The Defense Commissary Agency has allegedly been asked to come up with a plan to close all 178 commissaries in the United States - about 67 percent of its entire fleet of stores, according to an unnamed resale community source detailing information about a meeting between the Joint Staff and Pentagon comptroller office representatives. The source told Navy Times that the meeting was held in early November and was part of FY-15 defense budget requests being worked up for February submission. DeCA also operates 70 overseas stores. DeCA negotiates lower prices for products based on volume. Closing commissaries would lead to higher prices and a degraded benefit in remaining stores, said Tom Gordy, president of the Armed Forces Marketing Council that represents more than 330 manufacturers who sell products at commissaries and exchanges. Gordy presented written testimony Wednesday to the House Armed Services Committee’s military personnel panel. He says discussion of closing commissaries didn’t come up at the panel meeting, but wrote that closing U.S. stores “would eliminate the benefit for millions of families, breaking a commitment that has been made to every service member.” He indicated in testimony that the Joint Staff allegedly had asked DeCA to look into cutting out two-thirds of its $1.4 billion annual budget. Source: Navy Times, Nov. 21, 2013.
[Central Mississippi/Golden Triangle Note: There are four DeCA commissaries located in Mississippi at Columbus AFB, Gulfport NCBC, Keesler AFB and Meridian NAS.]
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