Shutdowns Suck, Furlough Blows

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BY: OZIEL TREVINO

It was three days before Christmas when James Steven Dudley, a now-retired Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent, was placed on furlough. Dudley had to brace himself for what was to come. On that cold Saturday morning — 10 days before he was to retire — the timer on the clock began.

“I was very frustrated and disappointed and a little, you know, scared, not knowing what was going to happen,” Dudley said.

That shutdown, the longest federal government shutdown in U.S. history, lasted 35 days and cost the U.S. economy roughly $11 billion. Some 800,000 federal workers were placed on furlough until the government reopened. This meant that most didn’t report for work or receive a paycheck. Only “essential” employees were required to show up for work, even though they did not get paid. All of the furloughed workers had to rely on other means in order to pay for bills and food.

During the shutdown, some agencies such as the Department of Defense had enough funding within certain departments to cover their federal workers for a specific amount of time. Federal workers such as G.A Sanches, a logistics management specialist for Crypto Cyber Systems, were not affected.

“Since we’re under defense spending, we’re actually budgeted all the way up until September, so if nothing happens until September, then yeah, we have a problem, but up until then we’re free to work as normal, we’re getting paid as normal,” Sanches said. “After that time, we would no longer be funded. We would be furloughed.”

Sanches is all too familiar with the trouble a government shutdown can bring as he was affected in the shutdown during the Obama administration in 2013.

“What’s terrible about getting furloughed is, if you’re furloughed you can’t go asking for employment,” Sanches said. “You can get in trouble. You can’t go find another job or you’ll get in trouble. So it’s like a whole bunch of rules you have to follow when you’re furloughed.”

On his final day as an ICE agent, Dudley had to hand over his badge, his gun, his keys and sign paperwork for his retirement. For the next 25 days, Dudley kept himself busy with things to do around the house while waiting for callbacks from interviews he had. The constant waiting was stressful for Dudley because his retirement checks would not be processed until after the shutdown ended.

“What happened was, all the secretaries, they sent them home during the government shutdown,” Dudley said. “All the paperwork didn’t get done. It would sit on their desks for over a month. My paperwork sat on somebody’s desk for over a month before it actually got turned in.”

After two months of waiting, Dudley said he felt frustrated and disappointed with the situation. With no check for the foreseeable future, Dudley had to cash in his annual leave hours and resort to asking for help.

“I had to turn to my mom who had money,” said Dudley.

During the shutdown, many businesses that had contracts with Health and Human Services were unable to get them renewed, resulting in lost business. Non-federal workers such as C. Schultz, a regional medical responsive coordinator in Tulsa experienced this dilemma first hand. Schultz asked that his first name not be used out of concern for his job.

“We actually were affected because part of the government that was not funded during the shutdown was Health and Human Services, with whom we are currently contracted,” Schultz said.

During the time of the shutdown, Health and Human Services were minimally staffed. This was the time they were supposed to get contract request in for the bid proposal for the upcoming year.

“They were all on leave or they were all on furlough, so they weren’t actually submitting them to us on time. We weren’t able to properly prepare our emergency response after the budget period ends,” Schultz said.

As of mid-March, many federal workers were still waiting to be paid.

By the end of February, Dudley had gone to several interviews over two months. He spent his time searching for an opportunity for part-time employment with different companies in the Devine, Texas area. Feeling hopeful about the future, Dudley was employed with O’Reilly’s Auto Parts since early February.

“Yeah, I guess you could say the first few weeks is fine, but you can only watch so much TV and hobbies, but you need money for hobbies,” said Dudley. “Basically, I have just been doing stuff around the house.”