Report: Bay County defense contract funding slips

PANAMA CITY — The amount of money flowing to defense contractors in Bay County has slipped by some $220 million, according to a government contract calculation company.

According to the website Governmentcontractswon.com, which tracks government contracts across the country using federal data, the amount of contracts awarded to Bay County businesses dropped from $784,650,590 in 2010 to $560,983,329 in 2011.

The $784.6 million figure was the highest for Bay County since 2005, when contracts reached a high of $928,758,964, according to the website. The 2011 figure is the lowest for the county since 2000, when the amount was $25,453,921.

The county had more than $6 billion in military defense investment over the past decade.

“Defense industry jobs are high-paying jobs and good for our economy here,” said Carol Roberts, of the Bay County Chamber of Commerce.

Still, there is trepidation among contractors nationwide as the government is preparing almost a half-billion dollars in defense cuts that are expected to come at the end of this year.

“They are the first ones to feel it,” said Tom Neubauer, president of the Bay Defense Alliance.

Governmentcontractswon.com lists a wide range of companies doing work in Bay County, and the data shows companies still are making money.

According to the site, Panama City’s Chenega Integrated Systems Limited, with 59 contracts, landed an estimated $365.7 million in contract work over the past 11 years.

In 2011, Chenega had two contracts for a total of $921,611, the site reported. Chenega’s numbers were down from the $110 million in contracts they received in 2006 and the $62 million in 2007, the site reported.

Over the same 11 years, King Aerospace Inc., located at Tyndall Air Force Base, pulled in an estimated $270.5 million in contracts, according to the site. The report noted King accumulated $40 million in 2011 and $44 million in 2010. The company began the decade with a mere $4 million contract in 2001, according to the site.

The site noted Readiness Management Support L.C., also of Panama City and one of the largest government contract recipients, secured $2.7 billion in contracts since 2000. Last year, Readiness Management took in $248.9 million, $292.8 million in 2010 and $291.8 million in 2009.

Requests for comments by the companies mentioned were not returned Monday.

The site also noted the number of contracts won by Bay County businesses was 705 in 2011, as it was in 2005. The county has attracted more than 700 defense contracts per year for the past seven years, according to the site. Bay County had 86 contracts in 2000.

There were 26,635 government contracts awarded in Florida last year, totaling more than $13.3 billion.