Panel Warned of Base Closure Costs : Military: Shutting down California facilities would raise expenses in some cases, commission staff says.

WASHINGTON —  Proposals to close several California military facilities could wind up increasing government expenditures rather than producing significant savings, members of a federal base-closing commission were told by their staff Thursday.

The staff conclusions, aired as the special commission prepares to cast a final vote Sunday on a lengthy list of proposed base closings, could improve efforts by Pentagon officials and community supporters to spare some of the sites.

In its final deliberations over which bases to close, the commission is relearning a painful lesson of efforts to padlock bases--the shutdowns never seem to save as much money as taxpayers and policy-makers initially think they would.

On Thursday, that lesson appeared to be especially true of most of the eight major California facilities the commission is considering shutting down.

As they weighed the pros and cons of shifting operations to different sites, the commissioners were told that the Long Beach Naval Shipyard does work for the Navy more cheaply than other sites, making its shutdown a potential blow to the Navy’s budget.

In addition, the commission staff estimated that the immediate cost of closing the Long Beach yard would total $147 million, although shutting down the facility would produce estimated annual savings of $21 million.

And closing the Tustin Marine Air Station would require a hefty military construction bill at nearby Twentynine Palms Air-Ground Combat Center, the staff said.

As the commission begins its final round of cuts, such findings may save some California bases tentatively targeted for closure or realignment. While the panel has not yet determined how many bases to close or how much money to save, its members took pains Thursday to remind one another that their aim was to trim spending on bases that the Pentagon no longer needs.

“The purpose of this commission is to save money,” said Commissioner Bo Callaway, a former secretary of the Army, as the staff outlined Marine Corps plans to spend $458 million to build facilities at Twentynine Palms if the Marines close the airfield at Tustin.

“This is not a closure to save money,” Callaway said. “This is a closure to upgrade the Marines Corps.”

“You don’t close Tustin,” added commissioner Jim Smith, “because the economics aren’t there.”

Tustin, ironically, is one of the few California bases on the commission’s list in which community pressures to close the base outweigh those pressing to keep it open. Elsewhere, communities and the military services in some cases, have been keen to make the case that savings may be small.

The commission appeared cool to a proposal that would partially close the Marine Recruit Training Depot in San Diego. Shifting its recruit training to nearby Camp Pendleton, as the panel had suggested, would cost $461.2 million in construction of facilities there.

At the same time, the recruit training base, which is next to San Diego’s Lindbergh Field, would probably be absorbed by the city. Under law, San Diego has the right to reclaim unwanted government land to improve such public facilities as the airport.

As a result, commissioners were told it would take at least 100 years--the limit of staff’s ability to calculate--to recoup the initial costs of closing San Diego’s Marine basic training camp.

By a similar calculation, the commission staff reported that it would take eight years to recoup the costs of closing the San Diego Naval Training Center at Point Loma. By the Navy’s estimate, closing the Point Loma facility would save so little it would take at least 100 years to recoup the initial costs of closing it.

An earlier round of 86 base closures in late 1988 was expected to save the Pentagon $694 million annually--a small fraction of the Pentagon’s yearly $300 billion budget.