DHS Budget Still Unsettled

Just two days are left before DHS budgetary authority runs out at midnight Friday (February 27), leaving the prospect of a one-department version of the partial government shutdown that hit in October 2013. As in that case, the underlying difference has centered on policy provisions attached to the needed budget measure—then, health care; now, immigration—with employees caught in the middle. Largely because of the safety-related nature of their work, about 85 percent of the roughly 240,000 DHS employees would remain on the job even if the department’s funding authority lapses. They would be unpaid for the meantime but guaranteed to be paid later. How much later is a matter of how long a lapse would last. If it started and ended within the same pay period, there might be no practical effect on pay distributions, although there would still be stress on the employees. Past practice always has been to also pay those furloughed in partial shutdowns as if they had remained on the job, although specific language would need to be enacted; bipartisan bills already have been offered in both the Senate and House. Several options to avoid a lapse remain, including splitting the budgetary and immigration issues into two bills and voting on them separately; while that may prove acceptable in the Senate, its prospects in the House are more questionable.