Bates Says Navy Stores No Bargain to Sailors : Military: The congressman’s second survey in recent weeks finds higher prices than at Army and Air Force stores, and he blames mismanagement.

Prices in the Navy exchange stores are 15% to 25% higher than those in Army and Air Force stores, according to Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego), who said mismanagement is to blame.

“The military personnel are not getting the benefits that they have been promised; they are not getting a good buy on those items,” Bates said Friday. “The prices are not low, and they should be the lowest in town.”

He said his staff conducted a survey using 36 randomly selected items, comparing the exchange prices at the Miramar Naval Air Station with the nationwide set rates at Army and Air Force stores.

Experts are in the process of considering whether to combine the Navy’s exchange system with that of the Air Force and Army, which are under joint management, Bates said.

Navy spokesman Cmdr. Doug Schamp said he had not seen the congressman’s survey, the second by Bates’ staff in recent weeks, and could not respond to it.

“But there’s no doubt in my mind that I save money when I go to the exchanges,” said Schamp, who added that, in his own experience, he has seen no substantial price differences among Navy, Army and Air Force stores.

The Navy’s own annual survey of 300 items--conducted in May by an independent market research firm--shows that sailors save 23% by shopping at San Diego-area base exchanges instead of private retailers.

Since the Army and Air Force stores have almost three times as many customers as does the Navy, it may be that those facilities can offer lower prices on some items, said one Navy source who declined to be named.

Bates says inventory losses among San Diego’s 13 Navy exchange stores doubled in 1988 and again in 1989. At Miramar’s exchange, the loss was $1.1 million--or three times the level deemed acceptable by the Navy, he said, adding that the losses were apparently due to mismanagement rather than theft.

Officials from Miramar’s exchange were unavailable for comment Friday.

Congressional hearings have been scheduled for May in San Diego to discuss management and organizational deficiencies in the exchange system.

In Bates’ survey, which did not include sale items, a bottle of Scope mouthwash that cost $3.70 at Miramar’s exchange cost $2.79 at Army and Air Force stores. A 60-tablet bottle of Tylenol Extra Strength aspirin substitute that cost $4.70 at Miramar went for $3.89 at Army and Air Force stores. And a 14-ounce container of Johnson’s baby powder that went for $3.50 at the Navy’s facility cost $1.79 at the other military stores.

“I see no reason that would justify significant price differences between retail items sold by Navy exchanges and the Army and Air Force Exchange Service,” Rep. Marvin Leath (D-Texas) wrote in a letter to Bates dated April 4. Leath is the chairman of the Morale, Welfare & Recreational Panel of the House Armed Services Committee.

In Bates’ earlier survey, conducted in March, he compared Navy exchange prices with those at civilian retail stores. He found that the Navy prices were an average of 4% higher, despite the common notion that military exchanges save money for their customers.