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Sunday, August 27, 2000

Navy's goal here: Cut costs
Regionalization could save more than $31 million in 5 years
By Deborah Martínez
Caller-Times
South Texas' three naval bases could save more than $31 million in the next five years by consolidating services and cutting as many as 53 military and civilian jobs.
   To the Navy, the team effort is called regionalization, a plan to combine the bases' support services and make what it now calls Navy Region South Texas more competitive with the rest of the Navy.
   To the local community, it means insurance against base closures, said Capt. Rick Marcantonio, commanding officer at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi and deputy commander of Navy Region South Texas.
   Marcantonio works under Rear Adm. Michael Bucchi, chief of naval air training and the highest-ranking active duty Navy officer in South Texas. Although each base now reports to Bucchi and Marcantonio, all three continue to operate individually under their commanders, including Capt. J.J. Morrow at Naval Air Station Kingsville and Capt. Nancy Honey at Naval Station Ingleside.
   In an area steeped in the Navy, it is important that none of the bases come across as a needless resource to the military, Marcantonio said.
   "We're trying to think of anything we can to become more efficient," he said. "Because we are close enough together to use our technology and resources, but far enough apart to stay safe, we can bypass (the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission)."
   The groundwork for the regionalization plan began seven months ago.
   Since its final planning phase late last month, Navy Region South Texas has slowly come to life, with functions such as information services and public works already combining under one office at NAS Corpus Christi.
   Navy Region South Texas should be completely set by July 2001, when the bases' other operations, including air operations and public safety departments, are combined under one central head.
   These services will still be offered at each base, but operations will be controlled at NAS Corpus Christi, where Bucchi is headquartered.
   If all goes well, not only will regionalization save $31.8 million locally, but it will help the Navy as a whole deal with a $5 billion gap that the Department of the Navy blames on a lack of congressional funding, said Ron Martinez, the Navy's business manager for the South Texas region.
   Budget cuts
   The Navy anticipates Congress will cut $5 billion from the request the Navy made for fiscal years 2001-2005, was $5 billion more than Congress authorized.
   "There's this wedge between the money we know we'll get and what we know it will cost to continue operating," Martinez said. "The Department of the Navy asked all its activities to help live without it. Everything comes down to money.
   "So what happens if the money given by Congress isn't growing and the cost of business is? We combine our forces. We become more efficient and competitive."
   That means slashing those 53 military and civilian jobs, most of which are at managerial and administrative posts, and combining them under one office, Navy Region South Texas officials said.
   Sharing technology
   And it means sharing technology, such as air traffic control.
   Under regionalization, air operations will be based at NAS Kingsville, which has more advanced radar capacity. NAS Corpus Christi's radar systems are only equipped to keep track of activity 10 miles out. .
   In Kingsville, after a $300,000 upgrade, the Navy's air radar systems will be able to survey the entire region, including NAS Corpus Christi and Naval Landing Field Orange Grove.
   "From Kingsville to Corpus Christi, you have a scope and communication capability to work with," Marcantonio said. "With a deficit of $5 billion, you had to come up with something. You had to change the way you do business."
   Impact unknown
   Still, regionalization shouldn't be celebrated just yet, at least not until its impact can be seen, U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, said.
   If it indeed saves millions of dollars, it won't be known for at least the next five years. Savings in Navy regions launched in 1998, such as San Diego's Navy Region Southwest and Jacksonville, Fla.'s Navy Region Southeast, haven't been calculated yet.
   At this point, everything is pure speculation, Ortiz said. For fiscal year 2001, Congress still hasn't authorized or designated money to any proposed budget - Department of the Defense or not - much less authorized or designated for the next five years, an Ortiz spokeswoman said. The Navy is working off numbers that Congress estimates they will meet.
   'I hope this works'
   "By assuming that doing this will save money . . . these are big cuts based on assumptions," Ortiz said. "They have brought other plans before Congress, and there hasn't been any savings. The $31 million (savings) is an assumption. I hope this works."
   Bucchi and Marcantonio are basing the South Texas effort on what has worked best in other regional Navy operations.
   For example, decisions to eliminate individual base commanders and operate the bases under a remote commander who may not be in touch with each community's needs were criticized in other regional efforts, so Bucchi chose to keep each South Texas base working under its own commander.
   'Lean and mean'
   More than 50 jobs are lost because of the plan. Those spots filled by military employees won't be taken away until their next assignment.
   Those filled by civilians will be either moved to another job they qualify for in the region or they will be given severance pay, as much as $25,000 depending on their time with the Navy. If the civilian worker is close to retirement age, they could be offered early retirement benefits.
   Job cuts and shuffles under regionalization don't affect each base's tenants, such as NAS Corpus Christi's chief of naval air training office or NS Ingleside's individual ships and the Center for Mine Warfare Excellence.
   "The more integrated we get, the more we consolidate, and the more redundancies that we eliminate will make us as strong as we can be when facing BRAC," Martinez said. "We're trying to be a lean and mean fighting machine so that when we face BRAC, we're invincible."


Staff writer Deborah Martínez can be reached at 886-3618 or by e-mail at _martinezd@caller.com

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