The Cost of Supporting Military Bases
CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE
The Cost of Supporting Military Bases
NOVEMBER 2019
At a Glance
The Department of Defense operates hundreds of military bases and similar installations that host military units and support their daily operations, providing services such as housing, utilities, and grounds maintenance. This report analyzes the relationship between the cost of those services--also referred to as base operations support (BOS)--and specific characteristics of a base, such as its population and physical size. The key findings of the Congressional Budget Office include the following:
?? BOS costs are strongly related to the number of a base's employees and its
square footage of building space.
?? With other base characteristics unchanged, BOS costs associated with an
increase in population were lower at larger bases than at smaller bases. For example, in 2016 BOS costs increased by $1,000 for each employee added to bases with 25,000 or more employees, but they increased by $14,000 at bases with 5,000 or fewer employees. That finding implies that it would be more cost-effective to expand the population at larger bases than at smaller ones, everything else being equal.
?? Other characteristics that affect BOS costs at a base are the branch of
service that operates it, the mission of the units that it hosts, its location (inside or outside the United States), and its climate, although the effects of those characteristics are not as significant.
publication/55849
Contents
Summary
1
What Data Did CBO Use to Analyze the Cost of Base Operations Support?
1
What Did CBO Find?
1
What Are Some Limitations of CBO's Analysis?
1
BOX 1. WHAT IS BASE OPERATIONS SUPPORT?
2
Background
2
Military Bases
2
DoD's Budget and Its Spending on Base Operations Support
3
Bases CBO Analyzed
4
How CBO Analyzed Base Operations Support for Each Base
5
Characteristics CBO Analyzed
5
Characteristics CBO Did Not Analyze
7
Data and Sources
7
CBO's Findings
8
How a Base's Size Related to Its Support Costs
8
How Additional Personnel and Building Space Correlated With BOS Costs
10
How Other Characteristics Related to BOS Costs
10
Possible Uses of CBO's Results
12
BOX 2. PERSONNEL AND BUILDING SPACE REQUIREMENTS OF ARMY BRIGADE COMBAT TEAMS
14
Appendix A: CBO's Statistical Model for Estimating the Costs of Base Operations Support
17
Appendix B: Estimated Change in Base Operations Support When Units Move
Inside or Outside the United States
21
List of Tables and Figures
25
About This Document
26
Notes
The years referred to in this report are federal fiscal years, which run from October 1 to September 30 and are designated by the calendar year in which they end.
All costs are expressed in 2019 dollars and are adjusted for inflation using the Bureau of Economic Analysis's gross domestic product price index.
Numbers in the text, tables, and figures may not add up to totals because of rounding.
On the cover:
Upper left: Base honor guard airmen stand in front of a B-52 Stratofortress at Andersen Air Force Base, Guam. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sergeant Bennie J. Davis III.
Upper right: The Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS Springfield makes its homecoming arrival at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii. U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Michael Zingaro.
Lower right: Marines from Fox Company, 2nd Recruit Training Battalion, march across the parade deck during a graduation ceremony at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego. Marine Corps photo by Lance Corporal Angelica I. Annastas.
Bottom: Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Army Corps of Engineers photo by Jonas N. Jordan. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Army.
The Cost of Supporting Military Bases
Summary
The Department of Defense (DoD) operates hundreds of bases that support the daily operations of units in the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, and Navy, providing services such as housing, utilities, and grounds maintenance, much as might be found in a town or city (see Box 1 for a more detailed description of those services). In 2016, $25 billion--about 4 percent of DoD's budget-- was allocated to the costs of such services, called base operations support (BOS). The costs of providing such support vary between bases, and the factors that affect those costs are not clearly understood. In this report, the Congressional Budget Office explores certain characteristics of bases, such as their size, geographic location, and the mission of the units they serve, and uses statistical methods to assess the relationship between those characteristics and BOS costs.
What Data Did CBO Use to Analyze the Cost of Base Operations Support? CBO assembled 2016 data on more than 200 bases (about 90 percent of active-duty bases) in all four services. The characteristics CBO measured include the number of full-time DoD employees at a base, its building space, and its land area. Other characteristics CBO considered include the base's location (in the United States or overseas), the branch of service running it, the primary mission of the units it hosts, whether it hosts a significant number of transient personnel, the local climate, and the local cost of living.
What Did CBO Find? After analyzing all of the characteristics it identified, CBO found five that were clearly connected to a base's BOS costs: its size, primary mission, branch of service, location, and the climate extremes that it experiences (including precipitation and temperature). Of the five characteristics, the one most strongly related to BOS costs is size, in terms of both the number of employees and the amount of building space a base has.
CBO found that, with other characteristics unchanged, the increase in BOS costs associated with an increase in population was smaller at larger bases than at smaller bases. For example, the average BOS costs associated with adding an employee at extremely large bases (25,000 or more employees) were $1,000; the corresponding increase in BOS costs at very small bases (5,000 or fewer employees) was $14,000. CBO also found that adding 1,000 square feet of building space was, on average, associated with an increase of about $4,000 in annual BOS costs, regardless of a base's size.
CBO's results could be used to anticipate how BOS costs would change if units were relocated between bases, new units were added, or existing units were disbanded. Because CBO's analysis suggests that BOS costs would increase less if units were added to large bases rather than to smaller ones, relocating units from smaller bases to larger ones would reduce overall BOS costs in many cases. Conversely, relocating units from larger bases to smaller ones would generally increase those costs, all other things being equal. (Creating a new unit and adding it to any base would, of course, increase overall BOS costs.)
What Are Some Limitations of CBO's Analysis? CBO's analysis did not account for all base characteristics that were potentially relevant because sufficient data for some characteristics were not available or were difficult to measure. The omitted characteristics include the number of family members on the base; the age of buildings and other infrastructure; the number and type of BOS services; the intensity of operations (intensity is higher, for example, when units are mobilizing for deployment); the portion of building space used for family housing (the cost to operate and maintain family housing is funded through a separate appropriation); and the quality or standard of BOS services (higher standards are expected to cost more).
2 The Cost of Supporting Military Bases
November 2019
Box 1.
What Is Base Operations Support?
Military bases and similar installations are an important part of the support infrastructure that enables combat and noncombat units to prepare for their missions. Although their physical size depends on the needs of the units they host, most bases provide similar basic services, referred to as base operations support (BOS). BOS services are funded through the Department of Defense's operation and maintenance appropriation.
BOS services support troops in a number of ways:
Facility Services. Services include those a city might provide to its citizens, such as operations and maintenance of utility and sanitation systems, equipment maintenance, fire protection, crash rescue, custodial services, refuse collection and disposal, snow removal, street sweeping, grounds maintenance, and insect control. BOS services in this category also include engineering services, leases of real property, security such as physical barriers and police services, environmental conservation, and pollution prevention programs.
Personnel Support. These services support the daily life of service members and their families. They include dining facilities, housing, religious services, education, counseling, child and youth development, and morale, welfare, and recreational services.
Mission Support. To support the operations of military units they host, bases operate airfields, ports, and training ranges and provide other support to transient military aircraft and air crews.
Administrative Services. This category of services supports the staff and personnel management of the hosted military units and other organizations on the base. Such services include public affairs, financial management, legal, contracting, and other administrative services.
Other Support. Other services support workforce productivity, the distribution of goods and personnel, and security. Such services include information technology, communications (such as telephone service), and logistics (supply operations and shuttle buses, for example).
Long-term capital expenditures to sustain, restore, and modernize facilities at bases are not included in BOS costs and are funded through a separate budget account. In addition, units' direct costs, such as the pay of military personnel and the operation and maintenance of their weapon systems, are not included in BOS costs.
CBO's analysis is based on the level of BOS services that bases provide today. CBO did not address whether the current level of services is optimal for ensuring readiness (the ability of service members to perform their mission) or retention (their continuation in military service). It is possible that BOS services enhance readiness by contributing to unit training or retention of personnel. A base with higher BOS costs may thus make a greater contribution to a unit's readiness than a base with lower BOS costs. However, to CBO's knowledge the link between the level of BOS services offered and the readiness of a unit has not been measured.
Background
DoD operates bases and other installations in all 50 states and all U.S. territories, as well as in many foreign countries.1 This section describes those bases,
the amount spent on their support services, and the data CBO collected and analyzed.
Military Bases In 2016, the most recent year for which detailed figures are available, DoD's real estate portfolio covered about 27 million acres, and its buildings occupied 2.3 billion square feet of space.2 Those buildings are used for a variety of functions, including housing, maintenance, supply, and training (see Figure 1). Military bases are the largest share of DoD's real estate portfolio.
In constructing its database, CBO focused on activeduty bases because most DoD bases are in that category and detailed data are available for them. There were 234 active-duty bases in 2017--168 in the United States
1. A base is a military base, camp, post, station, yard, center, home port, or other location under DoD's jurisdiction, including leased space, that is controlled by or primarily supports DoD's activities.
2. See Department of Defense, Base Structure Report--Fiscal Year 2018 Baseline, (PDF, 2.4 MB).
November 2019
The Cost of Supporting Military Bases 3
Figure 1.
Space Occupied by All of DoD's Buildings, by Function, 2016
Family Housing
Maintenance and Production
Supply
Troop Housing and Mess Facilities
Operation and Training
Community Facilities
Administrative Facilities
Hospital and Medical Facilities
Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation
Utility and Ground Improvements
22
0
113 82
311 295 276 276 262 262
100
200
300
Millions of Square Feet
395
DoD owns or leases 2.3 billion square feet of building space, which it uses for housing, medical care, and other functions.
400
Source: Congressional Budget Office, using data provided by the Department of Defense.
Data include buildings assigned to active-duty and reserve forces as well as buildings that have been privatized or are operated by private entities for DoD. A building is defined by DoD as a roofed and floored facility enclosed by exterior walls that protects people and property from direct effects of weather such as rain, wind, or sun.
DoD = Department of Defense.
and 66 overseas.3 The missions of the units and organizations hosted on those bases span the range of DoD's activities--they include administration, research and development, individual skills training, and air, ground, sea, and underwater combat.
The Army, Navy, and Air Force each operate about 70 active-duty bases, and the Marine Corps operates 23 (see Figure 2). Most of the Army's overseas bases are in Germany and other European countries. The Navy's and Marine Corps' overseas bases are mostly located in Japan and South Korea. Most of the Air Force's overseas bases are in Germany, Japan, and South Korea.
DoD's Budget and Its Spending on Base Operations Support During the past two decades, DoD's total budget and BOS costs for the military's service branches rose and fell in tandem even as the number of active-duty personnel
3. The number and location of those bases change little from year to year. Some were not included in CBO's analysis because complete data were not available for them.
declined.4 Adjusted for inflation, DoD's budget almost doubled between 2000 and 2010, to 195 percent of its 2000 budget, before declining to 153 percent of the 2000 budget in 2017 (see Figure 3).5 Similarly, BOS costs for the military's service branches grew by 150 percent from 2000 to 2010, before declining by 2017 to 120 percent of the 2000 figure.6
By contrast, the number of active-duty personnel has varied much less. It grew relatively slowly through 2010
4. DoD refers to the number of active-duty military personnel on September 30, the last day of the fiscal year, as end strength.
5. Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller), Operation and Maintenance Overview, Fiscal Year 2019 Budget Estimates, exhibit O-1 (March 2018), and Overview - FY 2019 Defense Budget, United States Department of Defense Fiscal Year 2019 Budget Request (February 2018), both available at https:// go.xpB6N. Those BOS costs exclude roughly $1 billion in spending managed by the Defense Health Program. DoD's budget includes funding for overseas contingency operations (OCO).
6. BOS costs also include OCO funding. BOS costs shrank as a percentage of DoD's budget from 2000 to 2010, in part because substantial amounts of OCO funding were included in DoD's budget and little of that funding was for BOS costs.
4 The Cost of Supporting Military Bases
November 2019
Figure 2.
Number of Active-Duty Bases, by Service and Location, 2017
Each service branch of the U.S. Armed Forces operates bases in the United States and other countries. The Army and Navy have the largest share of overseas bases.
Number of Bases
80
60
Overseas
40 United States
Bases CBO Analyzed To conduct its analysis, CBO compiled data on funding, size, population, and other characteristics for a sample of 203 individual bases (representing about 90 percent of active-duty bases).7 Those base-level data are more suitable for a detailed analysis of BOS costs than the consolidated summary of BOS funding for all bases that each military service usually provides to the Congress. CBO's database, described in more detail in the next section of this report, contains information for 2016, the most recent year for which complete information was available.
In total, the bases in CBO's database accounted for $17.4 billion (in 2019 dollars) in annual BOS costs, 2.1 million employees, 1.7 billion square feet of buildings; and 18 million acres (see Table 1).8
20
0 Air Force
Army
Marine Corps
Navy
Source: Congressional Budget Office, using data provided by the Department of Defense.
Bases that DoD designates as joint bases are included with the service responsible for managing them.
A base is a military base, camp, post, station, yard, center, home port, or other location under DoD's jurisdiction, including leased space, that is controlled by or primarily supports DoD's activities.
DoD = Department of Defense.
and then declined. (The number of active-duty personnel grew by 3 percent from 2000 to 2010 as the Army and Marine Corps added military personnel for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; however, all services shed personnel in the ensuing years so that, by 2017, the number of personnel was 94 percent of what it had been in 2000.) Those trends suggest that DoD allocates its BOS budget on the basis of factors that are not directly related to the number of personnel: Independent of the overall size of the military force, DoD spends more on BOS when its budget is larger, and less on BOS when its budget is smaller. This report does not look at how total costs for BOS vary over time in relation to DoD's overall budget, but at how the cost of providing daily services at a base in any one year varies with certain characteristics of that base, such as the total number of personnel and the base's location.
The Air Force had the largest number of bases in CBO's sample (66 bases, or 33 percent of the total), followed by the Navy (57 bases, 28 percent of the total), Army (52 bases, 26 percent), Marine Corps (16 bases, 8 percent), and joint bases (12 bases, 6 percent). 9 (See Table 2.) The average characteristics of each service's bases differ in a number of respects. For example, the number of employees at Air Force bases averaged 7,000, and the number of employees at Navy, Army, Marine Corps, and joint bases averaged 8,000, 13,000, 12,000, and 23,000, respectively.
There are also significant variations between the bases within each service. For instance, Air Force bases range in size from Arnold Air Force Base, a research and development base with about 500 military and civilian employees, to Nellis Air Force Base, an aviation combat training base with about 13,000 employees. Similarly, Navy bases in CBO's database range from Naval Weapons Station Earle, which handles ammunition and has about 700 employees, to Naval Station
7. That sample consists of bases for which sufficient information was available.
8. The $17.4 billion represents about 70 percent of DoD's $25 billion BOS funding in 2016. The bases and smaller sites excluded from CBO's database account for the remaining $7.6 billion in BOS funding that year.
9. Joint bases are used by multiple military services and hosted by one service. They are consolidations of separate bases next to or near each other that were formerly operated by different services. Because of their unique nature, CBO grouped joint bases in their own distinct category.
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