WASHINGTON (Army News Service) -- So many bases are now joint: Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, JB Elmendorf-Richardson, JB Lewis-McChord, JB San Antonio, and on and on.
But do joint bases work for the Army in terms of getting its readiness priorities front and center, particularly when it isn't the lead garrison service?
Joint bases are effective, save dollars and can work really well, but at the end of the day, it's all about relationships, said Lt. Gen. Gwen Bingham, assistant chief of staff for Installation Management. Leaders from each service need to communicate regularly and build trust.
She and others spoke Thursday at the Association of the United States Army Institute of Land Warfare-sponsored "Army Installation Management" Hot Topic.
People say joint bases work at the installation level, but oftentimes, issues of contention are not elevated up to the existing joint management oversight structure, where they can get resolved, said Maj. Gen. Theodore "Ted" C. Harrison, director of operations, Office of the Assistant Chief of Staff, Installation Management.
Instead, issues are often routed through the inspector general or even the vice chief of staff, he said.
In some joint bases, there's cohesion, with the philosophy "one team, one fight," whereas in others, everything's done by the book and the memorandum of understanding, he pointed out. There will always be issues and ways people resolve them, with some doing it better than others.
Resolution to issues is pretty important, he continued. For instance, JB-MDL is likely to remain a mobilization platform for the future and JBER is important because it hosts a deployable brigade combat team. The Air Force has the lead for both places.
Fred Meurer, a consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton and former public works director for Fort Ord and former Army weapons tester, offered that there will always be a certain amount of tension and turf protection at joint bases between the services. He agreed that personal relationships are paramount to avoid dysfunctional joint bases.
But one of the reasons joint bases were created to begin with, were cost savings and greater efficiencies. Those savings are not always being realized, however, he pointed out.
For example, during a recent trip to JB San Antonio, he said there were "still a lot of parallel structures between the Air Force and Army" that could have been consolidated.
The military isn't alone in having this inefficiency, he noted. When he was the public works director for the city of Monterey, California, he said there were duplicate fire departments for Army, Navy, Monterey and Union Pacific railroad. "I looked at that and thought, how can we afford so many fire chiefs?"
Meurer said he helped bring the parties together and there's now one fire department, "but you talk about pulling teeth. It took a while, but we did it and are saving millions of dollars a year and it's successful because of people relationships."
Cities across the U.S. are faced with parallel structures, with redundant power, sewer and water districts. Some are working to consolidate these to reduce costs to consumers and increase efficiency. Meurer said it is a national problem, not just a military one.
In some cases, greater efficiencies at joint bases and elsewhere will take legislative action to fix, he added.
Harrison noted that the Trump administration has already sent out a directive to the services at joint bases, telling them to study combining garrison functions into joint functions.
That being said, J. Randall Robinson, acting assistant secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy & Environment said there are no new plans to create any more new joint bases.
Instead, he said, "we're looking at improving best business practices" across the Defense Department, which means cutting costs through greater efficiencies and standardizing efficiency statistical measures across the armed forces.
(Follow David Vergun on Twitter: @vergunARNEWS)
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