Governor defends shifting $7.8M from military fund
Comments 0 | Recommend 0
July 22, 2008 - 11:47AM
Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services

Gov. Janet Napolitano is defending her decision to raid a special fund designed to save military bases even as she pushes to do more to keep them in Arizona.

The Napolitano-backed budget purposely skips the requirement that the state put $4.8 million a year into the Military Installation Fund. That account is designed to give the state Department of Commerce money to buy up land - or at least the development rights - around military bases.

And the budget also took an additional $3 million in that account, left over from prior years, to spend on other priorities.

That move came as the Department of Commerce was preparing to release a report on how military bases affect the state's economy. The study, released Monday, warns that the $9.1 billion annual impact could be endangered if the Base Realignment and Closure Commission decides that encroachment from development puts the mission of the bases in jeopardy.

Gubernatorial press aide Shilo Mitchell said Napolitano's decision to take money from the fund does not undermine her commitment to protect Arizona's military installations. And Mitchell said the governor does not believe that the $7.8 million loss will make any real difference.

``The Military Installation Fund is a good tool to use to minimize encroachment on our military facilities,'' Mitchell said. ``But it is not the only one.''

And Mitchell, referring to the projected $2 billion deficit, said that ``tight budget times mean we need to get creative'' in protecting the bases.

But the ability of Arizona to halt development around military bases, absent actually buying the land, may be limited: A 2006 measure approved by voters prohibits state and local governments from enacting land use regulations that reduce the value of someone's property.

Tom Finnegan, co-chair of the Military Affairs Committee, which administers the fund, called the budget decisions ``problematic.''

He said the the panel will have no money to give out this budget year, potentially undermining Arizona's efforts to save the bases. Finnegan said he and Lisa Atkins, the committee's other co-chair, met with the governor Monday and ``expressed our dismay.''

Arizona had been hit once, losing Williams Air Force Base in the early 1990s.

That first version of the report, produced in 2002, was designed to give state and local leaders some idea of what was at stake with a new round of BRAC. At that time the total economic impact to the state was less than $5.7 billion a year.

It also led to that 2004 law to protect bases from encroachment.

Ultimately, Arizona managed to escape with no real damage in the 2005 round, with just 550 jobs lost in the entire state. The largest of those were at Luke Air Force Base which shed 101 military and 177 civilian jobs.

But the new report released Monday warns that another round of BRAC is expected in the years ahead. One function of the report is to warn of potential economic impacts.

"Maintaining these operations and the jobs and the jobs and economic output they support should be a priority of state and local government,'' the report states. And encroachment remains an issue.

The study warns that the bases were on the fringes of population centers when they were created. That is no longer true.

"In the last few decades, Arizona's sustained growth and development have, in some cases, brought development closer to the formal boundaries of some bases and into the adjacent, off-base areas that are crucial to the safe and prudent execution of military activities from those facilities,'' the report reads.

Finnegan said the whole idea of the 2004 legislation was to provide a steady source of funds for 20 years. He said that steady commitment to buying up property would mean a lot to convince the BRAC commission that the state is serious about protecting the bases from encroachment.

He said if that funding is suspended for one or two years ``the whole thing will die.''

Finnegan also said the inability to buy up property near bases right now is a missed opportunity, as land prices may never be lower.

http://www.yourwestvalley.com/news/mili ... state.html