(Washington, DC)  --  U.S. Rep. Steven C. LaTourette (R-Concord Township) today applauded the nine-member Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) for voting 7 to 0, with two abstentions, to keep the Cleveland Defense Finance and Accounting (DFAS) open and add nearly 500 jobs.  The Department of Defense (DoD) wanted to close down the office, costing the city more than 1,000 jobs.

 The BRAC panel today voted to close the Denver DFAS office, which was slated to gain 1,500 jobs, and keep the major site in Cleveland open.  It also decided to keep smaller DFAS offices in Limestone, ME, and Rome, NY, open.  Under the recommendation, Cleveland DFAS will have at 1,500 full-time jobs.  The Rome office will increase to 1,000 jobs and the Limestone office will increase to 600 jobs.  The Columbus and Indianapolis DFAS offices will remain open and cannot fall below their current staffing levels.

 LaTourette, whose staff conducted an exhaustive study of more than 5,000 pages of internal DoD documents, was able to find many flaws that landed Cleveland on the closure list.  Those flaws included overstating Cleveland’s operating costs by up to 85 percent and penalizing the Celebrezze Federal Building for not meeting DoD anti-terror standards four years before they even take effect.  It would have cost nearly $29 million to shut down the Cleveland office with no savings to taxpayers for several years, he said.

 “About 90 percent of all BRAC recommendations stick so overturning this is a huge, huge victory.  Three months ago I thought I had a better shot at winning the lottery than saving Cleveland  DFAS,” LaTourette said.  “I’m thrilled to be able to help the men and women who work at DFAS and it’s icing on the cake that we will gain jobs.”

 LaTourette said when Cleveland DFAS landed on the BRAC hit list on May 13th, few thought the jobs could be saved.  Only about 10 percent of recommendations in the BRAC Report are overturned.

  “I knew we were never going to win on emotion or by charging that the decision was political.  We rolled up our sleeves, followed the vast DoD paper trail and just kept digging.  We were able to document that DoD’s planned consolidation was a costly and foolish shell game and that Cleveland never was given a fair shot,” LaTourette said.

 He said the security issue was a non-issue to him.

 “If the Celebrezze Building is safe enough for 4,000 other federal workers and Sen. Voinovich’s staff it’s safe enough for DFAS,” LaTourette said.  “There’s no chatter saying accountants and payroll clerks in Cleveland are likely terror targets.”

 LaTourette said BRAC Chairman Anthony Principi, BRAC Commissioner Gen. Lloyd “Fig” Newton and BRAC Senior Analyst Marilyn Wasleski deserve great praise for giving Cleveland DFAS a fair examination.

 “Without a thorough and independent review from the BRAC Commission and the BRAC staff we’d probably be closing this office and saying farewell to six decades of exemplary service,” LaTourette said.  “They didn’t save Cleveland DFAS because it was the granddaddy of military payroll operations, they saved it because the facts didn’t justify its closure.”

 LaTourette said DoD wanted to consolidate 26 DFAS offices into just three sites in Columbus, Indianapolis and Denver.  LaTourette said he argued that it was unwise to virtually shut down the Cleveland office, which handles the vast majority of military payroll for our nation’s active duty troops, reservists and military retirees. Cleveland DFAS also does all garnishment work, is a Center of Excellence for Reserve Pay, and operates a call center that helps troops in their hour of need.

 LaTourette said the methodology used to determine which DFAS offices would close, be realigned or gain jobs appeared to be designed to help sites that DoD wanted to gain jobs while data was massaged to hurt sites that DoD wanted to eliminate.

 LaTourette thanked many people who shared in the effort to save DFAS, including the local congressional delegation and Mayor Jane Campbell.  He singled out praise for Carol Caruso of the Greater Cleveland Partnership,  Fred Nance of the Cleveland Defense Alliance and members of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union representing many DFAS workers.

 “There are so many people who worked tirelessly on this, and this was a great example of how we can succeed if we work together,” LaTourette said.