The Arlington-based Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) is in the process of moving thousands of its employees from Virginia to the Fort Meade base in Maryland, as part of federal Base Realignment and Closure process (BRAC).
Beginning this month and continuing through the end of the summer, 150 to 200 DISA employees will be moved every weekend until 4,200 will be moved by the end of summer. Over the next few years, DISA will move 75 percent of its total workforce to Fort Meade.
Yet DISA is only one of three federal agencies coming to Fort Meade as the Defense Media Activity and the co-location of the Defense Adjudication Program will move employees from the National Security Agency and U.S. Cyber Command to Fort Meade. A total of 5,695 jobs at Fort Meade are expected this year and by 2015, county officials estimate the base will have more than 27,000 new workers.
Yet the area is still struggling with infrastructure to support the number of new workers, with transportation planners expecting about 100,000 cars crossing the perimeter of Fort Meade each day. The problem has been compounded by the expected number of commuters, instead of residents.
“We struggled mightily with the state to redirect resources to get something accomplished to help relieve that initial push,” said Robert Leib, the regional BRAC coordinator for Anne Arundel County. “They’re all caught up in the no money syndrome.”
