http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/19/5356079/airlines-pilots-sue-govt-over.html
http://www.govexec.com/management/2013/04/high-probability-furloughs-signaled-two-usda-agencies/62637/
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack Evan Vucci/AP
http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2013/04/19/irs-to-close-for-5-days-due-to-furloughs/?intcmp=HPBucket
http://www.govexec.com/management/2013/04/furlough-watch-potential-agency-agency-impacts-sequestration/61535/
Air traffic controllers will be among those furloughed. Mike Stewart/AP file photo
Airlines, pilots sue government to stop furloughs
Published: Friday, Apr. 19, 2013 - 11:40 am
Last Modified: Friday, Apr. 19, 2013 - 4:01 pm
WASHINGTON -- Predicting a nightmarish air travel snarl that will stretch from coast to coast, the airline industry and the nation's largest pilots union joined forces Friday to sue the Federal Aviation Administration over its decision to furlough air traffic controllers in order to achievespending cuts required by Congress.
Two airline trade associations and the Air Line Pilots Association said they have filed a lawsuit asking the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington to stop the furloughs, which are scheduled to kick in on Sunday. However, the earliest the court is likely to schedule a hearing is sometime next week, after the furloughs have begun, said Nick Calio, head of Airlines for America, which represents major carriers.
The way in which the FAA has chosen to implement the furloughs could result in one out of every three airline passengers across the country suffering flight delays or cancellations, industry officials said at a news conference.
"The impact of these cuts on our industry cannot be overstated," said Faye Black, vice president of the Regional Airline Association, which joined the suit. "We think there is not one airport in the nation that will be immune to this."
Sunday is a light air travel day, but by Monday the effects of the furloughs should start to "snowball," creating an air travel mess the equivalent of having a "Hurricane Sandy in the North and Hurricane Katrina in the South," said Lee Moak, president of the pilots union.
Federal officials have said they have no choice but to furlough all 47,000 of the FAA's employees, including nearly 15,000 controllers, if they hope to cut $637 million from the agency's budget by the end of September, as required under automatic, across-the-board spending cuts imposed by Congress. Each employee will lose one day of work every other week, which will amount to a 10 percent reduction in available controller work hours to staff air traffic facilities on any given day.
FAA officials declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The controller furloughs will save the agency $200 million, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said earlier this week. But fewer controllers will mean planes have to take off and land less frequently so as not to overload controllers on duty, he said.
Industry officials and some lawmakers have accused the White House of ignoring ways the cuts could have been achieved without furloughing controllers in order to put pressure on Republican lawmakers to rescind the automatic cuts. They've suggested reducing expenditures on outside contractors and travel.
"The administration has made choices that appear designed to have the greatest possible impact on the travelling public," said Rep. Bill Shuster, R-Pa., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.
Huerta, however, has said FAA's budget is dominated by employee salaries since the agency's prime mission is to operate the nation's air traffic system. Other critical employees like air traffic control supervisors and airline and airport inspectors are also being furloughed, and travel has been cut back to safety-related trips. The agency is trying to close 149 air traffic control towers operated under contract for the agency at small airports, but is meeting resistance from members of Congress who don't want towers in their states and districts closed.
An FAA analysis released Thursday said fewer controllers will mean major delays at some of the nation's busiest airports, although the delays will vary significantly depending upon the time of day and other factors unique to each airport.
Maximum delays of more than three hours were predicted for some flights to Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the world's busiest airport as measured by the number of passengers who pass through it. But many flights arriving at the airport would suffer no delays or only brief delays, according to the FAA analysis.
Other airports predicted to experience significant delays as a result of the furloughs include Newark Liberty in New Jersey, John F. Kennedy and La Guardia in New York, O'Hare in Chicago, Los Angles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, San Diego and Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood in Florida. Airports in Philadelphia, San Francisco, Miami and Charlotte, N.C., as well as Chicago's Midway International Airport, are forecast to experience lesser delays.
However, other busy airports in cities like Denver, Boston, Baltimore, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix andLas Vegas are unlikely to feel much impact, according to the analysis. That's because each airport's operations are unique, Huerta has said. A decrease in controllers on duty could force Hartsfield and O'Hare, for example, to close a runway, but that's not necessarily the case at other airports.
The FAA's analysis doesn't take into account ripple effects extended delays at some airports may have on air travel elsewhere, agency officials said.
http://www.govexec.com/management/2013/04/high-probability-furloughs-signaled-two-usda-agencies/62637/
'High Probability' of Furloughs Signaled for Two USDA Agencies
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack Evan Vucci/AP
Two agencies within the Agriculture Department are facing possible furloughs, according to testimony Secretary Tom Vilsack delivered to Congress this week.
Employees at the Farm Service Agency and Rural Development division could be forced to take up to 10 furloughs days, Vilsack told members of the House Appropriations’ agriculture subcommittee. Vilsack said sequestration on top of a 2.5 percent cut to the Agriculture budget in the continuing resolution could necessitate unpaid leave, despite efforts to improve efficiency at the department.
Two years ago, Vilsack said, USDA instituted its Blueprint for Stronger Service, which cut travel, closed offices, reduced the workforce and deployed early retirement incentive programs.
“We’ve done everything you’d expect an enterprise to do to try to be as efficient and effective as possible,” Vilsack said. “It minimized the effect on our workers. The goal here was to reduce furloughing and reductions in force as much as possible without sacrificing services.”
Still, the secretary said, the gravity of cuts at Agriculture could result in furloughs for workers at the two agencies. “Maybe other agencies and departments in government got hit that hard,” Vilsack told the panel. “If there are, I’m not aware of them.”
Steve Hollis, a local president for the American Federation of Government Employees who represents employees at FSA and Rural Development, said the testimony came as a surprise. Hollis told Government Executive he is in negotiations with FSA, but had heard the maximum furlough time was only five days. That information, however, came before Congress passed the latest continuing resolution -- which included an additional 2.5 percent cut to Agriculture’s budget.
Hollis said he was not aware furloughs were a possibility at Rural Development, noting the agency has shed 3,000 employees during the past few years and officials had indicated unpaid leave would be avoided. He added it was unfair to target those two USDA agencies in particular.
“That kind of ticks me off,” Hollis said. “I had no idea they weren’t treating everybody the same.”
Kent Politsch, an FSA spokesman, blamed the disparity on the structure of Agriculture’s budget. He said nothing has been finalized but “we keep getting indications there’s a high probability that there will be furloughs.”
At the subcommittee hearing, Vilsack said he had “very little flexibility” in implementing sequestration. “We are not able to do this without making some very difficult decisions,” he added.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said her colleagues in Congress did not fully grasp the impact of sequestration and other budget cuts. “I’m not sure there is the granular understanding of what this means in reality to the population of people you’re talking about,” DeLauro told Vilsack.
Another USDA agency that avoided furloughs under the continuing resolution was the Food Safety and Inspection Service, which received supplemental funds so meat inspectors could continue their work uninterrupted.
http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2013/04/19/irs-to-close-for-5-days-due-to-furloughs/?intcmp=HPBucket
The IRS will issue official furlough notices next week to employees detailing that the agency will be closed for five days with unpaid leave for workers this summer because of the sequester.
In a memo to employees, IRS Acting Commissioner Steve Miller said the furlough days will be May 24, June 14, July 5, July 22 and Aug. 30 with two additional days possible in August or September. During these days, all public-facing operations will be closed as will toll-free operations and Taxpayer Assistance Centers.
“Despite successful efforts over the past year to find cost savings and our recent efforts to minimize the effects of sequestration, we still had to make tough decisions on the furlough dates and the best way to implement them,” he wrote in an internal memo shared with FOX Business.
Every IRS worker will be covered by the furlough. Personnel in charge of preserving systems and building security might be asked to work these days, but will be taking furlough days on alternative dates within those pay periods.
“We wanted to make sure there is only one furlough day a pay period, and we have also worked to stagger the dates further so that there are some pay periods during the summer with no furlough days,” Miller wrote.
The head of the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) said in a statement Friday that the unpaid leave will not only hurt IRS employees but taxpayers as well.
“On these days, phones calls to the IRS will go unanswered and Taxpayer Assistance Centers across the country will have ‘closed’ signs in their windows,” Colleen M. Kelley said. “I believe this is an unprecedented event that leaves taxpayers out in the cold.”
There is speculation that the furloughs could result in fewer audits this year. A report released earlier this week by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse shows audit rates dipped 5.3% last year and could fall even more this year with less personnel available.
On April 9, Miller testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government and discussed the impact of sequestration and told lawmakers that he anticipates a considerable reduction in the revenues the agency will collect and the calls it can answer.
"...without a change in the current budget environment, the American people will see erosion in our ability to serve them, and the Federal government will see fewer receipts from our enforcement activities," he continued to explain to lawmakers.
http://www.govexec.com/management/2013/04/furlough-watch-potential-agency-agency-impacts-sequestration/61535/
Furlough Watch: Agency-by-Agency Impacts of Sequestration
Air traffic controllers will be among those furloughed. Mike Stewart/AP file photo
This report has been updated.
The across-the-board budget cuts known as sequestration now scheduled to hit in two days would have serious implications for federal workers, including mandatory unpaid furloughs for hundreds of thousands of employees, beginning in April. We have compiled a list of possible agency-by-agency effects, should Congress and President Obama fail to reach a deficit reduction agreement in time to avoid the cuts. We will update the list as more information becomes available. Please use the comment section below to let us know if you have additional information about your agency.
Agriculture Department: Agriculture Department will not need to furlough food safety inspectors, due to the continuing resolution signed March 26.
Air Force: The Washington Post reported that employees in combat zones, non-appropriated funds employees, and foreign nationals would be excepted from furloughs. The Post also said that further exceptions would be allowed for "safety of life or property." An Air Force spokeswoman told Government Executive that all Air Force civilian police, security guards and firefighters would be subject to furlough "except at installations where the manning level is under 25 percent."
Army: The Army formally clarified its furlough plans in a memo published March 20. Officials wrote that the Office of the Secretary of Defense had excepted employees deployed in a combat zone, non-appropriated fund employees, foreign national employees, political appointees, civilians funded through the National Intelligence Program and Foreign Military Sales workers. The memo also included overtime exceptions for workers ensuring "health, safety, and security of personnel or property."
Broadcasting Board of Governors: The agency does not anticipate needing to furlough employees this year, according to a memo obtaind by Government Executive. BBG is required to reduce spending by approximately 5 percent, or $37.6 million, by September 30, the memo said. It will do so by freezing hiring, eliminating bonuses, postponing technical upgrades and reducing broadcasts.
Customs and Border Protection: Started sending furlough notices to all 60,000 of its employees on March 7, but as of April 1, the furloughs were postponed.
Defense Department: Secretary Leon Panetta on Feb. 20 informed lawmakers that sequestration would force the Pentagon to put the “vast majority” of its 800,000 civilian workers on administrative furlough. The furloughs were set to occur one day a week for up to 22 discontinuous work days, but in late March Defense officials announced they would reduce them to 14 days. (See separate Air Force and Army entries.)
Education Department: Secretary Arne Duncan testified Feb. 14 before the Senate Appropriations Committee that he expected furloughs. “The sequester would … likely require the department to furlough many of its own employees for multiple days,” he wrote in a Feb. 1 letter to the committee.” The letter did not provide an exact number of employees who would be affected.
Environmental Protection Agency: Employees could be subject to as many as 13 furlough days, according to a Feb. 26 internal message from acting Administrator Bob Perciasepe. The Washington Post reported on April 3 that the agency would begin implementing the first round of its furloughs on April 21. That round would entail four unpaid furlough days through June 15. The agency is implementing a mandatory furlough day on May 24, giving workers a four-day vacation for Memorial Day weekend.
Federal Aviation Administration: Almost all 47,000 workers would be furloughed for one-to-two days per pay period, according to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood and FAA head Michael Huerta. Employees should be prepared for 11 furlough days, beginning as early as April 7, according to a Washington Post update. Air traffic control towers at 100 airports would be closed, and midnight shifts at many smaller airports would be dropped. This could lead to 90-minute delays during peak travel times for flights to major cities, LaHood and Huerta said in their Feb. 22 letter to airline industry groups and unions. The FAA announced on March 22 that 149 federal contract towers would be shuttered beginning April 7.
Federal courts: 20,000 employees could be furloughed for 16 days.
Government Accountability Office: Plans to avoid furloughs, according to The Washington Post. But, the sequester would affect hiring, employee benefits and travel and contract spending, according to Feb. 26 testimonyfrom Comptroller General Gene Dodaro.
Government Printing Office: Will save money by scaling back technology and other investments, but “if necessary, a furlough of GPO's workforce may also be implemented,” acting Public Printer Davita Vance-Cooktestified before a House subcommittee on Feb. 26.
Homeland Security Department: Law enforcement personnel would face furloughs of up to 14 days, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano said in a Feb. 13 letter to House lawmakers. She did not provide a specific number of employees affected but said it would be a “significant portion” of the department’s front-line law enforcement staff (see Customs and Border Protection and Transportation Security Adminsitration entries).
Housing and Urban Development: A memorandum of understanding signed by agency executives and union officials says seven unpaid furlough days for employees won't happen until May 24. A union representative told Government Executive that the department would shut down on furlough days, except for the Government National Mortgage Association and the inspector general's office, neither of which are paid from the HUD salaries and expenses account.
Interior Department: Secretary Ken Salazar has warned about furloughs of thousands of employees. The National Parks Service plans to furlough permanent staff if other cost-savings measures fail.
Internal Revenue Service: Employees could expect a total of five to seven furlough days by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, acting Commissioner Steven T. Miller said in a memo to employees. The furloughs would begin "sometime in the summer, after the filing season ends," he wrote. Employees would have no more than one furlough day per pay period.
Justice Department: Attorney General Eric Holder said in late March that he would delay any decision about whether or not the agency will need furloughs until mid-April. Earlier, in a memo sent to staff on March 22, he said the stopgap spending measure Congress approved meant the Justice Department could avoid furloughing 3,570 federal prison workers. Employees had previously been told the department would furlough hundreds of federal prosecutors, according to the White House. FBI Director Robert Mueller said $550 million in cuts to the bureau “would have the net effect of cutting 2,285 employees -- including 775 agents -- through furloughs and a hiring freeze,” according to the FBI Agents Association. The Office of Management and Budget on Feb. 27 said Justice had already sent out formal furlough notices.
Labor Department: Sent 4,700 employees furlough notices on March 5. A document posted on the department's website said furloughs would begin on April 15, and continue through Sept. 21. All furlough scheduling would begin on March 29, and half of the furlough hours must be taken by July 13.
Merit Systems Protection Board: MSPB does not anticipate needing to furlough its employees this year, according to Executive Director Jim Eisenmann. However, as Government Executive reported in February, the board is preparing for the possibility of processing and adjudicating appeals of furloughs by federal employees.
NASA: 20,500 contractors could lose their jobs. The agency has not notified federal employees of any furlough possibility, but a spokesman told Government Executive on Feb. 25 that “all possible effects” of sequestration are “still being assessed.” In a series of memos posted by website SpaceRef on March 22, and confirmed by a NASA spokeswoman on Monday, David S. Weaver, the agency's associate administrator for communications, told employees that sequestration would force immediate cuts to "all education and public outreach activities." This includes many educational workshops, videos, and "any other activity whose goal is to reach out to external and internal stakeholders and the public concerning NASA." In a later memo, he exempted breaking news updates, mission announcements and responses to media inquiries from the suspension.
National Institutes of Health: Director Francis Collins said during a Feb. 25 conference call with reporters that the agency would "do everything we can to avoid furloughs." He said that furloughs would barely help the agency manage a 5 percent cut since a bulk of the budget was spent on grants and funding for research. Areas that could face the axe include travel and conference spending, Collins said.
National Labor Relations Board: Has issued formal furlough notices, according to OMB.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: Employees can expect up to four furlough days through September, acting NOAA administrator Kathy Sullivan said on April 15. “Our current proposal includes plans to close a majority of our offices entirely on four specific days,” she said. “The proposal is intended to extend federal holiday weekends, when possible, which provides additional utilities and other facility cost savings.“ She said the four days being proposed were July 5, July 19, Aug. 5 and Aug. 30.
National Park Service: In a March 20 statement, NPS said that sequestration-related budget cuts would force reduced visitor hours at several major attractions including Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, the Thaddeus Kosciuszko National Memorial, and the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site. The agency noted that the budget cutbacks did not necessitate furloughs of current staff.
National Nuclear Security Administration: Acting chief Neile Miller said it might not become clear until a month into sequestration whether the agency's employees will have to be furloughed as a result of the across-the-board federal budget cuts.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Has ruled out furloughs or salary cuts.
Office of Management and Budget: An OMB spokesman told Government Executive that 480 employees subject to administrative furloughs were issued notices on March 7. Employees will be required to take 10 unpaid furlough days for the pay periods between April 21 and Sept. 7.
Office of Personnel Management: Plans to find the required savings through a hiring freeze and administrative cuts, rather than furloughs.
Small Business Administration: The Small Business Administration will rely on staff cuts made through early retirements in 2012 to avoid furloughs, according to an Associated Press report.
Smithsonian: Does not anticipate furloughs.
Social Security Administration: Remains “uncertain” about reducing its employees’ hours, which would save about $25 million per furlough day, according to a Feb. 1 letter to Congress. It will instead try to reach the reduced budget level through attrition.
State Department: Won't need furloughs, at least through June 30, according to The Washington Post.
Transportation Security Administration: Isn't planning any furloughs; will rely on a hiring freeze and reductions in overtime, according to a union official.
Treasury Department: Acting Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin told the Senate Appropriations Committee earlier in February that the department would try to avoid furloughs by instituting hiring freezes, and reducing spending on support, travel, training and supplies, but noted that if the sequester takes effect, “most Treasury employees would face furloughs, which would have a cascading effect on employees’ families as well as on the economy at large.” The Internal Revenue Service would be particularly hard hit, he said (see separate IRS entry).
Veterans Affairs Department: Mostly exempt from sequestration.
White House: Assistant chef Sam Kass on April 9 told reporters he would be furloughed, but the White House did not offer further details, according to Reuters.
No comments:
Post a Comment