FCC May Not Issue Furloughs, But Next Steps Unclear on Sequester Effects
FCC Managing Director David Robbins told FCC staff in a town hall meeting Thursday sequester may not mean furloughs for staff, at least initially. But Robbins didn’t provide much detail about what will happen next, agency officials told us. Robbins briefed FCC staff at FCC headquarters and the briefing was carried over the agency’s internal intranet. Staff for the FCC commissioners are to be briefed separately.
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"The cuts to the FCC’s budget required by sequestration are very significant, particularly at a time when staff levels are lower than they have been in nearly 30 years, and will harm vital agency missions including public safety and homeland security, law enforcement, universal service, spectrum, and consumer protection,” an FCC spokesman said. “We have been developing plans to try to mitigate the impact of these cuts on consumers, the communications sector, and our staff.” FCC officials expect the sequester will slice 5 percent, or $17 million, from the commission’s non-auctions budget over the next seven months, a spokesman told us Thursday.
The message from Robbins was “we can cut back on contracts, we can cut back on hiring, we can cut back on travel,” said an FCC official. Senate lawmakers defeated three bills Thursday aimed at averting or modifying the initial $85 billion in automatic spending cuts scheduled to affect the federal government this year. The House adjourned Thursday without bringing a bill to the floor that would replace or delay the sequester. Congressional leaders plan to meet with President Barack Obama Friday to discuss options to soften the blow from the sequester, but it remains unclear whether or how a compromise will be agreed upon.
Though it remained unclear Thursday if any FCC employees would be laid off or furloughed, the cuts will place many federal employees in a temporary nonduty, nonpay status called an administrative furlough. But employee furloughs may not begin until April due to a policy that requires agencies to bargain with federal unions at least 30 days prior to implementing any furloughs. Each agency has discretion to decide which employees will be furloughed. The FCC has roughly 1,600 employees, down from a high of 2,300 in 2004, a National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) representative said (CD Sept 7 p1). The FTC employs nearly 1,200 employees, RUS has 298 and NTIA has 275, agency spokesmen said.
A recent NTEU survey of federal workers said the sequester will likely result in less oversight of critical government programs and force employees to triage their work in a way that may delay some services (http://xrl.us/bokc94). The survey said federal employees are particularly concerned that sequester would create a hiring freeze, and that employees who are laid off to meet the fiscal demands of the sequester will not be replaced. “These are not theoretical consequences,” said NTEU President Colleen Kelley. “These are actual, serious problems that real people will face, with lasting impact on their lives.”
The sequester’s cuts to federal cybersecurity spending will leave public and private networks vulnerable as foreign hackers increasingly seek to penetrate them, said a recent report published by Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee. The sequester would delay the rollout of the Einstein 3 program which detects cyberattacks against federal networks and prevent the deployment of cyber risk reduction tools for federal agencies, the report said. The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team, which monitors cyberthreats to the nation’s networks, would reduce its staff levels by 20 percent and the 2013 Cyber Storm exercise would have to be canceled, the report said. Research into cybersecurity would be cut by 30 percent and would eliminate work in areas like data privacy, identity management, security for cloud-based systems, Internet attack modeling, and cybersecurity forensics.
The International Trade Administration (ITA) would be forced to cut back staff members, the White House said in a recent report (http://xrl.us/bokdmb). The cuts would also force the ITA to “reduce its support for America’s exporters, trimming assistance to U.S. businesses looking to increase their exports and expand operations into foreign markets,” the administration said.
The sequester may provide an opportunity to help boost the economy, the conservative Phoenix Center said in a 2011 study. The Phoenix Center said reducing the federal regulatory budget by even modest amounts “will have significant positive effects on both GDP and private sector job growth,” in a press release. “Since a portion of the sequester cuts hits regulatory agencies, these mandatory cuts may offer a positive influence on economic activity.”