Budgetary restraints caused by gridlock in Congress that have tightened purse strings on military spending should not adversely affect the 412th Theater Engineering Command or other reserve units in and around the Vicksburg area, the Army Reserve’s top civilian said Thursday.

“On the Army Reserve side, we don’t see anything that’s going to take the 412 or any of the units that are in this area outside this area,” said James Balocki, chief executive officer and director of services and installation for the U.S. Army Reserve Command.

Speaking to about 15 members of the Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce attending a special morning coffee program, Balocki said the units are “a fixture and they’ll stay a fixture.”

But that doesn’t mean there won’t be changes as the Army moves to adjust to a changing economic and mission environment.

“The Army is transitioning, reducing manpower on the active duty side from 490,000 to 450,000, and the reserve component from 205,000, where we are now, to 150,000,” he said.

That means, he said, some units will get smaller, and some of capability will come out of units, “but at the end of the day, we still feel like we can support the president’s strategy and with a risk, but a minimal risk, to the nation. We think below 195,000 risky.”

Composed of three brigades and seven direct reporting units in 20 states east of the Mississippi River, and with a force of nearly 13,000 soldiers, the 412th has been in Vicksburg since 1949. The unit here is the headquarters company for the command.

It is one of two engineering theater commands in the U.S. The other is the 416th in Darien, Ill., which is responsible for units west of the Mississippi.

Both commands deploy units in the U.S. and across the world for peace and combat missions.

Col. Marshall Banks, acting command executive officer and chief of readiness and mobilization for the 412th, said the unit has 285 people with a combination of 112 full-time military and civilian workers. Half of those, he said, live in Vicksburg.

The total annual salary for the full-time military workers puts $6.4 million into the local economy, with the civilian payroll totaling $2.8 million a year. Reservists coming to Vicksburg for drill contribute an extra $25,000 a year.

Blocki said the fiscal 2015 budget year would be the toughest for the Department of Defense.

“We got a buyout on sequester from Congress, they came together and agreed to lift the budget amounts in 2014 and 2015, so we got a little bit of a bye, but there’s still a bit of a dip for us in 15,” he said, adding fiscal 2015 will be tough, particularly when it comes to the purchases that military units and bases routinely make with local businesses.

“It’s not a huge dip, but we’re going to be penny-pinching, if you will,” he said.

He said finances are expected to be better from fiscal 2016 on, but cautioned, “that projection’s based on the president’s budget, not on budget control items.”

The budget, he said, “Presumes that things will get better, and Congress will, after the election, come back and make some headway on putting money back into the defense establishment. Certainly as we see the events with ISIL and ISIS and the Ebola crisis.”

He said the Army would have to look at its capacity and take steps to reduce its facilities. He said about 20 percent of the Army’s facilities are underutilized and costing money.

“We’re going to try and downsize and shrink that footprint a little bit and try to put that money back into our training accounts so we can have readiness in our formations,” he said.

Balocki said Army officials are also concerned about some officials’ call for an Army commission to look at the service’s structure, adding, “We don’t support it.

“We believe Army leaders have the capability to decide what the Army ought to look like how it ought to composed.”

The biggest concern, he said, is the federal government maintaining access to a federal reserve.

“It’s very important that we have a National Guard,” he said. “They have a specific and unique role. The federal reserved also has a special and unique role, and that role and that is the ability to bring, in this case, 20 percent of America’s Army for about 6 percent of its budget. That’s pretty good deal. “It’s a good value for nation in terms of capabilities.”

He said the experiences of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast, and Hurricne Sandy on the East Coast has convinced reserve officials to allow federal reserve units to work with civilian authorities closer in times of disaster, adding units in the future will be working closer with local officials on disaster recovery and response.