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Sequestration 2.0 would mean furloughs for DoD's entire civilian workforce - FederalNewsRadio.com
When Congress pushed the pause button on sequestration last week, it also made some changes to how the automatic budget cuts would take place. And a new analysis suggests almost every civilian employee in the Defense Department would be forced to take a month of unpaid leave if the new version of sequestration isn't undone.
The projections come via the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Todd Harrison, the think tank's senior fellow for defense budget studies already has warned that the previous version of sequestration, which Congress canceled just after the start of the new year, would have had a disproportionate impact on civilian workers.
But under the new version of sequestration, things are even worse for the 791,000 civil servants in DoD. While the overall dollar amount the new version of sequestration would cut is smaller — $45 billion instead of $62 billion — the cuts now would be crammed into just seven months in fiscal 2013, a year in which DoD has already been burning through cash at a rate that assumes no cuts would be made.
"That cut comes off of the total level of funding for the year," Harrison said. "By March, DoD already will have spent five months worth of the money in those accounts, so they have to make up that 8.8 percent reduction in the remaining seven months of the year."
That means DoD would have to cut its payroll expenses from March through the end of September by 15 percent.
"If you're going to reduce your payroll expenses by 15 percent for the remainder of the year, that means you have to furlough virtually every single DoD civilian for the maximum amount of time you can under the law, which is one month," Harrison said.
Sequestration 2.0 would mean furloughs for DoD's entire civilian workforce - FederalNewsRadio.com
When Congress pushed the pause button on sequestration last week, it also made some changes to how the automatic budget cuts would take place. And a new analysis suggests almost every civilian employee in the Defense Department would be forced to take a month of unpaid leave if the new version of sequestration isn't undone.
The projections come via the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. Todd Harrison, the think tank's senior fellow for defense budget studies already has warned that the previous version of sequestration, which Congress canceled just after the start of the new year, would have had a disproportionate impact on civilian workers.
But under the new version of sequestration, things are even worse for the 791,000 civil servants in DoD. While the overall dollar amount the new version of sequestration would cut is smaller — $45 billion instead of $62 billion — the cuts now would be crammed into just seven months in fiscal 2013, a year in which DoD has already been burning through cash at a rate that assumes no cuts would be made.
"That cut comes off of the total level of funding for the year," Harrison said. "By March, DoD already will have spent five months worth of the money in those accounts, so they have to make up that 8.8 percent reduction in the remaining seven months of the year."
That means DoD would have to cut its payroll expenses from March through the end of September by 15 percent.
"If you're going to reduce your payroll expenses by 15 percent for the remainder of the year, that means you have to furlough virtually every single DoD civilian for the maximum amount of time you can under the law, which is one month," Harrison said.