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Local Employees Might Not Feel Effects of BRAC

The prospect of the Pentagon’s upcoming round of base closures is casting a shadow over city halls and statehouses. It’s happening in the Midwest, the Northeast, Southern California, and all over the United States. Since military facilities pump money into regional economies, community leaders dread the prospect of bases being closed or downsized.

Defense spending is a big deal in San Diego. The region took in $13.6 billion in Defense Department procurement, salaries, pensions and benefits in 2002, the latest year for which figures are available, according to the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.

An individual installation such as the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command, which directly employs 4,200 civilians and a few hundred members of the military, pumped $418.9 million in salaries into the San Diego region, according to Spawar, in fiscal 2004, which ended in September.

While community leaders focus on the broad economic implications of closures, the impact on individuals who work at those bases may be somewhat more subdued.

“I don’t think the people I used to work with are terribly concerned” about the coming base closure round, said Paul Voss, an El Cajon resident who retired from a civilian job at Spawar Systems Center in June 2003.

At its most dramatic, the Base Realignment and Closure process, or BRAC, has the potential to shutter bases and military support facilities.

Pentagon officials are set to make recommendations by mid-May about which U.S. bases could be closed or reconfigured in an effort to save money. That’s just a beginning. A political process that will take the rest of the year could alter that list in San Diego’s favor , or change it to San Diego’s detriment.

For Peggy Cathcart, a Normal Heights resident who retired last year from a civilian manager’s job at Spawar Systems Center in Point Loma, BRAC rounds were “just one of those things they go through.”

“So many things happen to federal workers,” she added.

Cathcart said that in her experience, a commercial activity study is “more traumatic” than a BRAC round. Known as a “CA study,” for short, a commercial activity study is when the government invites private sector firms to compete for jobs held by civil service workers.

“Government employees do lose jobs in those situations,” she said, adding that morale can suffer.

Cathcart also noted that once the government makes a decision to close or realign a base, the process of carrying that out can take several years. Civilian employees have “plenty of time” to look for other jobs or can take early retirement.

Cathcart said her perspective is from a person who worked in the labs on Point Loma; it may be different elsewhere, she said.

Though Voss and Cathcart saw several BRAC rounds San Diego bases went through the process in 1988, 1991, 1993 and 1995 , both said the experience didn’t significantly affect their careers.

If anything, it was a bureaucratic exercise for Voss, whose 31-year Navy career included jobs as a computer specialist and electronic engineer. He said that during a certain period, he was asked to provide data about the electronic systems his facility supported. After that came more requests for clarification.

The “data call” is an early part of the BRAC process. The data call for the current base closure round took place in 2004.

There’s no telling what’s going to happen, Voss said, but he said San Diego has at least one advantage. History shows the local congressional delegation has fought hard to keep the region’s bases. San Diego County is represented by Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Escondido, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee and the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.

Voss is not convinced that his old unit, which supports specific electronic systems aboard ships, will leave San Diego.

“What I do know is there are systems out there in the Navy that need support, and the people in San Diego provide support,” he said.

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