National monuments and museums in Washington DC were closed during the U.S. government shutdown in 2013. Image: TJ Brown/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffIndividual agency and government-wide policies on shutdowns have remained largely unchanged for many years and the results will be familiar for employees if a funding lapse were to occur for agencies that don’t have funding authority in place as of December 7, when temporary funding would run out under a second minibus spending bill signed by President Trump on Friday. That bill extended current level funding for several remaining agencies without full year funding – including part of Interior along with financial regulatory agencies, central agencies such as OPM, GSA, OMB and FLRA, the IRS, Agriculture, Transportation, HUD and related agencies.
Excepted vs. Non-Excepted
Each agency has a shutdown “contingency plan” that describes the categories of employees who would be required to stay at work – albeit unpaid – until funding is restored (“excepted” employees) and those who would be sent home on unpaid furloughs (“non-excepted” employees). Most of those plans were updated late last year or early this year in advance of shutdown threats that did materialize with two short funding lapses, while others have been unchanged for several years.
The distinctions are largely based on OMB policy in effect for decades involving agency obligations to provide safety and security regardless of the availability of funds. Those decisions also created the principle that employees kept on the job during a partial shutdown are guaranteed to be paid when funding is restored because the government has incurred an obligation to them.
There is no such guarantee for those who are furloughed. In practice, in all shutdowns during that time, furloughed employees later were paid as if they had worked, but that requires agreement of Congress and the White House each time.
In addition, some agencies, or parts of agencies, are “exempt” because they are self-funding. The TSP and USPS are exempt totally, for example. Further, some agencies have trust funds, rollover funds, multi-year funds and other sources of income that would allow them to remain fully open, at least for a time. Also, this time full-year funding has been enacted for several agencies, most notably VA and Energy.
If a shutdown is imminent, OMB issues a memo to affected agencies telling them to put their contingency plan into effect; that memo typically isn’t sent until nearly the end of funding authority and is virtually the same every time.
Read more on federal government furloughs including “shutdown furloughs” at ask.FEDweek.com
In that memo, OMB also describes their obligations to notify employees of their status, procedures to conduct “orderly” shutdown-related activities. This typically includes calling even furloughed employees into work for part of their first scheduled workday after a shutdown starts, to secure their work and make other needed arrangements. During the partial shutdowns earlier this year, many furloughed employees worked the entire first day, or nearly the entire day, on such responsibilities. That OMB memo also includes instructions on recalling furloughed employees to work after a shutdown ends –or earlier, in some cases.
And when funding is restored, OMB sends another memo, also virtually identical each time, telling agencies that they should “reopen offices in a prompt and orderly manner.”
