EATONTOWN — State lawmakers are planning to request additional hearings in response to a recent report that detailed relocation plans for Fort Monmouth.
The request comes in the wake of a report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GOA), which the lawmakers say revealed that there will be an estimated shortage of 2,200 positions when the Fort Monmouth base moves to Aberdeen Providing Ground in Maryland in 2011.
“This GAO report clearly shows that the Army will not be able to move from Fort Monmouth without adversely affecting the global war on terror,” Congressman Frank Pallone Jr. said.
“There is no way for the work force at Aberdeen to adequately provide support for our troops when estimates show that the work force will not be reconstituted and fully trained until 2024.
“My colleagues and I will use this new information as further evidence that additional congressional oversight is essential,” he added.
Pallone, in addition to Congress members Rush Holt and Chris Smith and Sens. Frank R. Lautenberg and Robert Menendez, are seeking congressional hearings on the issue in an attempt to keep the base from closing.
Pallone said plans to redevelop the Fort Monmouth property should continue under the assumption that the fort will still close in 2011.
“The fort is likely to close,” Pallone said. “I mean, we’re trying, but chances are it’s going to close.”
In 2005 Congress voted to close Fort Monmouth and over 20 other military installations across the country in an effort to consolidate military operations.
In response to the fort’s impending closure, the Fort Monmouth Economic Revitalization Planning Authority (FMERPA) was formed in an effort to minimize the impact the loss of the fort would have on its three host towns. Eatontown, Oceanport and Tinton Falls.
FMERPA officials were charged with establishing a plan to redesign the fort property in a way that would help to mitigate the loss of the roughly 15,000 jobs the fort provides.
A final plan to redesign the fort property was presented in Eatontown last month.
The GAO report, issued on Aug. 13, is an audit of a December 2007 Department of Defense (DOD) report, which outlines challenges the Army faces in implementing the move from Fort Monmouth to Aberdeen without disrupting support for the global war on terror, according to a press release from the lawmakers.
In 2005, the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) required the DOD to submit a report outlining how the Army’s move from Fort Monmouth to the Aberdeen Proving Ground could be accomplished without disrupting the war on terror.
State lawmakers later requested an audit of the DOD’s report, in order to ensure that it had met all of the requirements set forth in the BRAC process.
“In late December of last year, the DOD did the report, and they concluded in their report that they could close Fort Monmouth without negatively impacting the global war on terror,” Pallone said. “But that report from December of last year had more in it that indicated the opposite.
“And so we asked the GAO, which is an arm of Congress, to do an analysis of [the DOD’s report] because we believe the DOD came to the wrong conclusion,” Pallone explained.
He continued, “Basically my view is that this GAO report pretty much shows that … closing Fort Monmouth will negatively impact the global war on terrorism.
“Now the next thing we are going to do is ask the House Armed Services Committee to have a hearing on these two documents so we can testify as to why we think they both show collectively that Fort Monmouth shouldn’t close,” Pallone said.
According to Pallone, the GAO report states that only 30 to 40 percent of the Fort Monmouth work force will move with the fort when the Army relocates to the Aberdeen Proving Ground.
As a result, the military will have to hire 3,700 new employees in order to make up for those workers who do not move to the Aberdeen Proving Ground.
“It would take five years to hire all of those people and get them on board, and it would take another three to eight years to train them to get them up to snuff,” Pallone said.
“The point is, they are going to negatively impact the global war on terrorism, because for 13 years we are going to be behind the eight ball in our ability to function to have a top-notch communication and electronic operation for the Army,” Pallone said.
“We cannot put the intelligence and communications on which our troops rely on in jeopardy,” Congressman Rush Holt (D-12th District) said.
Holt weighed in, saying, “Unfortunately, as this report makes clear, they would be at grave risk if Fort Monmouth were to close.
“If the work at Fort Monmouth weren’t important to the lives and effectiveness of our troops, maybe they could justify this move, but as is, this is without justification,” Holt added.
Lautenberg agreed, adding, “This report proves our point: closing the fort would harm our national security and undermine the war on terror.
“We now know that closing Fort Monmouth would result in serious setbacks and the loss of some of the best and most highly skilled experts in the field.
“That break in our mission would put our troops on the battlefield at risk,” Lautenberg said, adding, “We’ll keep fighting to keep Fort Monmouth open.”