Summary: Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO reviewed the Air Force's planned relocation of a tactical fighter wing from Torrejon, Spain, to Crotone, Italy, focusing on the relocation's cost and the impact of maintaining the wing, rather than deactivating it.
GAO found that: (1) regardless of whether it relocated the air wing, the Air Force would spend $32 million to transfer other units from Torrejon and $19.2 million in severance payments to Spanish employees, in addition to the $96.3 million capital investment that the base itself represented; (2) the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) agreed to pay $827.3 million in construction costs for a new base in Italy for the air wing, of which the U.S. share was about $230.2 million; (3) the United States would repay about $181.3 million of the NATO share of housing costs over 10 years; (4) the Air Force would also fund about $21.3 million for recreational and training facilities at the new base; and (5) the Air Force estimated that it would save about $721.6 million over 5 years by deactivating reserve aircraft in the United States, rather that deactivating the air wing.
