Ellsworth call center good buffer against closure attempts

By the Rapid City Journal Editorial Board | Monday, May 07, 2007

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Just think: It’s almost exactly two years since the Defense Department put Ellsworth Air Force Base on the chopping block. Ellsworth was placed on the Pentagon’s base closure list, which meant its 29 B-1B Lancer bombers would be moved to Dyess AFB, Texas.

But in August 2005, with the help of strong advocates, including South Dakota’s congressional delegation, Gov. Mike Rounds and Pat McElgunn, Ellsworth Task Force director, the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission voted 8-1 to save the base.

That done, Ellsworth supporters in Rapid City and elsewhere embarked on part two of their mission: How to enhance the value of the base so it would be kept off future closure lists?

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., took the lead in Washington on that task, and all that collective effort proved successful in April 2006, when Air Force officials announced they had selected Ellsworth as the site of a new Air Force Financial Services Center.

As part of the Air Force Financial Management Transformation, the center at Ellsworth would consolidate Air Force financial service operations at one location and provide, among other things, a 24-hour call center for military personnel.

Now, construction is under way and the first phase of the call center is scheduled to be completed in October. The entire center will be in three existing but refurbished buildings on base.

Officials say the call center eventually could employ about 775 people — most of them military personnel but a fair share of civilians.

The presence of the center will be a boost to western South Dakota’s economy not only because we will continue to have thousands of Air Force personnel living here, but it will provide a sizable number of jobs to the civilian sector.

The dark days of the summer of 2005 have been replaced with the reality that sunnier days lie just ahead — and that Ellsworth has one more reason to be kept open.

Couple that with the $200 million in savings the Air Force will realize by consolidating its financial services in one place, and it’s hard to imagine a more perfect scenario for Rapid City and its longtime good neighbor to the east — Ellsworth Air Force Base.