As shutdown lingers, agencies plan to furlough more employees
A weeklong government shutdown with no end in sight is forcing some agencies to revisit their contingency plans and consider furloughing more of their employees.
Furloughed employees do not work during a shutdown, but still typically receive back pay once a shutdown ends. But furloughs under the Trump administration may put an additional toll on federal employees.
A draft legal opinion from the Office of Management and Budget states that furloughed federal employees will no longer be automatically guaranteed back pay once a government shutdown ends. Instead, OMB argues lawmakers must explicitly approve back pay for furloughed employees in a stopgap spending bill.
OMB’s memo has immediately received bipartisan pushback from congressional leaders, and will likely come under legal scrutiny. President Donald Trump, during his first term, signed the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act in January 2019, ensuring both furloughed and excepted employees get paid once a shutdown ends.
OMB and the Office of Personnel Management have previously assured excepted and furloughed employees that they would be given back pay once this shutdown ends.
The General Services Administration has already furloughed employees who are typically “exempt” from a government shutdown because much of the agency is funded through non-congressional appropriations.
But a GSA employee told Federal News Network that agency leaders are finalizing a plan to send even more staff home if the shutdown lasts another week or longer. According to the employee, agency leaders are finalizing “phased furloughs” that would begin on Oct. 14.
Under this plan, GSA would furlough even more of its workforce 10 days later, and a fourth and final wave of furloughs would happen 10 days after that.
The GSA employee said it was not immediately clear how many employees would be furloughed in each of these phases.
“It is also not clear how feasible this approach is. I am not aware of any other agencies taking this approach yet,” they said.
Federal News Network has reached out to GSA for comment.
A second GSA employee told Federal News Network on Tuesday that much of their team has been furloughed, even though their work is funded by the agency’s Working Capital Fund, and is normally exempt from a shutdown.
In the days leading up to the shutdown, the employee said their team “didn’t hear anything” about their work status during a funding lapse.
“We all assumed, since we’re funded by the Working Capital Fund, that we would be working,” the employee said.
But on Sept. 30, the GSA employee said their team received an email notifying them that half the team would be furloughed during the shutdown.
According to the employee, some members of their team have been brought back to work in recent days and re-designated as exempt employees.
“Throughout everything, they’ve said it’s not due to performance. But they have never said, ‘We’re trying to get to a certain number of people,’” the employee said. “It’s frustrating, because they are very tight-lipped or opaque about giving us the lay of the land or the goal.”
Last week, the Federal Acquisition Service furloughed staff who are funded through the Acquisition Services Fund, a revolving fund that includes revenue GSA receives for the services to provides to other agencies.
According to its latest contingency plan, about 64% of GSA employees are exempt from the current shutdown, because their work is supported by carryover funds and non-appropriated funds. But the plan states GSA may have to furlough more of its employees once its carryover funds are exhausted.
The IRS kept all its staff working during the first five business days of the shutdown, but has not yet publicly shared its plans once the shutdown extends beyond Oct. 7.
Several IRS employees told Federal News Network that they hadn’t received an update on the agency’s contingency plans on Tuesday afternoon.
An IRS employee in Kansas City said local management began furloughing staff on Tuesday.
“Still, no one knows who is essential,” they said.
A second IRS employee said frontline managers are being asked to contact personnel after tour-of-duty hours to give them an update on the agency’s contingency plans.
Federal News Network reported last week that taxpayer services employees — including frontline managers and customer service representatives — are expected to keep working indefinitely throughout the shutdown.
Federal News Network has reached out to the IRS and the Treasury Department for comment.
At the National Park Service, about 63% of its 14,500 employees are currently furloughed, but national parks still remain open to the public.
A National Park Service employee said national parks “are as open as they can be” during a shutdown, but said staff who normally maintain park facilities are currently furloughed.
“You come for the vistas, but you want the water fountains and the toilets to work. And many of these positions now are vacant, leaving the supervisors and the admin folks to try to cobble together what they can,” the employee said.
The NPS employee said volunteer members of search and rescue teams have also been furloughed, and that the agency’s ability to respond to emergencies has been “severely hampered, especially with this furlough.”
“The kind souls who will drop what they are doing in the office to rescue a visitor in the wild have been sent home. This is not a smart time to get adventurous in a national park,” the employee said.
Before the shutdown, the NPS employee said the agency had already lost institutional expertise because many colleagues had accepted the deferred resignation program.
“Anybody who could be bought off or run off has been,” the employee said. “It’s made it harder and harder for us to retain the folks we’ve got, and to be as flexible as we need to be to serve the visitors and to take care of these places.”
An NPS spokesperson said in a statement that “critical functions that protect life, property and public health” will continue to be staffed during a government shutdown. That includes law enforcement, emergency response, fire management and visitor safety operations.
“The National Park Service remains committed to maintaining as much access as possible to park lands during the lapse in appropriations,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson added that governors of several states have reached short-term agreements with the National Park Service under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act to help maintain operations at visitor centers during the lapse in appropriations.
“These agreements allow visitor centers and other facilities to remain open and accessible to the public using state-provided funds until federal funding is restored,” the spokesperson said.The post As shutdown lingers, agencies plan to furlough more employees first appeared on Federal News Network.
