diff --git a/src/initialize.js b/src/initialize.js
index 5e3ad240f..a222d7061 100644
--- a/src/initialize.js
+++ b/src/initialize.js
@@ -89,6 +89,7 @@ import {
   APP_READY, APP_INIT_ERROR,
 } from './constants';
 import configureCache from './auth/LocalForageCache';
+import { config } from 'localforage';
 
 /**
  * A browser history or memory history object created by the [history](https://github.com/ReactTraining/history)
@@ -105,22 +106,14 @@ export const history = (typeof window !== 'undefined')
 /**
  * The string basename that is the root directory of this MFE.
  *
- * In devstack, this should always just return an empty string, because each MFE is in its own
- * server/domain.
+ * In devstack, this should always just return "/", because each MFE is in its own server/domain.
  *
  * In Tutor, all MFEs are deployed to a common server, each under a different top-level directory.
  * The basename is the root path for a given MFE, e.g. "/library-authoring". It is set by tutor-mfe
  * as an ENV variable in the Docker file, and we read it here from that configuration so that it
  * can be passed into a Router later.
- *
- * By convention, our basenames do not have a trailing slash. So it's "/library-authoring", and not
- * "/library-authoring/". Our configuration is inconsistent on this, so this function always strips
- * off the trailing slash from any value entered in configuration.
  */
-export function basename() {
-  const configBasename = getPath(getConfig().PUBLIC_PATH);
-  return configBasename.endsWith('/') ? configBasename.slice(0, -1) : configBasename;
-}
+export const basename = getPath(getConfig().PUBLIC_PATH);
 
 /**
  * The default handler for the initialization lifecycle's `initError` phase.  Logs the error to the
diff --git a/src/react/AppProvider.jsx b/src/react/AppProvider.jsx
index 6d430bf39..a2ccd8bb1 100644
--- a/src/react/AppProvider.jsx
+++ b/src/react/AppProvider.jsx
@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ export default function AppProvider({ store, children, wrapWithRouter }) {
         >
           <OptionalReduxProvider store={store}>
             {wrapWithRouter ? (
-              <Router basename={basename()}>
+              <Router basename={basename}>
                 {children}
               </Router>
             ) : children}