Number of federal civilian workers in Georgia as of June 2013: 77,434
The state’s biggest civilian employers:
Department of the Air Force: 14,991
Department of the Army: 12,476
Department of Health and Human Services: 9,098
Department of Veterans Affairs: 8,893
Department of Homeland Security: 5,367
Source: federal Office of Personnel Management
If the federal government partially shuts down at midnight Tuesday, Tom Scott will be forced to stay home on furlough or come into work unsure when his next paycheck will arrive.
“We’re not too happy about it,” said Scott, an engineer technician at Robins Air Force Base. “We are always being put in as a bargaining chip. You have people in D.C. who can’t get their act together. We’re just collateral damage.”
Scott is one of more than 77,000 executive branch civilian workers in Georgia who are bracing for severe disruptions in a shutdown, which will have ripple effects for many Georgians.
National parks would close. Lower-income and first-time home buyers would not be able to get a federally backed loan.
The government does not halt altogether.
Key services such as Social Security checks, Medicare reimbursements and food stamps would continue to flow. The U.S. Postal Service, which is mostly self-funded, would keep chugging.
Veterans Administration hospitals would remain open. Active-duty military members would remain on post.
But some of those agencies would shed staff in a shutdown, leading to possible delays in services.
If Congress and President Barack Obama cannot agree on a bill to keep government funding flowing, a shutdown would go into effect for the first time since January 1996.
The Capitol was mostly quiet Sunday as Congress remained mired in a standoff concerning Obama’s 2010 health care law.
U.S. House Republicans are seeking to delay it for a year as a price for keeping the government open, and passed a bill just after midnight Sunday to do so.
Senate Democrats have vowed to vote the House bill down Monday as they and Obama refuse to bargain with the health law, insisting on an extension of spending at current levels.
Georgia’s state government will continue functioning as normal in the event of a federal shutdown, though a lengthy standoff could prove disruptive.
The state spends about $12 billion in federal money a year, between 31 percent and 32 percent of the state’s budget. Most of that is in Medicaid and other health programs, along with school lunch and special education funding.
“From Georgia’s perspective, the biggest impact to our agencies could be a temporary halt to cash flow,” said Teresa MacCartney, the state’s Chief Financial Officer and Director of the Office of Planning and Budget.
“If we have agencies that submit to be reimbursed for expenses from the feds, it is likely that there may not be staff there to process payments for states.
“If this is for just a couple of weeks, most agencies would be fine. If it continued longer, then it could begin to impact our state allotments and cash flow if agencies continue federal activities without being reimbursed.”
Federal courts would remain open as normal – for now.
James Hatten, clerk of the U.S. District Court in Atlanta, said courts can keep running because of fees they have socked away for about 10 business days “under fairly normal circumstances. After that period of time if funding is not available, we’ll revert to essential services, the minimum staffing we need to provide the services that are required.”
“Essential services” can be hard to define, and federal agencies and sub-agencies have wide leeway to determine what can keep going in a shutdown. For example, each member of Congress can designate which members of his or her staff are essential – though the term has been changed to “excepted” and “not excepted,” to reduce the stigma of being branded non-essential.
There’s also a difference between mandatory spending, such as Social Security, that is outside the broken-down appropriations process and what’s known as discretionary spending.
For the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that means mandatory-funded worldwide AIDS prevention and vaccines for children, among other programs, will be unaffected in the event of a shutdown.
But according to a memo from the Department of Health and Human Services, CDC in a shutdown will have a "significantly reduced capacity to respond to outbreak investigations, processing of laboratory samples, and maintaining the agency's 24/7 emergency operations center."
Georgia’s vast military presence will feel a shutdown’s effects. While active-duty soldiers would stay on post, their pay could be delayed if a shutdown drags on. The U.S. House unanimously passed a bill to pay soldiers in the event of a shutdown, but it’s unclear if the Senate will take it up.
At Fort Gordon in Augusta, civilian operations concerning “the protection of life, health and safety” will continue, said public affairs officer J.C. Mathews.
What would stop? “Effectively everything else that is done using federal civilian employees.”
Federal workers are no stranger to furloughs this year. Across-the-board cuts known as sequestration have arrived, triggered by Congress’ failure to agree – sound familiar? — on a long-term budget plan.
Those cuts have hampered the economy in military-dependent parts of the state, which would be hit harder by a shutdown than Atlanta.
Carolyn Bourdeaux, an associate professor of public management and policy at Georgia State University, said in the Savannah area (Fort Stewart) and Columbus area (Fort Benning), federal spending as a percent of the Gross Regional Product is 2 ½ times to 3 ½ times what it is in the Atlanta region.
At Robins Air Force base, Scott, a 27-year veteran who is president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 987, already had six furlough days this year because of the cuts. More could be arriving soon, with trickle down effects for local restaurants and other businesses in Warner Robins.
“It will hurt the community and businesses all the way around,” he said.
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