By William H. McMichael
The Air Force will take a “hard look” at buying back civilian furloughs if Pentagon funding included in a House passed bill survives the Senate and earns President Barack Obama’s signature, staffers for Rep. John Carney said Thursday.
About 750,000 federal civilians who are not exempted face as many as 22 days of unpaid leave through Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year, as part of an automatic $85.4 billion budget cut that went into effect March 1.
In Delaware, absent some sort of relief, 1,147 federal civilians who work at Dover Air Force Base and for the state Air National Guard will lose a total of $8.69 million.
The state Army Guard’s 198 federal civilians will see $1.7 million in lost wages, and the Guard could lose $845,000 in federal contributions to the payroll for the Guard’s 107 state employees.
The GOP-led House bill, which passed Wednesday night, would keep the federal government running for six months and ease the impact of that automatic cut, known as “sequestration.” The bill also includes $173.5 billion – a boost of $10.4 billion from fiscal year 2012 – for Defense Department operations and maintenance, a category from which civilian salaries are drawn.
The Pentagon would be authorized to spend the money on areas it deems priorities. That means, Carney staffers say, that the Navy, for instance, could decide to spend money on civilian furloughs instead of aircraft carrier construction.
According to Carney’s D.C.-based staffers, in comments forwarded by Carney spokesman Albert Shields, “The Air Force legislative team told us that if this bill was passed, that they would take a hard look at buying back civilian furloughs.”
The bill passed the House 267-151. Carney was one of the 53 Democrats who voted for the measure. “Congress should be doing everything it can to find a solution that prevents these indiscriminate spending cuts from hurting our economy,” Carney said in a statement.
“Until a compromise is reached, it is my hope that we can provide government agencies with the flexibility they need to lessen the impact. This legislation allows the Pentagon to prioritize their spending so that more financing can be used for programs like battle training, flight simulations, equipment maintenance and base operations, including at Dover.”
Furloughs for all 705 federal civilians who work for Dover’s 436th Airlift Wing and Air Force Mortuary Affairs Operations – none were exempted – are scheduled to begin April 25, according to 436th spokesman 1st Lt. Tony Richardson. The days are to be nonconsecutive, and workers can take no more than 16 furlough hours per pay period.
The base’s 512th Airlift Wing, an Air Force Reserve command that employs 239 civilians, “does not have any further specific guidance regarding a potential furlough at this time” other than the calculation of $1.9 million in lost wages, spokeswoman Master Sgt. Veronica Aceveda said. Civilians assigned to the 436th serve in a wide variety of areas, from aircraft maintenance and civil engineering to financial management and contracting, Richardson said.
Aceveda said about 46 percent of the 512th’s civilians are assigned to the maintenance arena, 22 percent are in operations and 32 percent work in support functions. Few other details of the overall sequestration impact at Dover have been announced. One construction project has been deferred, Richardson said: a $595,000 plan to upgrade street, ramp and track lighting around the base and its flight line. The 436th has guidance in hand for reducing flight hours, but to date, none affect the command’s missions, Richardson said. Aceveda said specific budget-cutting targets for the 512th “are not available” but that the command is intensifying planning “for longer-term budgetary uncertainty.”
Air Force Reserve Command will reduce flying hours up to 18 percent, although units will be given enough to maintain core competency, Aceveda said. That figure is mirrored in an Air Force briefing to Congress obtained by the News Journal.
The Air National Guard has been limited to a total of 32 non-combat flying hours per month, according to Maj. Gen. Frank Vavala, the state Guard’s adjutant general. Ammunition for Army Guard training will be restricted to units training to deploy, and only for crew-served, not individual, weapons.