The date of implementation of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure is fast approaching and some agencies aren’t just focused on moving boxes and relocations – they’re looking at how they can keep costs down in the face of Pentagon money-saving initiatives.

More than 800 military installations are impacted by BRAC, with 123,000 service members and civilian employees relocating to new facilities. By law, BRAC must be completed by Sept. 15.

The Defense Contract Management Agency is moving its headquarters staff and several divisions from Alexandria, Va., to Fort Lee, Va. as a part of BRAC, impacting about 500 employees. As the agency that manages the military’s $400 billion contracted goods and services budget they’re at the center of calls to reform defense acquisitions and trim fat from the budget.

“You are asking people who are part of the solution here to move to Fort Lee –- to either relocate, or you are going to have to find somebody else to do that job,” said Ashton B. Carter undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics . “I realize we are in pursuit of the promised land of a better footprint. But boy, it is tough on people.”

To help employees considering the move DCMA offered three days of permissive temporary duty travel for employees to visit Fort Lee and better consider making the move. Phased moves have already begun to transition offices at Fort Lee, to ensure adequate employees are on hand at all times. The new facility is also designed to improve efficiency, with 18 conference rooms all with videoconferencing ability designed to help DCMA work with the field offices that make up the majority of its workforce. 10,400 civilians and 530 military members are located in the agency’s 50 major field commands, operating from more than 800 locations worldwide, according to Deputy Director Jim Russell. With such a dispersed staff technology is seen as one way to decrease costs and increase efficiency.

Officials cite those field commands as being critical to overall efforts to trim the budget and increase cost savings.

“We can do initiatives and policies and have meetings, but at the end of the day, it’s the people in the program offices who are running the programs and the chief engineers and their staffs in the contracting offices who are really going to make a difference in all this,” said Frank Kendall, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.

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