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Federal government reopens for three weeks, creating uncertainty for local workforce.

January 25, 2018

On Jan. 19, on the eve of the recent federal government shutdown, federal employees were uncertain. A tweet from the Presidio of Monterey read, "Presidio of Monterey is currently in the planning and preparation stages for a potential furlough. We are focused on our civilian workforce family. More info to come as needed. ‘Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.'"

Of the Presidio's 249 employees, 136 were furloughed on Monday, Jan. 22.

The shutdown, which ended later that day, affected thousands of Monterey County residents. Sarah Davey, a spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, says there are 1,714 federal non-defense-related employees in the county.

There are 12 defense-related installations in the county, including obscure entities like the Defense Personnel Security Research Center. Together they employ more than 10,000 people locally, Davey says, 3,450 of whom are civilians.

Statistics compiled by the Monterey County Business Council for the 2016 fiscal year show those installations have a total annual budget of more than $1.4 billion.

Natela Cutter, chief of public affairs at the Defense Language Institute, adds that number doesn't include student salaries, of which she says there are between 2,500 and 3,000 at the Defense Language Institute at any given time. DLI instructors were not affected, Cutter says, because continuing the classes is considered essential to national security, but support staff like her were furloughed.

Instructors at the Naval Postgraduate School, however, were on furlough. Spokesperson Dale Kuska says faculty prepared materials in advance for their students to work on during the shutdown, "so time is not lost."

Whether or not federal employees get furloughed depends on whether their duties are deemed essential to things like national security, or in the case of the National Weather Service office in Monterey – where employees were not affected by the shutdown – the protection of life and property.

Brian Garcia, a warning coordination meteorologist at NWS Monterey, says he and his colleagues work for free during a shutdown, then wait until the shutdown ends to get backpay. (That's what happened for him during the 16-day shutdown in 2013.)

Non-law enforcement employees at the Bureau of Land Management office in Marina were sent home Jan. 22, as were employees at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Monterey. The Social Security Administration office in Salinas reduced services.

The Veterans Affairs-Department of Defense clinic in Marina continued operating. Wes Morrill, director of the Monterey County Military & Veterans Affairs Office, says it is pre-funded: "[The VA] isn't vulnerable to these kind of shutdowns, which is a great asset for us."

Panetta was among the 150 members of the House who voted against the short-term bill to reopen the government, and has voted against four out of five such bills since taking office.

"You are basically kicking the can down the road, and you are really harming our national security," he says, adding that critical issues like immigration reform remain to be addressed. "It's time we stop governing with deadlines and start governing with leadership."