Local military families who use the Women Infants and Children’s program, or WIC, will probably have to access the program off base beginning in October.

For years, Navy families had easy access to the assistance program at an office on the Seaplane Base. The federal government decided to stop paying for other agencies to use

buildings on base rent free, and WIC is scheduled to close on base at the end of September.

Instead, the WIC office in Oak Harbor will likely absorb the 600 or more military clients, said Keith Higman, Island County Public Health Director.

That’s a huge undertaking, considering the three WIC offices in Oak Harbor, South Whidbey and Camano Island serve a total of about 1,000 people.

The county put together a plan to handle all those extra cases that includes adding more staff and adding parking spaces to the Oak Harbor office, which is near the intersection of Whidbey Avenue and Regatta Drive.

WIC provides supplemental food and other services to low-income pregnant and postpartum women and children up to age five. Many junior enlisted families qualify because housing allowances aren’t factored into the income eligibility requirements, Higman said.

Community Action of Skagit administers the WIC program on base. It’s not as simple as paying rent on base, Higman said. The federal government doesn’t pay for the entire cost of the program.

In 2015 it cost about $265,000 to run the Island County WIC program. The federal government paid roughly $194,000 and the state and county picked up the rest of the tab.

While the program helps children in their most crucial early stages of development, the program is more than about food vouchers, he said. WIC is a starting point for access to other services for families in need.

U.S. Sen. Patty Murray asked the secretary of defense to stop the closure of WIC at NAS Whidbey, but so far there’s been no word on whether her plea helped.

In a letter to the secretary of defense Murray wrote: “I continue to hear from constituents on Whidbey Island about the impact the closure of such an important facility will have on servicemembers, their spouses and their young families and as someone who has fought for years to increase families’ access to WIC, I find it absolutely unacceptable to impose any new barriers to this critically important program.”