Norton Back in Running for Pentagon Finance Center
Defense Secretary Les Aspin this week laid out new ground rules that put San Bernardino back in the running as a site for a major Pentagon finance center at Norton Air Force Base.
The finance center would deliver about 4,000 jobs to the economically depressed area.
After rejecting a George Bush Administration selection process this year that required communities nationwide to offer alluring financial subsidies to become finalists, defense planners will focus on simpler criteria that still consider cost to the government, but also emphasize the reuse of closed military facilities and available labor pool.
With Norton scheduled for final shutdown next year and a 9.8% regional unemployment rate for April, Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Colton) said the new selection process “breathes some new life” into San Bernardino’s pursuit of the accounting center.
“I couldn’t be more pleased,” said Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands), whose redrawn district now includes the Norton base. “I was disconcerted by the earlier process and it’s very apparent the secretary wasn’t comfortable with it either. Norton fits perfectly with all the new criteria.”
The Norton plan was one of 20 selected in December from more than 200 submitted nationwide. Aspin said Monday that those finalists would be the “starting point” under his new selection procedure.
But congressional aides pointed out that the new rules could also spur any community with a threatened military base--several in California--to join the competition. Another new criterion--maintenance of customer service--suggested that the five major existing finance centers may also get special consideration.
Although seeming to streamline the process, the new selection procedure posed a whole new set of questions. “The Pentagon planners readily concede that they have to put a lot of meat on these bones,” said Bill Grady, an aide to Brown.
The Defense Finance and Accounting Service was founded in 1991 in hopes of consolidating the activities of more than 300 sites nationwide. Five major centers--in Denver, Cleveland, Kansas City, Indianapolis and Columbus, Ohio--employ 11,000 people, but 16,000 others are spread out in offices employing a dozen to 400 workers.
In 1992, the accounting service invited communities to submit proposals for one of the consolidated finance centers--based primarily on packages of local subsidies that would lower the cost to the federal government.
The prospect of 4,000 clerical jobs triggered intense competition. But Aspin, after taking over as defense secretary in January, made it clear that he believed that the process was not “sound public policy” and viewed by many as an “auction for public service jobs.”
