1973 shifts can be classified as "vertical" in that entire facilities are being closed. "Vertical" shifts tend to hit fewer communities but hit them more severely.

A disaggregation of the total impact reveals the true meaning of these changes. While jobs eliminated will amount to 42, 800 (the net difference between jobs lost and jobs gained), the real challenge is posed by the fact that some 74,000 jobs will be dislocated (jobs lost plus jobs transferred elsewhere). It is this impact that is the prime concern of the EAC.

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