With Amazon, Microsoft, and Boeing at the forefront, it can be easy to forget that one of our state’s largest—and most economically important—employers is just down the road in Pierce County.

It happens to be a military base—and a very large one at that. But if we’re to believe a recent Department of Defense assessment, cutting roughly 30 percent of its workforce would have “no significant impact” on our state’s economy.

To Governor Jay Inslee and his office, that’s cause for concern. And action.

Joint Base Lewis McChord is more than what the Department of Defense refers to as its “premiere military installation on the West Coast.” Located on 142 square miles of land between Lakewood and DuPont, JBLM is the largest base on the West Coast, and also Washington’s second largest employer, with 56,000 full-time employees, according to a list recently compiled by the Puget Sound Business Journal. According to JBLM statistics, the base also “supports 60,000 family members who live on and outside the base, and nearly 30,000 military retirees living within 50 miles.”

In other words, it’s a ginormous, military-funded economic engine that supplies a large chunk of Washington’s tax base, as well as customers for the countless car dealerships that line South Tacoma Way. And whatever your feelings about the size of the U.S.’ military-industrial complex—certainly a discussion well worth having—it’s not difficult to recognize how a state’s pocketbook could become dependent on something like that.

That’s why the initial results of what’s known as a Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Assessment [SPEA], conducted by the U.S. Army Environmental Command, were so troubling to Inslee. Spurred by a need to reduce active military members at bases across the country thanks to smaller defense budgets from Congress and winding down wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in late August the assessment determined that 14,459 permanent soldiers and 1,541 Army civilian employees at JBLM—16,000 in total—could be axed without inflicting significant economic hardship on Washington, even while concluding such a move would result in a cumulative loss of $1.26 billion in Washington State Personal Income and $17.4 million in tax revenue between 2016 and 2020. Officially, the SPEA considered the proposed 16,000 reduction and issued a “Finding of No Significant Impact.”

Personnel from the Army, Navy and Washington State National Guard conducts a weapons exercise at Fort Lewis. Photo by Journalist 1st Class Dave Gordon

Inslee isn’t buying it. For starters, the governor says the Army’s numbers are way off, referring to a forecast he commissioned from the state Office of Financial Management. According to an Aug. 22 letter Inslee sent to Colonel Robert Wittig of the U.S. Army Environmental Command, “A more accurate economic impact beginning in 2016 through 2020 is a loss of $2.44 billion dollars in Washington State Personal Income and a loss of $87.26 million in tax revenue.”

“These projections are significantly higher than the USAEC estimate,” Inslee notes, “and will have grievous effects to our economy.”

Grievous is certainly one word for it. And the governor isn’t the only one alarmed. As one local Lakewood business owner tells Seattle Weekly, “We’re freaked out.”

“If your business is to fight battles overseas, and in the Army your product is people to do that, and we’re no longer fighting those battles, you no longer need that product,” explains Kristine Reeves, the state Department of Commerce’s Director of Military & Defense Sector. “We are going to suffer reductions. Every installation will. Every state that has major army presence will…. We as a community, we as a state, can’t treat the DoD as an entitlement.”

Make no mistake: Military cuts are coming, at JBLM and across the country. That much is unavoidable, and it’s already happening. However, the response from the governor’s office—and the 50 or so local politicians, business owners, and citizens who wrote letters to the Army protesting the proposed cuts—suggests that minimizing them in Washington is a top priority. In a scenario the state has become increasingly familiar with, the task turns to selling the Army on the merits of doing business in Washington.

Likening the situation to the state’s relationship with Boeing, Reeves says, “We need to treat [the Army] like a business we would like to stay in our community. We really want to make sure that the Army understands how they’re making [life] better” in Washington.

If you’re looking for a community that benefits from having JBLM next door, it’s hard to find a better example than Lacey. The Thurston County Economic Development Council reports that 12 percent of the town’s 45,000 residents are active-duty military members, while 60 percent has some connection to the military. Perhaps Lacey Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Stephanie Hemphill is stating the obvious when she tells Seattle Weekly that Lacey would be “highly impacted” by a JBLM employee reduction of 16,000 soldiers and civilians.

Fluctuating troop levels at JBLM and bases around the country are nothing new, however, and something the cities that depend on them have grown accustomed to. Earlier this year, for example, the 4-2 Stryker Brigade stationed at JBLM was inactivated, resulting in a loss of 4,300 soldiers and their families; but in 2010, a return of more than 18,000 troops from deployment in the Middle East was heralded as an economic boon. To some extent, this ebb and flow comes with the territory. Even with President Obama’s promise to avoid putting troops on the ground as part of the growing confrontation with Islamic State militants, it’s impossible to predict what the future holds.

Jerry Wilkinson is a 67-year-old real-estate agent and veteran who moved to Lacey in 1978. He’s seen a lot of growth in that time—at JBLM and in the city he calls home. He was one of those who wrote the Army to voice concerns over the SPEA findings, citing the potential for a housing-market drop, a loss of sales-tax revenue for the city, and the positive impacts he says service members have on the community. Still, when asked how “grievous” a massive troop reduction might be for Lacey, his fears fail to match the pitch of the governor’s.

“I think it’s a concern, especially for the smaller businesses. They’re going to feel it more than some of the larger businesses—the Walmarts and Costcos and such,” says Wilkinson, stopping short of predicting some small businesses might go out of business. “We’re concerned, but at the same time, I don’t see that it’s a doomsday.”

“The community is building, it’s robust,” Wilkinson continues. “I think we’re going to continue to grow, irrespective of the base. The area is resilient.”

According to Reeves, a town hall on potential troop reductions at JBLM is expected early next year, with a final decision by mid- to late summer.

mdriscoll@seattleweekly.com