If Congress cannot pass a continuing resolution to fund the government in time for the start of fiscal year 2014 on Tuesday, the federal government will shut down and only a “minimum” number of Defense Department civilian employees would be allowed to work through the shutdown, the Pentagon’s comptroller said.
Comptroller Robert Hale told reporters Sept. 27 that the administration did not believe a shutdown should take place but that “we have to be prudent and plan for a lapse in appropriations.”
DoD released guidance earlier in the day outlining how personnel and contracting would be dealt with in the event of a shutdown. Overall, activities supporting “excepted” activities would be allowed to continue, whereas those not directly needed to continue excepted activities would be halted.
The memo outlines some of the “excepted” tasks, which include activities that support military operations; intelligence collection; command, control, communications, computer, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance activities; treaty enforcement; emergency and natural disaster response; base protection; mortuary affairs; and other basic services needed to protect life and property. Training, travel, death gratuity payments, commissary and morale and welfare activities and more would be halted.
Contracting and logistics operations in support of excepted activities may take place, and distribution and storage activities for materiel purchased before the shutdown may continue. New contracts and task orders under existing contracts could be signed in support of excepted activities even though payments may be delayed, but the memo notes that this should happen only “where delay in contracting would endanger national security or create a risk to human life or property,” according to the guidance
Hale clarified that major acquisition programs would likely not meet those standards and therefore contracts could not be awarded until Congress passed an appropriations bill.
“I think it would probably be a stretch for a major acquisition to qualify there,” he said. “We need these weapons, but it would probably be hard to relate them to a current military operation. Now the good news is, this is coming at the beginning of the year and we don’t tend to have a lot of those decisions facing you early on. If a lapse occurs, and I definitely hope it doesn’t, the severity of the effects would grow quickly if it turns out to be long. If it’s short, it would be damaging but less so. If it’s long, it will be increasingly so because it will catch more issues like that.”
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| The Pentagon and the rest of the federal government face a shutdown beginning Oct. 1 if Congress cannot agree on a funding bill by Monday night. Photo courtesy Defense Department. |
Existing contracts would continue unscathed if they use FY ’13 or earlier money and a DoD employee associated with the program was working through the shutdown and able to supervise, Hale said. Contracts set to begin in FY ’14 would have to wait for an appropriations bill unless they directly supported excepted activities. Hale said he believed the majority of contractors would continue working through the shutdown if it were short, but if it dragged out “that number would fall” due to contracts moving from FY ’13 to FY ’14 spending.
For civilian personnel, “only the minimum number of civilian employees necessary to carry out excepted activities will be excepted from furlough,” the guidance states, noting that Senate-confirmed civilians are not subject to the furlough. Hale said he thought about half the civilian workforce, or about 400,000 people, would be sent home without pay in a shutdown.
In a letter accompanying the guidance memo, Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter wrote that “the responsibility for determining which functions would be excepted from shut down resides with the Secretaries of the Military Department and Heads of the DoD Components, who may delegate this authority as they deem appropriate.”
Military personnel would remain on duty during the shutdown, but they, along with civilians working through the shutdown, would not be paid until Congress passed an appropriations bill, Hale said.