“The FBI is faced with furloughing all personnel, including agents and intelligence analysts, for up to 14 days, as well as implementing a hiring freeze. This would have the equivalent effect of cutting approximately 2,285 onboard employees, including 775 Special Agents.”
Among Justice agencies, nearly 36,700 Bureau of Prisons workers face furlough for an average of 12 days, 5,100 U.S. marshals for up to 13 days and all civil division employees for up to seven days.
Joe Davidson
Joe Davidson writes the Federal Diary, a column about the federal workplace that celebrated its 80th birthday in November 2012. Davidson previously was an assistant city editor at The Washington Post and a Washington and foreign correspondent with The Wall Street Journal, where he covered federal agencies and political campaigns.
More from Federal Diary:
FEDERAL DIARY | Earlier this month, Vice President Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry participated in the American Foreign Service Association ceremony, which honored government workers slain abroad.
FEDERAL DIARY | Even before the current troubles involving the IRS’s targeting of conservative political groups and the Justice Department’s secret seizure of AP telephone records, trust in the federal government was low. Current scandals will smear federal employees, but provide lessons for other agencies.
FEDERAL DIARY | DOJ secret review of phone records gives federal employee advocates one more reason to doubt the Obama administration's full commitment to protecting whistleblowers, particularly those in national security agencies.
Education: The sequester “would likely require the Department to furlough many of its own employees for multiple days.”
Energy: “Sequestration would affect thousands of jobs among Federal, contractor and grant awardee personnel.”
Homeland Security: “Sequestration would necessitate furloughs of up to 14 days for a significant portion of our frontline law enforcement personnel, and could potentially result in reductions in force at the Department.”
The Transportation Security Administration “would need to initiate a hiring freeze for all TSO [transportation security officer] positions in March, eliminate overtime, and furlough its 50,000 officers for up to seven days.”
Secret Service agents and uniform personnel would face furloughs of up to seven days.
“Beginning April 1, CBP [Customs and Border Protection] would have to reduce its work hours by the equivalent of over 5,000 Border Patrol agents and the equivalent of over 2,750 CBP Officers.”
CBP would “implement an agency-wide furlough of up to fourteen (14) non-consecutive work days for each employee.”
Housing and Urban Development: “Furloughs or other personnel actions may well be required to comply with cuts mandated by sequestration.”
Interior: Sequesters would limit the department’s “ability to sustain a full complement of seasonal employees needed for firefighting, law enforcement and visitor services.”
NASA: Some inspector general vacancies would go unfilled.
National Science Foundation: The agency would have to cut nearly 1,000 research grants.
Social Security Administration: Sequestration would lead to more than 5,000 positions lost through attrition and termination of more than 1,500 temporary and other employees and a general elimination of overtime.
Transportation: The “vast majority” of the Federal Aviation Administration’s nearly 47,000 employees would be furloughed for about one day per pay period through September.
Treasury: “Most Treasury employees would face furloughs, which would have a cascading effect on employees’ families as well as on the economy at large. The effects would be particularly painful at the IRS. . . . Other bureaus would impose hiring freezes and cut costs such as travel and training, but “these actions would not be sufficient to avoid furloughs entirely as we already would be five months into the fiscal year.”
The cuts would be severe and unsparing.
The reaction of Colleen M. Kelley, president of the National Treasury Employees Union, spoke for many: “With the grave consequences so clear to so many people, organizations and vital government programs, it is hard to believe Congress will choose to pursue this wrong-headed course.”
Twitter: @JoeDavidsonWP
Eric Yoder contributed to this report.
Previous columns by Joe Davidson are available at wapo.st/JoeDavidson.
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