NWS Earle security guard contract bid update

At first glance, there is little new information to share from NOPE's routine check of the outsource security guard contract up for bids with the Department of Navy ("NECO") at Naval Weapons Station Earle, other than the award date (according to "A9" of this NECO document) will come sometime in March or April. We will update NOPE supporters of any otherwise notable findings once our Security Analyst, Jim Sfayer, and Business Case Analyst, Fulton Wilcox, have had a chance to review these highly technical documents (you can read them yourself, here).

Please revisit our January 4, 2010 blog for background on how the Myers Security contract issue bolsters NOPE's objection to civilian housing at NWS Earle. In short, NWS Earle outsources security guards to supplement base protection. NECO documents linked above shed zero light on the actual cost to the DoN or the value of the current contract to Myers, although a report from a 2009 Inspector General report put the Navy's price tag from 2004 through Sept. 2008 at $21 million, according to NOPE's findings.

Regarding this contract, and the entire civilian housing plan on an active weapons base, NOPE is concerned that the DoN lied to the public about the true cost to increase base force protection with civilian housing from 2010-2040. To be sure, DoN summarily wrote off the admitted need and cost for extra guards in its Laurelwood EIS as a purfunctory "don't worry...we can handle it." From a business case perspective, this is an utter cop-out.

As noted in Exhibit 2 of our Business Case Analysis of the Laurelwood civilian housing plan, NOPE estimates that security costs and the base commander's staff time will comprise roughly one-third of the low-ball $61 million cost to the Navy to go thru with the civilian "outlease" phase of the 52-year privatized housing contract. Such cost analysis was missing from the Navy's EIS, and NOPE suspects will come to light once the GAO issues its findings this spring and disprove DoN's contention that civilian housing at Earle makes fiscal (and security) sense.

The Department Navy, having already ill-advisedly signed away its right to revoke the lease (in 2002) during periods of declared national emergency, should finally come clean and discuss a buyout to the Laurelwood lease, and end this chirade once and for all.