THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 8, 1996 TAG: 9602080372
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JACK DORSEY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
The Navy spent a record $10.6 billion in Hampton Roads in 1995, a $3.5 billion increase over the previous year. It's one of several signs that the defense drawdown is all but over for the region.
While the completion of the carrier John C. Stennis at Newport News Shipbuilding accounted for a portion of the increased spending, officials pointed to other ship construction, repair and maintenance projects that brought money into the area as well.
For the first time since 1990, when the nationwide military drawdown began robbing Hampton Roads of ships, planes and people, the Navy's economic impact on the area showed a significant upswing in 1995.
Its active-duty force rose to 96,659, an 842-person increase over 1994. At the peak in 1990, there were 110,150 active-duty Navy and Marine Corps members assigned to the area.
Counting drilling reserve members, retired military personnel and their survivors, the total military presence in 1995 was 131,533, a 2,531-person increase over 1994. It was the first time since 1990, when 140,400 were counted, that the downward trend has been reversed. An additional 1,000 family members also moved into the area, bringing Hampton Roads' population of military dependents to 128,000.
Those figures are somewhat incomplete, an official said. Missing is data from September 1995, which likely will swell the totals even more when they are included in the final report.
Not reflected in the Navy's report are the Army, Air Force and Coast Guard members - estimated at more than 25,000 - assigned to Fort Eustis in Newport News, Langley Air Force Base and Fort Monroe in Hampton, and Coast Guard facilities in Portsmouth.
An additional 15 ships were based at Norfolk Naval Station and Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base during the year. That increase was attributed to the closing of naval bases at Charleston, S.C., and Staten Island, N.Y. The Navy drew ships from those regions and now has 131 ships based locally. At the 1990 peak, 147 ships were homeported in Hampton Roads.
Of the 194 ships assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, nearly 68 percent are in Norfolk.
The new figures, part of a report released Wednesday by the commander of Norfolk Naval Base, reflect Navy and Marine Corps commands within a 50-mile radius of Norfolk.
John Whaley, an economist with the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission, said the report appears to verify his predictions.
``I've maintained all along that the data began showing a deacceleration in the rate of decline of defense expenditures,'' Whaley said. ``This is fairly recent at the national level, which began to deaccelerate in early 1995.''
The area may still feel some ``down years'' in the future, he said.
``But it pretty much has bottomed out.''
However, Whaley said he was a little surprised at the apparent large jump in defense spending on goods and services. The Navy spent $5.5 billion in 1995 on goods and services in Hampton Roads, up from $2 billion the year before.
Without seeing details of where the Navy came up with that figure, Whaley said he account for it.
Navy officials said in general they believed it was caused by new ship construction in the area, including the carrier John C. Stennis, which was commissioned into service Dec. 9.
The Navy's local annual payroll was $5.08 billion for the year, up from $4.9 billion in 1994. The figure includes active-duty, retired, civil service and non-appropriated fund employees.
Navy personnel and Defense Department civilians assigned to Navy work account for 22.6 percent of the total payroll in Hampton Roads.
Not all figures in the report showed increases in military or defense worker presence.
For example, there were 2,350 fewer civilian defense workers than in 1994. Most of the lost jobs were attributed to the Norfolk Naval Aviation Depot, which was ordered closed by the 1993 base closure commission. It will go out of business in September.
The report also shows five fewer aircraft squadrons assigned, 27 compared with 32 a year ago. However, the Navy is planning to gain those back and more in the next three years.
The closing of Cecil Field, Fla., home to all East Coast squadrons of F/A-18 Hornet jets, means those aircraft will be reassigned to Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach by 1999. Likewise, five squadrons of F-14 Tomcat fighters are moving to Oceana, beginning in May, from Miramar Naval Air Station near San Diego. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
THE NAVY'S SPENDING AND PAYROLL IN HAMPTON ROADS
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
KEYWORDS: MILITARY BUDGET U.S. NAVY by CNB