Shutdown leaves federal employees in the lurch

A Congressional deal to end the shutdown came too late Monday for hundreds of thousands of workers who had already left their offices on furlough.

The three-day closure left agencies half-staffed and employees wondering when and if they’ll get paid.

{mosads}A National Park Service (NPS) employee who was furloughed said they had signed up to drive for a ridesharing company because they weren’t sure if they’d get paid for the shutdown time. 

“It beats doing nothing,” the employee, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said Monday after a driving shift.

The worker said NPS leadership did not tell staff about shutdown plans until late Friday.

“People were pretty confused, because people didn’t really think it was going to happen until kind of late. The guidance came kind of late,” the employee said. “None of this makes any sense. This is all so dumb.”

Many parks were open to visitors Monday and through the weekend, but with only minimal staff.

Amad Ali, a Social Security Administration (SSA) claims specialist and an American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) local union representative for agency employees in SSA’s Indiana field offices, said he worked from 7 a.m. to noon before being sent home. 

The offices, Ali said, are limited in terms of what services they could provide. Social Security cards and benefit verifications, for example, were no longer being processed, but the government was still issuing Social Security checks. 

Ali said he’s supposed to report to work daily during the shutdown and management will let him known whether or not he needs to stay. The time he works is unpaid, at least for now.

“We all know merely as a practical matter folks have bills to pay and mouths to feed, and knowing the next check is not coming, especially for folks that live paycheck to paycheck, it’s a very stressful time and morale is low,” he said. “Folks in the public, who depend on our services, are stressed too, because they have questions that won’t get answered.”

Senators had reached a bipartisan short-term deal by 12:30 p.m., but an official at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) said the resolution must pass the House and Senate, and then be signed by President Trump, before government functions that were shutdown during the lapse in appropriations can reopen. 

Congress then has to act to ensure federal employees who were furloughed will get paid for the time during the shutdown. Employees who were deemed essential or otherwise had to work despite the shutdown will get paid no matter what.

While the deal reached Monday guarantees the government remains open for three weeks, the drama over the weekend raises concerns that another shutdown could come when the continuing resolution expires Feb. 8. 

Steve Calder, a Clean Air Act inspector for the EPA and president of AFGE Local 3428, said workers almost expect another shutdown.

“There’s been very little guidance from really anyone from upper management, besides an email from [EPA Administrator] Scott Pruitt telling everyone we have enough carryover funds to work [this] week,” he said.

The agency has seen a spate of departures and retirements since Trump took office, and Calder said the shutdown only further hurts agency operations.

“There are less people doing work and some of the work is not going to get done and it will negatively impact the general public,” he said. “If we’re not doing our job, it’s going to affect human health and the environment in the long-term.”

An OMB official said in an email to The Hill that employees who were funded by sources other than annual appropriations were not legally required to stop working.       

“Employees who were performing excepted activities — for example, those working on activities related to the safety of human life or protection of property — were also authorized to work,” they said. “Furloughed employees were required to stop working after spending no more than four hours for orderly suspension of operations.”

The OMB official did not have estimates on the number of employees who were furloughed, but said the administration supports Congress providing them back pay.

On Capitol Hill, staffers waited in long lines that stretched around congressional office buildings Monday morning to get through security and into their offices.

Capitol Police had limited the number of open entrances. At the Longworth House Office building, for example, only one entrance of several was open. 

But lawmakers said their offices were largely unaffected by the shutdown.

Members of the bipartisan group of senators who worked to reach a deal said their staff came to work as usual on Monday.

“We went through this in 2013,” Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) said. “What happens in every case is you end up paying the employees back pay so basically people go home and they get paid, so we just asked everybody to come to work because we knew that was the case.”

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) was headed back to his office to talk to his staff after the Senate’s first procedural vote Monday afternoon on the continuing resolution.

“They were here knowing we were going to have discussions this morning,” he said.

The shutdown’s effects, however, were palpable inside the Capitol. 

The Capitol Visitor Center, which is typically buzzing with tourists on a weekday, was empty. Only the sounds of a bubbling fountain echoed in the underground public complex. 

A notice on the center’s website notified visitors that their tours had been canceled.

“Due to a lapse in government funding, the Capitol Visitor Center is closed. Our tours and programs are cancelled. Please check back for updates,” the notice read. 

The shutdown caused agencies across the government to cancel or reschedule events.

The Interior Department had to postpone multiple meetings planned for this week around the country on its expansive offshore drilling plan. And Pruitt canceled a planned trip this week to Japan.

The White House had planned for Trump to hold a White House event Monday on the Republicans’ tax overhaul law and school choice but canceled it.