Shutdown would shake S.A.

City’s military installations employ 80K who face not getting paid during impasse

If an intraparty Republican standoff in Congress shuts down the federal government starting this weekend, there’s no telling how long it might last.

One thing is certain, however: A shutdown would hit San Antonio and Texas hard because of their high concentration of military personnel.

The city is home to two Air Force bases, Lackland and Randolph, plus the Army’s Fort Sam Houston and Camp Bullis. Collectively, they’re known as Joint Base San Antonio, and they employ about 80,000 active-duty, reserve and National Guard personnel and civilian workers.

In a shutdown, troops and civilian workers wouldn’t get paid. Depending on how long it lasted, many of them would struggle to pay rent and make mortgage, car and credit card payments. The effects would ripple across the region’s economy.

Mayor Ron Nirenberg said a shutdown would “disproportionately impact San Antonio families because of the number of federal agencies and defenserelated jobs, along with the importance of assistance programs like nutrition, child care and medical.”

The mayor, who was in Monterrey, Mexico, leading an educational and business delegation, said a shutdown would be “unnecessary and disruptive.”

Military personnel are expected to stay at their posts even if their paychecks stop. That’s why basic training, technical training and other military operations would continue as usual across JBSA. The troops would be made whole once the shutdown ended. So would civilian workers who were furloughed.

Barring a resolution of the impasse, government funding will run out Sunday. Military and civilian personnel would receive their last paychecks that day. Their first missed check would be in mid-october, if the shutdown lasts that long.

On Thursday, the government began notifying federal workers that a shutdown was imminent.

Texas has 15 major military installations, including Fort Bliss in El Paso, Laughlin AFB in Del Rio, Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo, the Corpus Christi

Army Depot, and naval air stations in Corpus Christi and Kingsville.

All of them play major roles in local economies. San Antonio’s military bases collectively are the city’s largest employer. In 2022, JBSA’S economic impact was estimated at $39.2 billion. Most of its civilian workers would be furloughed during a shutdown.

The name JBSA also applies to the support and logistics command that takes care of utilities, housing, landscaping and other services for Lackland, Randolph and the other components of the joint base. The command, also known as the 502d Air Base Wing, has 8,000 military and civilian personnel of its own.

“Our focus right now is on careful preparation and planning to ensure the well-being of our people and an orderly transition should the government shut down,” Brig. Gen. Russ “Dirk” Driggers, commander of the 502d, said in a statement.

In Killeen, Fort Cavazos is the area’s biggest employer with more than 35,000 active-duty soldiers and airmen, as well as civil service workers and contractors.

When soldiers’ families and civilian dependents are included, the number of people who would be affected by a shutdown exceeds 96,000.

A former mayor of Killeen, Dan Corbin, expressed exasperation at the standoff among U.S. House Republicans that is at the heart of a threatened shutdown.

“It’s just stupid. Stupid,” he said. “How’d you like to run a business like that?”

Social Security, mail delivery and some other government services would not be affected by a shutdown because they’re funded outside the congressional appropriations process. But many other federal operations, ranging from national parks to passport offices, would be shuttered or disrupted.

Nationwide, the Defense Department has 4 million active-duty uniformed personnel, 585,000 National Guard and reserve troops, and 800,000 civilian workers.

The Pentagon said a shutdown would have “significant repercussions” for military members and their families.

Most permanent change-of-station moves would be halted, and the effects would be felt immediately by moving and storage companies.

Elective surgeries and procedures at military medical facilities would be postponed. That would have a profound impact on JBSA’S Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center, which conducts outpatient procedures.

Brooke Army Medical Center, the Army’s flagship hospital, has outpatient clinics, six in the San Antonio area.

BAMC and those clinics serve 4,000 people a day. The hospital is one of two Level 1 trauma centers in the region.

The institution has more than 3,000 federal employees, and officials said they were trying to determine how many would be furloughed during a shutdown.

“To the maximal extent possible under law, BAMC will continue to deliver healthcare, ensuring above all else that services provided are of high quality and safe,” BAMC said in a statement. “To our beneficiaries, unless specifically contacted by your care team, please show up for your scheduled care on 1 October and afterwards.”

Commissaries around town and across the country would be shuttered. The Defense Commissary Agency would keep overseas facilities open, however.

Veteran benefits, including health care and pensions, would continue during a shutdown, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Military burials and placement of headstones and grave markers also would be unaffected.

One Texas military community that won’t take a direct hit is the Red River Army Depot in Texarkana, where a civilian workforce repairs and upgrades tactical vehicles. The depot relies on the Army Working Capital Fund rather than congressional appropriations, so its 3,500 workers would suffer “minimal impact” from a shutdown, said Dennis Lewis, a retired city leader.

San Antonio is a major training hub for both the Army and Air Force. Basic training for airmen would continue at Lackland. So would instruction at Air Force bases in Texas, Mississippi, Washington state and California.

The 37th Training Wing, based at Lackland, graduates more than 80,000 military members a year.

It conducts basic military training for all enlisted recruits entering the Air Force, Space Force, Air Force Reserve and Air National Guard.

Across town at Fort Sam Houston, soldiers train to serve as combat medics and in other medical specialties at the U.S. Army Medical Center of Excellence. There, too, training, would go on, just as it did during past government shutdowns.

The longest shutdown on record began Dec. 22, 2018, and lasted 34 days.

Corbin, the former mayor of Killeen, said he knows how another shutdown will end if it starts this weekend.

“Somebody will blink,” he said.