{"id":59610,"date":"2021-07-31T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-31T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/uncategorized\/2021\/07\/31\/recent-commentary-on-army-lodging-program-asks-the-wrong-question\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T09:40:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T09:40:14","slug":"recent-commentary-on-army-lodging-program-asks-the-wrong-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/armytimes\/opinion\/commentary\/2021\/07\/31\/recent-commentary-on-army-lodging-program-asks-the-wrong-question\/","title":{"rendered":"Recent commentary on Army lodging program asks the wrong question"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Gretchen Turpen\u2019s commentary recently published by Army Times (\u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.armytimes.com%2Fopinion%2Fcommentary%2F2021%2F06%2F29%2Fwhat-the-gao-lodging-report-got-right-and-where-it-missed-the-mark%2F&#038;data=04%7C01%7Chaltman%40mco.com%7C64cb687be8094546c87408d94c5b97bd%7C1d5c96e57ee2446dbed8d0f8c50edea5%7C1%7C1%7C637624778550874054%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&#038;sdata=Cp%2BtrJpOXT8a6anqAfE1vNF5%2F3VNQmF9ty3GhTiJPNA%3D&#038;reserved=0\">What the GAO lodging report got right \u2013 and where it missed the mark<\/a>,\u201d June 29) not only misses the mark itself \u2014 it asks the entirely wrong question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The question isn\u2019t whether we should privatize Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps lodging, too. The question is why we should bring Army lodging back to an in-house government operation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Turpen acknowledges she is writing in her capacity as senior vice president and head of lodging at Leadlease, \u201cthe Army\u2019s exclusive Privatized Army Lodging (PAL) partner.\u201d The first thing to note about this acknowledgement is its \u201cexclusive\u201d nature \u2013 what ought to be an immediate red flag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s the nature of privatization that once you have done it, it\u2019s difficult to turn back. This inherently creates a monopoly and conditions that are ripe for abuse, which is what the Government Accountability Office uncovered. Simply put, the privatized lodges overpromised and underdelivered and the taxpayer footed the bill through the back door in higher per diem rates. Further, facility modernization lagged. The result was the contractor pocketed the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The other central claim that Turpen\u2019s commentary does not adequately address is the failure of the Army to perform a proper \u201capples to apples\u201d cost comparison in its original decision to privatize. As early as 2010, GAO claimed the Army consciously decided to make \u201climited investments in its lodging facilities since it decided to privatize the facilities.\u201d This decision shifted \u201clife-safety and critical system repairs,\u201d such as the replacement of air conditioning systems, to the private developer and contributed to significant delays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Indeed, the thrust of the rationale used by Turpen for expanding privatization to the other military departments is presumed \u201ccost avoidance\u201d \u2014 that there supposedly was more than $600 million in cost avoidance savings from using the Army\u2019s privatized lodging facilities when compared to full per diem rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, GAO properly points out that many of the local off-post private lodging facilities do not charge the full per diem rate, and there is apparently an insufficient accounting of when travelers are authorized to use those facilities in lieu of the Army\u2019s privatized on-post lodging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even more outrageous is Turpen throwing exchanges and MWR programs under the bus to protect her company by characterizing CARES funding for these programs as a \u201cbailout.\u201d The CARES funding provided to exchanges and MWR programs is just a fraction of the billions of dollars that military service members, through the exchanges, contributed to their own quality of life programs over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Congress and the Pentagon were right to provide this funding, because feeding this golden goose instead of allowing the pandemic to starve it will yield tremendous dividends to our military and American taxpayers in the years to come \u2014unlike the Army lodging privatization, which is a perpetual sinkhole for taxpayer payments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Unfortunately, GAO has not interpreted current statutory requirements in section 2461 of Title 10 as requiring a rigorous \u201capples to apples\u201d cost comparison to the non-appropriated fund workforce. In addition, efforts to address shortcomings of the process for making cost comparisons for the appropriated fund workforce are stymied by the lack of progress by the department in developing fully transparent accountings of contract services labor and costs in contractor inventories and budget submissions, which are still on GAO\u2019s high risk list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Accordingly, our union strongly supports retaining a moratorium on any further privatization of functions currently performed by federal government employees and believes this moratorium rightfully should be applied to the non-appropriated fund workforce. Additionally, the Army ought to undertake a review of its privatized lodging facilities for insourcing the Army lodging program pursuant to section 2463 of Title 10 and begin to take full responsibility for improving and upgrading the facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Everett Kelley is national president of the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO, which represents more than 700,000 federal and D.C. government employees, including about 300,000 in the Department of Defense (DoD). AFGE represents non-appropriated fund workers in non-privatized lodging facilities, as well as federal employees who are required by their jobs to engage in official travel or who use military lodging facilities in conjunction with permanent change in station moves.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><i>Editor\u2019s note: This is an Op-Ed and as such, the opinions expressed are those of the author. If you would like to respond, or have an editorial of your own you would like to submit, please contact Military Times senior managing editor Howard Altman, <\/i><a href=\"mailto:haltman@militarytimes.com\"><i>haltman@militarytimes.com<\/i><\/a><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s the nature of privatization that once you have done it, it\u2019s difficult to turn back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":68780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":78,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[78,100,25,14],"tags":[],"coauthors":[6423],"class_list":["post-59610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-daily-news-roundup","category-newsletters","category-opinion"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"D4R5FI3VCZAJNMH3Z6Y7RP2XKI","arc_canonical_url":"\/opinion\/commentary\/2021\/07\/31\/recent-commentary-on-army-lodging-program-asks-the-wrong-question\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented 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