Several area elected officials and community leaders hope to persuade a military base-closing panel today that the government can save more money by moving about 220 high-tech defense jobs to the Lowcountry instead of Southern California and by keeping a Navy construction unit in the region.

The local entourage will have about two and a half hours to make its case to the Base Realignment & Closure Commission at a public hearing this afternoon in Charlotte.

Scheduled speakers include Charleston Mayor Joe Riley and North Charleston Mayor Keith Summey. Gov. Mark Sanford also plans to attend the hearing at Central Piedmont Community College.

The BRAC Commission was created to double-check the Defense Department's new list of base closings and restructurings. The independent nine-member panel can make changes to the list.

Last month, the Pentagon recommended shutting down the Defense Finance & Accounting Service on the former Charleston Naval Base and the Naval Facilities Engineering Command's Southern Division off Rivers Avenue. Together, the two units employ more than 900 workers, almost all of them civilians.

Local officials will not contest the decision to close the accounting center, which has 368 employees.

Charleston defense contractor Jim Hoffman said his testimony will take aim at 223 information technology jobs that the Pentagon wants to uproot from Navy installations in Newport, R.I., and Dahlgren, Va., and move to San Diego.

He said Monday that the government would improve its bottom line by transferring those civilian workers and contract employees to the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Charleston, also known as SPAWAR. By doing so, the Pentagon would save at least $30 million over 20 years, said Hoffman, a retired SPAWAR commander who now works for Eagan McAllister Associates in Hanahan.

He also plans to tell the commissioners that the electronic engineering work performed at SPAWAR-Charleston and at the two targeted facilities is very similar.

Hoffman said he plans to tout a study by consulting firm Booz Allen that found SPAWAR-Charleston to be the most cost-efficient in the country compared to its peers.

He also will offer statistical evidence to show that wages and the cost of living are notably higher in San Diego than the Charleston region.

Other local military boosters will urge the commission to take the Naval Facilities Engineering Command's Southern Division off the hit list. The division oversees more than $1 billion a year in military construction in 26 states. The Defense Department has recommended the 500-plus civilian jobs at "NavFac" be relocated to Virginia, Florida and Illinois.

Bill Lewis, a former NavFac commander who now oversees construction for the Charleston County School District, is scheduled to testify that it makes no financial sense to break up the unit.

NavFac was marked for closing partly because it operates from an off-base building that the military does not own. Summey said earlier this month that the command could move almost rent-free into the Defense Finance & Accounting Service's offices after that unit is closed.

Another option is for the Pentagon to take the Berkeley Charleston Dorchester Council of Governments up on its offer to build NavFac a new headquarters on the Charleston Naval Weapons Station. Summey said this month that the deal was still on the table.

The four BRAC commissioners who are scheduled to preside over the Charlotte hearing will not make any decisions today. The information they gather will be considered later by the full panel.

The commission must submit its revised list of base closings and restructurings to President Bush by September.