LIMESTONE (AP) – Backers of the imperiled Defense Finance Accounting Service center greeted a member of the base closing commission with signs urging that the facility be expanded rather than shut down.

About 100 to 200 DFAS supporters wearing bright yellow T-shirts were lined up along the road leading to the facility as retired Air Force Gen. Lloyd Newton arrived shortly after 10 a.m. for a tour, a briefing and a meeting with employees.

The DFAS was established more than a decade ago to ease the impact of the shutdown of Loring Air Force Base during an earlier round in the Base Realignment and Closure process.

The Pentagon currently has 26 DFAS centers across the country, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wants to reduce that number to three.

The Grow DFAS Committee is pushing to expand the Limestone facility.

The center is the last Maine site to be visited by a BRAC commissioner in advance of the panel’s July 6 hearing in Boston that will focus on New England bases that are targeted for closure or realignment.

The panel has a Sept. 8 deadline to come up with its own list of recommendations and present it to President Bush, who then has the options of accepting it in its entirety, rejecting it or asking the commission for revisions.