Millions needed for Pee Dee’s aging armories

Foundation cracks in Timmonsville, a crumbling roof in Hemingway, and outdated electrical system in Florence are just some of the reasons conditions in some National Guard Armories in the Pee Dee are in poor condition, while just one in the area, Marion, is ranked good.

There are 67 armories, or readiness centers as the S.C. National Guard calls them, scattered around the state with 11 in the Pee Dee. There is deferred maintenance at all of the Pee Dee readiness centers that are part of a $30 million backlog statewide.

Colonel Andrew Batten, construction and facility management officer with the S.C. Army National Guard, said that the average condition at those Readiness Centers is poor and can affect Guard objectives.

“The backlog is pretty significant stuff, building components, heating and air, so if we’re able to address a good amount of those items through a bond issue then we can spend more of our money on maintenance and preventative maintenance to extend the life of those systems,” Batten said. “The problem now is we don’t have adequate funding to address the backlog and do preventative maintenance so we end up having to do the most urgent things first.”

Batten said that if $15 million in funds were secured as part of a $236.7 million bond bill, it would make substantial headway in addressing major system failures since the $15 million would be matched by federal funds.

That would give the Guard a chance to get ahead of its problems, instead of jumping to them.

“Typically there are more federal funds available than we can make use of because we have no matching funds,” Batten said. “This would open up quite a bit of matching funds from the government and accelerate a lot of projects.”

Upgrades like new windows, HVAC systems, kitchen appliances and new roofs are in place at Readiness Centers in the Pee Dee, but visiting those facilities with Maj. Marty Hanks and Capt. Jay Sirmon on a recent afternoon makes it clear that the S.C. National Guard is putting money toward major problems, but is unable to afford a lot of the preventative maintenance.

“Our soldiers are resilient and stay focused on the mission and do what they need to do to get the mission done,” Batten said. “They’re pretty innovative and making the best of what they have, but at some point it becomes untenable and could affect readiness at some points.”

Batten said a study commissioned by Congress to assess conditions of state National Guard readiness throughout the country found that South Carolina’s conditions ranked toward the bottom.

Information from the study will assist in the consolidation of armories in the state to 50 eventually.

“The proposal is that a major construction program will be established in approximately 2017-2018 to provide the capital investment funding to repair and/or replace many of our readiness centers,” Batten said. “That’s going to be a long process. I think the estimate is we build approximately 10 new regional readiness centers, but that would be over a period of 15-plus years. So there’s going to be numerous facilities that we’re going to need to keep in inventory.”

The state’s current 67 readiness centers have an average age of 36 years. Some, like Hemingway, built in 1956, reach historic status making facility improvements even more cumbersome because of state historic preservation requirements.

More than $30 million

Even with a backlog of deferred maintenance reaching $30 million, Maj. Hanks, who works under Batten and with Sirmon, said that doesn’t include such aesthetic items as dilapidated entrances, ceiling tiles, flooring, bathroom fixtures that are original to the buildings and substandard.

“They funded whatever they’re going to fund and whatever they didn’t rolls over to the next so we have a list of capital improvement projects that have been submitted to the legislature,” Hanks said. “So what were trying to do now is attack it a different way and do a complete facility.”

The Marion Readiness Center, home to the 4th Battlion 118th Infantry Regimen,t is the best facility in the Pee Dee. Built in 1978, it has a new roof, windows, HVAC and kitchen appliances. The unit received direct federal aid after serving certain qualifying missions.

“This is where we’d like our facilities to be at,” Hanks said walking in the open drill hall. “There’s some things we need to do; we need to redo the bathrooms, just modernize. But that wouldn’t be on our list considering all the other issues we have. We’d like to be in a place where we say this is a dated latrine, let’s upgrade it or replace it.”

In Florence, home to the 51st Military Police Battalion, the need is clear from the outside.

The parking lot is crumbling, the entrance is ragged and much of the inside is worn.

“I think it potentially could affect recruiting,” Hanks said. “When you have a person that’s interested in being a solider in the South Carolina Guard and they walk into a facility that’s in the current state that some of them are, the question in their mind may be whether they want to join an organization that maintains their facilities at this state.”

During a walk around the complex, Sirmon noticed the 43-year-old facility’s electrical panel was a Federal Pacific Electric company model. Federal Pacific, a common manufacturer in the 1950s through 1980s, is no longer around after a lawsuit found the panels posed significant risk for fire because of defective components that did not meet UL standards.

“This is bad news on commercial and residential,” Sirmon said. “There’s problems with the breakers, the breakers falling out, not tripping like they’re designed to, which obviously creates a fire hazard. When we find them we put in work orders to get them replaced, but again it comes down to a funding issue.”

Upgrading that panel isn’t part of that $30 million capital improvement list, but Hanks says it will be added.

While the Florence Readiness Center might burn down if a breaker fails to trip, part of the Timmonsville Readiness Center exterior may fall off soon because of foundation problems.

Sirmon said the Guard is still investigating the foundation problem, which could be a result of ground settling. Regardless of the cause, the cost estimate to stabilize the foundation is hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“The rule of thumb is about a quarter of an inch and you can see it surpasses that,” Sirmon said about the visible cracks. “The structure itself, the skeleton is steel, but it’s not good having this.”

Hanks said the Guard will put attention toward the issue soon since it was recently discovered.

Timmonsville is home to the Palmetto Regulators of the 133rd Military Police Company.

A lack of space is just as much an issue as conditions are at readiness centers. Current facilities total 1.76 million gross square feet but 4.67 million gross square feet are needed to meet current demands.

Hanks said readiness centers serve as places for troops to gather and train, house equipment, administrative functions and even host private events. During disasters, the troops stage at the facilities and may even have to live there if conditions require.

In Williamsburg County, the 59-year-old Hemingway facility is home to a detachment of the 1178th Forward Support Company and some 70 soldiers. It’s also a portrait of a readiness center just hanging on. It features original single-pane windows, a roof in need of repair, no dedicated female facilities and an unsecure server room door that stays open to prevent overheating.

“You might say ‘you’re here just for Saturday and Sunday and you don’t spend the night what’s the big deal?’ Well, it limits them on doing physical training...we typically do PT then shower and go into the drill day,” Hanks said, noting that the unit’s 15 female soldiers only have one shower. “The soldiers are here because they want to support their communities, but it’s hard when you come to a facility like this to have pride in your facility.”

A facility like Hemingway may be consolidated, possibly into its Myrtle Beach counterpart in the future. New regional readiness centers would be larger for multiple units to train out of and be more efficient. Officials said major reinvestment dollars will be distributed based on a facility’s future use.

“We’re going to prioritize that funding to our most critical facilities,” Batten said. “But also the heavier investments being put into the ones we know that we’re going to retain for the long term.”

Funding future

The budget approved by the House that goes before the Senate this week has $2 million allocated for armory operations from the general fund. With federal and other funds, that number bumps up to $4.5 million for the readiness centers under the purview of Adjutant General Bob Livingston.

If two-thirds of the Senate approves the bond bill, which also includes $221 million for higher education, then it would still need House approval and the governor’s signature, the latter of which it won’t get.

Gov. Nikki Haley has made it clear that she would veto the bond bill.

In January, Haley requested $500,000 in recurring funds for “maintenance of regional armories” in her proposed budget included and $2.1 million in one-time money for maintenance. Haley didn’t mention the armories or higher education in a speech at the S.C. GOP convention Saturday, but reiterated that the legislature should use some of the $400 million in new revenue instead of debt to address the problem.

“Running up the credit has never been who we are or what we do, we don’t run up debt in South Carolina, no more debt,” Haley said to an applauding crowd. “Now the Senate is coming up with a bond bill, now they are trying to raise the debt again.”

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Hugh K. Leatherman Sr., a Republican from Florence, received a 16-5 vote of support for the bill in the committee. The bill goes before the full Senate this week along with the budget. Leatherman said “the need is there” for the “education and defense bond bill.”

The $15 million for readiness centers and higher education funding were the only two aspects that survived the House of Representatives’ proposed $500 million bond bill, which lost support shortly after it was introduced in March.

If additional funding doesn’t come, officials say they’ll make do with what they receive, make incremental headway on the backlog and continue to address problems as they arise.

“We’ve gotten a lot of positive support, there’s no doubt that the state legislature supports the Guard and they want to put our soldiers in the best facilities that the state can afford,” Batten said. “I think it’s just a matter of balancing priorities within the state.”

This story was originally published May 2, 2015 at 11:58 PM with the headline "Millions needed for Pee Dee’s aging armories."