FORT DRUM — Fort Drum’s economic impact on the region and state continues to grow.
Advocate Drum, in its annual economic impact report released Tuesday, said that about $2.5 billion was contributed to the regional economy by the north country’s military post in the 2023 fiscal year.
“It continues to grow,” Advocate Drum chair David J. Zembiec said Wednesday. “It remains a significant part of the regional and state economy.”
Zembiec, who is also the longtime CEO of Jefferson County Economic Development and retiring next month, said that it’s not just the sheer amount of cash put into the economy, but also the amount of jobs. In Jefferson County, 39% of jobs are tied to Fort Drum. That number is 9.4% in Lewis County, and 1.2% in St. Lawrence County.
Broken down into a day, Fort Drum’s economic impact to the region is about $6.8 million per day.
When determining indirect impact, which totals about $6 million, Advocate Drum takes into account the employers Fort Drum engages.
“You spend a dollar here, but now that person that’s employed at the hotel, or that’s employed by the cleaning service, or the contractor employed by the schools or the hospital, now they go out and they spend money. So that has additional economic impact,” Zembiec said. That is all included in the indirect impact.
Direct spending includes Fort Drum purchases and payroll.
Zembiec said it’s not clear where those exact figures would fall as personnel numbers went down slightly this year, but there were pay raises.
Advocate Drum contracts a Boston company that specializes in putting together these models on regional impact.
Certain types of spending have different multipliers on the models, creating the indirect impact.
Going to a grocery store may have one multiplying effect, while spending money on construction would have a higher multiplier effect because of the added expenses associated with that service, such as labor and equipment.
Multipliers will also be specific to the region’s economy and demographic patterns.
Advocate Drum will plug Fort Drum’s numbers into the model, and the model will then calculate the impact.
Looking to the future, Fort Drum will be the host of 1,500 soldiers in the Army’s new multi-domain task force in the coming years. This will result in some construction to support the new facilities, Zembiec said.
Fort Drum has almost 35,000 soldiers, family members and civilian employees who live and work on post.
Fort Drum is also the largest single-site employer in New York with payroll for employees totaling $1,179,226,302.