Kirtland Air Force Base adds nearly $5 billion to local economy in FY22

It’s home to Sandia National Laboratories and part of the Air Force Research Laboratory. It is also home to thousands of employees and military personnel.

And its impact in the Albuquerque metro area and beyond is growing.

That’s according to Lt. Col. Matthew Daniels, the 377th Air Base Wing Comptroller Squadron commander, who presented the economic impact report of Kirtland Air Force Base to local officials at the Kirtland Partnership Committee’s annual breakfast last week.

According to the report, KAFB, which spans more than 50,000 acres, had a local economic impact of $4.88 billion for the 2022 fiscal year, which ran from October 2021 through September 2022. It also, according to the report, accounted for 7% of local jobs and more than 10% of the local economy.

The base, Daniels said, also has more than 25 major mission partners and 108 total mission partners, which helps support the number of jobs at KAFB and, by extension, the area economy.

“That’s a huge, huge number,” Daniels said of KAFB, one of a handful of military installations in the state. “Our missions include research and development, testing and evaluation, special operations and combat search and rescue, and support to the Air Force’s nuclear enterprise.”

The biennial report follows that of a similar report released in 2021, which showed KAFB at the time had a total economic impact of roughly $4.6 billion for fiscal year 2020. The most recent report for fiscal year 2022 measures indirect output/expenditures, local expenditures and annual payroll — the latter of which accounted for $2.4 billion.

Moreover, the latest report shows that jobs at KAFB continue to prove resilient, with a workforce of 23,821. That includes the workforce of Sandia National Laboratories, which accounted for the largest slice of jobs at 12,581, as well as active-duty military, which made up more than 4,000 workers at the base.

The base, additionally, has contracts with small businesses ranging from women-owned to veteran-owned that totaled $358 million.

The base’s overall economic footprint nationally stood at just less than $7.5 billion, an increase of 1% from the previous report.