Friday, February 7, 1997
Dyess fares well under Clinton's budget proposal
By WILLIAM GARLAND / Harte-Hanks Washington Bureau
and MARY HOPKINS / Staff Writer
WASHINGTON - In a year when military construction in Texas
and other states took deep cuts, Dyess Air Force Base fared well
in the Clinton administration's 1998 budget proposal sent to Congress
Thursday.
The administration requested $10.5 million for 70 family housing
units at the base in 1998 and another $9.41 million for 64 additional
units in 1999, a total close to $20 million.
Construction projects will require congressional approval,
but Congress has been more likely to add projects than knock out
requests from the administration.
The Air Force will advertise nationally for private firms to
bid on the project, but Department Base Civil Engineer Floyd Ball
at Dyess said if none of the bidders meets specifications, the
military will take responsibility for building the units.
In Abilene, developer Kenneth Musgrave was vitally interested
in taking on the project. But he said he's not interested at all
if the military will be advertising nationwide.
It will be, Ball said.
"Everyone has a chance to make a proposal," said
Ball.
The bids will be advertised in <I>Commerce Business Daily,<I>
a publication the government uses to advertise bids.
It's available online for Association of General Contractors
members, said Mike Engle, Executive Director of the local chapter
of the AGC.
Non-AGC members, such as contractor Tim Crowe of John Crowe
and Associates, can pull up bid titles and descriptions by searching
for "Dyess" on the web page http://cbdnet.access.gpo.gov/.
Private enterprise is the military's preferred provider, Ball
said.
"That's basically how they do all these jobs," Crowe
said. "And (the web page) is how we (contractors) find out
about them.
"The intent is to get competition, a little like shopping
at stores," Ball said.
Because so much of military housing is old, Ball said it would
"break the bank" if the Department of Defense were to
attempt using federal money to rebuild those houses.
"The scope is too big," he said.
The long-term plan, Ball said, is to give military housing
to private contractors and developers and let them maintain the
places and collect rent until they accumulate enough to rebuild
the units or construct brand-new housing.
Ball said this would take a while, however. The sums for next
year and 1999 are an attempt to circumvent the delay.
The Air Combat Command at Langley AFB probably will prepare
the bid specifications. Ball said he hoped they could be ready
for advertisement in six to eight months.
The requested money won't be enough to close the housing gap
in Abilene, but it's more than other Texas bases will receive.
Military construction funding statewide totalled only $66.6
million for 1998, down from $123 million requested by the administration
for 1997. Nationwide, funding for military construction and family
housing dipped $1.6 billion, 16 percent below current levels.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said that "the Texas
portion of the administration's military construction budget seems
unreasonably low."
"Of the proposed $2.1 billion in military construction
spending, Texas is expected to receive only $66.6 million,"
she said. "When you consider that we have 110,000 military
servicemen and women and 24 installations in Texas, you have to
question how the administration arrived at that sum."
Of the 24 Texas installations, only Dyess and seven others
were selected for projects.
"Housing for our military men and women and their families
is an important part of their quality of life," said Rep.
Charles Stenholm, D-Stamford. "I am pleased that the president
has affirmed the importance of Dyess Air Force Base's mission
by including $10.5 million in funding for housing in his fiscal
year 1998 budget."
Clinton's $1.7 trillion proposal included $388 billion in savings
to bring the budget into balance by the year 2002. But critics,
including Stenholm, pointed out that much of the savings would
come in the final two years, after Clinton leaves office.
"I have repeatedly praised the president over the past
two years for stepping up to the challenge of proposing a ...
balanced budget," Stenholm said. But after reviewing the
budget Thursday, he added that he was "finding it less and
less possible to offer the president two thumbs up."
"We start with a budget deficit of $107 billion in 1996,"
said Stenholm, a member of the House Budget Committee. "The
president begins his balanced budget by increasing the deficit
from that level, and it's not until the next millennium when we
will finally be back under the '96 deficit."
"Every year, every dollar that is lost to deficit reduction
compounds into greater interest rates to be paid on our debt,"
he said. "Secondly, the more the goodies are loaded at the
beginning of a budget and nasties are put towards the end, the
less politically likely it is that we will ever reach our ultimate
goal of balance."
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Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps Publications
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