Fewer troops, fewer jobs; Fort McCoy to lose training designation
By STEVE CAHALAN scahalan@lacrossetribune.com | Posted: Saturday, December 18, 2010 12:05 am
[img_r]http://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/lacrossetribune.com/content/tncms/assets/editorial/2/17/fdd/217fdd06-0a53-11e0-a6cc-001cc4c002e0-revisions/4d0c24176c6b6.preview-300.jpg[/img_r]FORT MCCOY Cutbacks in U.S. soldiers in Iraq and plans to begin bringing some troops home from Afghanistan in July mean Fort McCoy will lose its designation next fall as one of the Armys eight mobilization training centers.
The move will cost the fort about 200 contract employees, and probably about 500 soldiers now stationed there as mobilization support, fort public affairs officer Linda Fournier said Friday. She had no prediction on exactly when those positions will go away.
The fort now has about 3,000 employees, including 1,600 government employees and 1,400 on contract, Fournier said, along with about 1,200 soldiers stationed.
Fort McCoy has been a mobilization center for training troops from across the nation since 2003, and will be one of two centers to lose that designation when the federal fiscal year ends in September.
Theyre reducing (the number of centers) because theyre not needing as many troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in the future, Fournier said.
Fort McCoy also has provided mobilization training during other wars.
The site has trained more than 100,000 personnel a year since 1985, including about 18,000 for mobilization in the past fiscal year.
Fort McCoy is expected to continue training more than 100,000 people a year, Fournier said, unless there are significant reductions in the Defense Departments budgets.
Fewer hotel rooms in the region will be occupied by soldiers or their families once Fort McCoy no longer provides mobilization training, she said.
The lodging industry is probably going to see the effect more than the local retail community, said Holly Grady, executive director of the Sparta Area Chamber of Commerce. The economic impact from Fort McCoy is significant.
Im not panicked, Im just aware of the challenge once Fort McCoy no longer is a mobilization training center, Grady added. Fortunately, she said, other parts of the areas economy are growing.