The Flint Hills Regional Council will use a $294,000 federal grant from the Office of Economic Adjustment of the Department of Defense to hire a consultant to evaluate the economic impact on surrounding communities of the reduction of military forces that have occurred the past couple of years.

The information was provided by the Council’s director Gary Stith. “Manhattan and Junction City were notified that they would be eligible for a grant like this and the two cities agreed that it made more sense to work on this together versus each one of them applying for a grant. They asked OEA to work with us, the Flint Hills Regional Council on this grant. ”

Stith said he signed off on the agreement on Friday, and the grant funding actually began on December first.

The Council has a request for proposals that has been sent out to consultants for this project. The Council’s Jennifer Jordan will administer the grant and work with the consultant. Assistance will be sought from staff of different jurisdictions around the post, and there will be community meetings during the process so public input can be received.

Stith said they want to see the impact on housing, retail services, jobs, and they will ask the consultant to evaluate the impact should there be any future reductions. “We’re not speculating that there will be necessarily but the consultant can then look at what kind of impact there might be from future reductions,and then make recommendations to us about how to mitigate the impact of those things.”

Once those recommendations are received the Council could return to OEA to seek another grant to help establish mechanisms to reduce impacts that might occur in the future.

Stith estimated the timeline on the initial grant funded study to be about one year.