I am familiar with how hard budgeting can be but I am still baffled as to why it took SOCOM so long to do that if it is such a valuable asset. To me that says they didn't value it as highly as they claim. Again, an outsiders view but 84/85 definitely seem the odd men out to everyone to their detriment.
The best way I can explain it is due to the flavor of money. The operating budgets were mainly sourced inside the Navy budget via OCO funds, which for years wasn't an issue for SOCOM or the Navy. When budgets and OCO funds started going away the Navy was looking to save money and 84/85 was an easy answer for them. By the time SOCOM realized this they started planning for 84/85 in the POM cycle but the Navy wouldn't extend the timeline.
The interim posed some money/funding issues for SOCOM since 84/85 aren't SOF per the legal U.S.C. definition. On top of that, entities inside SOCOM said that they could take up the slack if 84/85 went away. Big Navy also said that regular Navy helos could make up the difference. Both aren't true and no one up high truly realized what was being lost till the customers started bitching about lack of support.
My opinion is the Navy tried to save face by not fully rescinding the shutdown order by still closing 84 and creating the TSU idea. 85 was lucky to be the one staying open and my hope is in a year or two the TSUs are not what was expected and 84 will be reopened.