In Georgia, “anxiety, frustration, people in tears” as shutdown takes hold

The impact of the partial shutdown of the U.S. government began to emerge Tuesday across Georgia in the form of lost paychecks, padlocked attractions and uncertainty.

About 2,000 employees of the Georgia National Guard were sent home, as were another 2,000 at Robins Air Force Base. But active-duty members of the military will not be furloughed. And all Veterans Affairs hospitals will remain open.

The Social Security office downtown is offering limited services. But key services such as Social Security checks, Medicare reimbursements and food stamps will keep flowing.

An official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it felt like a weekend in the hallways, as two-thirds of the 8,500 employees in Atlanta were sent packing.

And if you’re looking to buy a home, the loan process will likely be delayed.

Georgia has 77,000 federal employees and it is still unclear how many were immediately affected. Those employees in jobs deemed essential will remain working, but others who were on the job Tuesday will not know their status for days or even weeks as the situation continues to unfold.

An example that might sum up the absurdity of the situation came Tuesday when a honeymooning Marietta couple driving to the Grand Canyon heard one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World was closed for business.

“It was like going to Wally World and finding out it was closed,” said Chad Long, feeling like Chevy Chase in the climactic moment of “National Lampoon’s Vacation.”

“How do you close the Grand Canyon? Put a lid over it?” Long initially wondered. No, padlocks at the gates do the trick.

It’s similar to what hundreds of folks discovered Tuesday at the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, a site popular with hikers, bikers and runners. A National Park Service spokesman said the entrances to 16 Park Service sites along a 48-mile stretch of the Chattahoochee River also would be “gated and locked.” And the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site was closed, including King’s birth home, the visitor’s center and Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church.

The shutdown’s ripple effects caused anger, frustration and disappointment among federal employees.

“We’re worried about the unintended consequences of so many people stopping their work at the same time,” said Barbara Reynolds, spokeswoman for the CDC, citing things such as lab work, influenza surveillance and bio-safety inspections.

Germaine Devane, who hoped to buy a new home in Acworth to get his son into a better school district, worries the shutdown may kill his chances to seal a deal and get a favorable interest rate on a mortgage loan. His concerns appear to be valid.

Like many prospective buyers, Devane must give a lender permission to get a copy of his tax transcript directly from the Internal Revenue Service. It’s a requirement for loans involving the Federal Housing Administration and other agencies such as the Federal National Mortgage Association, Freddie Mac, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the Agriculture Department.

The problem is, the IRS won’t be processing the requests during the shutdown, mortgage brokers said. The agency projects 90 percent of its employees are being furloughed. “Right now, I’m kind of stuck,” Devane said.

Mortgage brokers said the shutdown puts buyers at a disadvantage. Those who locked in a favorable loan rate could lose it if the shutdown extends beyond the 45- to 60-day lock-in period.

Only about 20 of the 1,600 federal Head Start programs in the country are believed to be in immediate danger of not having funds to operate, but one is based in Gainesville, north of Atlanta, said Sally Aman, a National Head Start Association spokeswoman. These programs, which provide education and other services to low-income children, have grant or funding cycles that were to start Tuesday.

The Georgia program is run by the nonprofit Ninth District Opportunity Inc. and serves about 2,100 children in several counties, Aman said.

The impact on the Georgia Department of Labor will be relatively minor, with one exception — the state won’t be able to release its latest state and local area unemployment rates starting Oct. 17, if the shutdown lasts that long. That’s because labor force data must first be vetted by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, which closed Tuesday.

Otherwise, all of the state department’s career centers will maintain their normal operating schedule and unemployment benefit payments will be sent out on time.

The E-Verify work authorization program went dark Monday, becoming another casualty of the federal government shutdown. While it is offline, employers can't enroll in the free online program designed to deter the hiring of illegal immigrants, or use it to verify whether new employees are eligible to work in the United States.

This is particularly problematic in Georgia because state law requires that private employers with more than 10 workers use E-Verify. Also, all city, county and state government agencies in Georgia must make their contractors use the program.

“It is just further proof that Washington needs to get their act together so the rest of the country and the economy can get back on track,” said Kyle Jackson, Georgia director for the National Federation of Independent Businesses.

Tom Scott, an engineer technician at Robins Air Force Base and president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 987, said federal across-the-board cuts that began in March caused workers there to be furloughed for six days. And on Tuesday, he said, some 2,000 workers were called in and furloughed until the current funding issue is resolved.

“There is a lot of anxiety, frustration, people in tears,” Scott said. “They feel really let down because these are hardworking people. I don’t think the mortgage or electric company has the IOU system down like the federal government.”