Base-closing move to go into effect at Arsenal next week

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By Ed Tibbetts | Friday, June 27, 2008 |

Thirteen years after it opened to great fanfare, an accounting and financial services office that brought hundreds of jobs to the Rock Island Arsenal in the midst of tough economic times is shutting its doors Monday.

The Defense Finance and Accounting Service, or DFAS, is the second operation on the Arsenal to close since the the Base Closure and Realignment Commission issued its report nearly three years ago.

The 130-person Installation Management Agency office on the island has already moved operations to San Antonio.

The DFAS closure has been long expected, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less painful.

The office, which was rated the most efficient DFAS location in the United States a few years ago, is being collapsed into a handful of other locations.

That’s meant 300-plus workers have had to uproot their lives, find other jobs or — in many cases — take early retirement.

“You don’t know what you’re going to walk into in the morning,” says Karen Montague, a DFAS employee and union official. “I’ve seen people crying in the halls. I’ve seen people celebrating.”

The commission decided in late 2005 to close three agencies on the Arsenal — the installation management agency, DFAS and the 1,180-person TACOM, a unit of the Army’s tank and automotive command, which is based near Detroit.

The Arsenal’s TACOM force is slated to move to Michigan by 2011.

Arsenal officials said earlier this week that only about 125 DFAS workers remained at the office here.

About 60 are retiring, while another 45 are temporary workers who will be let go. Another approximately 20 permanent employees also will be out of work.

Previously, about 60 people moved to other DFAS sites in Columbus, Ohio, Indianapolis and a few other locations.

Another 50 people found jobs at other Arsenal agencies, and perhaps 30 found work elsewhere in the Quad-Cities, officials say.

“Everybody was given many, many options,” said John Guzzonato, the DFAS director here. He said the process was well-received, but there continues to be disappointment the office was ordered closed in the first place.

Union officials, though, say they are disappointed more DFAS workers weren’t hired for jobs at other agencies on the island.

“We got part of it. We’d like to have seen more,” said Tom Esparza, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, Local 15. “We’re putting people on unemployment while we bring in people from other parts of the country.”

Workers who lose their jobs because of the base closing process can be put in the Defense Department’s priority placement program, which is aimed at helping workers find other federal employment as long as they’re qualified.

The union filed a complaint last year with the Office of Special Counsel, alleging that some people didn’t get to compete for those jobs, Esparza said.

The complaint was dismissed, but the union is preparing to ask for reconsideration.

The closure of the DFAS office is part of a larger plan aimed at cutting the number of locations to 10. In 2006, there were 30.

Employment also is expected to go from just less than 14,000 to fewer than 10,000, according to a chart on the DFAS Web site. A national spokesman couldn’t be reached for comment on Friday.

For the Quad-Cities, the exit of the operation is not only a blow to the people working there, it’s a milepost in the area’s drive to diversify its work force.

Area economic development leaders first sought a DFAS center in the early 1990s, when the agency was restructuring its operations.

Hundreds of communities tried to get a center to locate in their communities because they were supposed to carry with them thousands of jobs.

Voters in Rock Island and Scott counties even passed referendums in 1992 to boost the sales and property tax levies to help lure the jobs.

The Quad-Cities didn’t make the cut, but it eventually did land the smaller DFAS office, which still opened to much celebration by economic development leaders.

Officials today say the loss of the DFAS jobs hurts, but they hope they’ll be able to cushion the blow by luring other work to the island.

The headquarters for the 1st U.S. Army, now in Georgia, will be relocated to the DFAS space by 2011.

That, too, is the result of the base-closing commission. It’s expected to bring about 600 jobs, 1st Army spokesperson Lt. Col. Jan Northstar said Friday.

Local officials also are hoping to lure a contracting command.

“I think we’re better prepared to help fill the voids there than we were in 1993,” said Nancy Mulcahey, president of the Quad-City Development Group.

Ed Tibbetts can be contacted at (563) 383-2327 or etibbetts@qctimes.com.