SECDEF to DoD Civilians: You’re Getting 11 Unpaid Days Off
The SECDEF has announced DoD’s decision on civilian furloughs this afternoon. That announcement directs a total of 11 unpaid days off for most of the DoD civilian workforce (650,000 of 750,000 civilian employees will be affected) between now and 30 September 2013. Furloughs will begin the week of 8 July 2013, with one unpaid day off per week. They may end earlier than the end of September if financial conditions allow.
Sequestration, of course, is the reason.
The financial savings will not be inconsequential. The exact dollar amount isn’t easy to calculate quickly. But making an assumption or two, we can come up with what should be a reasonable, “ballpark” estimate.
Eleven workdays equates to 88 paid hours per employee. Since the furloughs will affect 650,000 civilian employees, that will save salary and benefits costs associated with 57,200,000 staff-hours.
Benefits costs typically add between 1/3 and 1/2 to the cost of hourly wages. Let’s be conservative and use 1/2 to get a “worst case” number.
Determining the average hourly wage across all affected DoD employees would be difficult. So let’s assume that averages out to an hourly rate of somewhere in the mid-GS12 ramge. This is probably too high – but we need to use something. It will at least be “in the ballpark”.
Doing the math, that works out to a savings of about $3,260,400,000
No, that’s not chump change. But to put it in perspective: that’s also not much over 0.6% of this year’s DoD 2013 base budget – and less than 0.5% of DoD’s 2013 total outlays, when contingency operation supplemental appropriations and other outlays are counted.
But we should count our blessings. Uncle Sam still has plenty of money to pay for really nice hotels when the POTUS or Vice President travel. Or to fly the Vice President that 110 miles or so between DC and Wilmington, DE of AF-2 most weekends.
Maybe you don’t want to mention that fact to any of the folks who’ll be directly affected by the furlough, though. Since the furloughs will be imposed on a 1-day-per-workweek basis, those individuals will be seeing a 20+% cut in take-home pay for 11 weeks. That might affect their outlook, attitude, and sense of humor just a bit.
Category: Economy, Military issues
I think we may finally be getting the ‘transparency’ in this administration that we were promised at the beginning.
Sort of like those little metal threads that start poking out through the rubber on your tires when they are bald.
What PN said.
Meanwhile the moochers and looters will still be getting their entire “entitlement” of welfare, food stamps, etc.
Our forefathers would have been shooting by now.
Hondo-
A better comparison rate would be GS10 step 5. This is at the rate in which any overtime is calculated.
One small item in your calc’s would be overtime- while MOST of us are forbidden ANY amount of overtime these days (and have been for the last year or so) it would be at least a small percentage added to your figure. But you have a good starting point here…
Can’t they take vacation days to make up the 20% in lost pay? That’s what I’ve been doing for the last few years when my employer requires “budget” days.
@5
I dunno about that. I’ve been working for a state government, and for the last 4 years we have been working with furloughs. They won’t let us take vacations to make that up. They want the savings now.
@6
Thanks for the response. It does make the furloughs more painful than what looks like the same thing a lot of people in the private sector have been doing for a while.
@5, Use of vacation days is forbidden. Working for free ( mission comes first) is forbidden. Using your issued laptop and or cell phone/Blackberry on furlough days is forbidden. This is part of the White House desire to make it “as painful as possible”.
Mr. Wolf, non-Esq: Federal civilian overtime pay was tied to the hourly pay of GS-10, step 10 pay some years ago. However, it was set at a max of 1.5x the hourly pay rate of GS-10 step 10 – not that rate. If I recall correctly that worked out to somewhere around the middle of the GS-12 pay scale. (That’s coincidence and not why I chose the figure I did.)
FYI: that little “oddity” of civil service overtime pay was fixed a decade ago – at least for DoD.
Prior to about 2004, Federal civilian overtime was paid at the rate of 1.5x normal pay – but was “capped” at a maximum of 1.5x the hourly pay of GS-10, step 10, regardless of grade. A GS-12, step 6 (or thereabouts) actually got more than that in normal hourly salary. Thus if a civil servant was about GS-12, step 6, or above they actually got screwed when they worked overtime – they got paid less to work overtime than their standard hourly rate.
That changed in DoD about a decade ago – with the FY2004 NDAA, if memory serves. That law set overtime (for DoD civilian employees, anyway; not sure about the rest of the Federal govt) for those earning more in normal hourly salary than 1.5x the hourly rate of GS-10, step 10, to be equal to their normal hourly salary. They didn’t get any “extra” hourly pay for working overtime – but they no longer got less than their normal hourly rate to work overtime, either.
EODMAN is correct above. OPM rules (OPM is the Federal government’s HR “shop”) categorically forbid working on furlough days, or substituting paid leave for furlough days.
Disclaimer: not being satirical.
1. NH spot on!
2. I am waiting for my FED agency to announce for one reason only. I need to spend time with my young son (because I am not young and not as well as most).
3. We are working are asses off with no money. My agency recently put out memo “do less with less.” My father taught me “do more with less.”
4. I miss the Navy, military, and fear for the country my father came to and agreed to give his life for just to become a citizen.
We are working are asses off with no money. My agency recently put out memo “do less with less.” My father taught me “do more with less.”
During my agency’s Senatorial hearings on our budget, one Senator asked, “How is you’re able to do all this with such a small staff?”
Our Administrator responded with something like “Because I have really good people working for me who don’t get paid enough, but choose to stay on even though they could make more money somewhere else”.
I think people in the civilian side of government don’t know what hard “work” and working smarter really means. It’s like all their common sense dribbles out the small hole at the bottom of their head on election night and by the time they take office, they forget every bit of logic and ingenuity they’ve ever known.
Hond- I’m still on that ‘old system’. My OT pay is not 1.5 my normal pay- they never ‘fixed’ it for GS12 and above.
I can email you my pay rates to show it, and/or LES. It states both right on it; lets say one says 15/hr and the other 17/hr.
I don’t know who’s got fixed- but it sure wasn’t us (and I’m USAF civvie).
Furlough work is verboten- volunteer, call-in, or otherwise. I can’t even take SCHOOLING if the school has a furlough day in it. We can’t TDY, either, if a furlough day is in it. No travel on furlough days. And right now, we are not authorized working a Sat or Sun either- those are ‘premium’ days, and OT or not, can’t work them.
Painful, Mr Prezzie? For whom?
@12
Well, after 4 years of having the furloughs, some of us kinda look forward to them. We’ve just gotten used to the cut in pay and now treat them as a holiday. Hell, I scheduled the day after my birthday as furlough for the last couple of years.
I am a GS9, time for some beer days on Wednesdays and spending more time at college hang outs in Amherst. I guess tomorrow us Technicians, civilians and so on will receive our 30 day notice of sequester. We already had scheduled planned out since first threat.
By laying all those civil servants for 11 days, will that be enough to pay for Michelle’s vacations and wardrobe? Or will she have to slum in the Hamptons this summer?
Actually thats gonna be a nice crappy chunk out of my check, so probably should be pissed. But doesnt surprise me at this point. Expect SECDEF and SECAF to send out that blanket letter for how we should seek help for planning for the worse aka (Use your Family readiness center for how to save money) and etc.
State isn’t getting furloughed.
Mr. Wolf, non-Esq:
My explanation above was not the best. OPM gives a better explanation on their website:
http://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/pay-administration/fact-sheets/overtime-pay-title-5/
Short version:
1. If your basic hourly pay is less than or equal to GS10, step 1, overtime hourly rate is 1.5x basic hourly pay
2. If your basic hourly pay is greater than the hourly pay of GS10, step 1, overtime hourly pay is either 1.5x GS10, step 1 OR your basic hourly pay – whichever is GREATER
This applies to FLSA exempt employees. WG employees and FLSA overtime is calculated differently.
FLSA requires that overtime pay for employees covered by the FLSA be not less than 1.5x normal hourly rate:
http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs23.pdf
WG employees are covered by FLSA. Non-exempt GS employees likewise fall under FLSA.
The above became effective in Nov 2003 with the passage of the FY2004 NDAA.
OF course not Dave, people know this.
DoD budget is in a bad way for military bases. Sending out letters saying that reserves cant take Seasoning training until there is a room in the budget which pretty means equates to “UFN”
Defense spending needs a cut. It’s gotten out of control. The civilian side is a big problem of it.
Fatcircles I dont think civilian sector is the problem. We barely have enough manning to do our jobs. I work as a technician, dual status of course. So we need people to train reserves, dont have anyone around but 3 people when its required to have 10.
Lets not forget our country enjoys giving out free money as well. Tight ass budget stuff with DOD is causing a bottleneck on civilian manning at bases. Organizations are going on USAJobs and reposting the same jobs over and over again because of the hiring freeze.
FatCircles0311: if I recall correctly what I’ve read “spelunking” in the DoD budget recently, the military currently spends about twice as much annually on military personnel costs as it does on civilian personnel salaries.
No kidding, include all the army personnel overseas and AF members overseas who get Pay, OHA, BAH, BAS and per Diems for training trips. Compared to GS employees overseas who just get locality Pay (Its not europe Locality, Most GS jobs are under “Other” location pay scale), definitely see who is getting paid more and where the money goes.
It’s better than 22 days, but around here I can’t be complaining as my gf has been working 32 hour work weeks for over a year with a pretty substantial cut in bennies (civilian sector). Same with a friend of mine who works for Pima County.
But it does piss me off to see DoD finding money for green jet fuel, green ship fuel and green cars.
@#25, yeah, and paying in the $26.00/gal. range for “bio fuel” as Hondo pointed out back in July of 2012. http://valorguardians.com/blog/?p=30609
F35, LCS……
Sorry but our nation is being bilked by civilian contractors. The DoD is part of the problem, but to try to portray civilian defense contractors as inculpable is just silly. I don’t care if the government is tossing money to everyone. It needs to start being addressed and a good start would be the defense industry.
Blame government for giving out silly contracts to these small companies out there,yes. Blame government also for giving out money to countries like its candy. I will agree Civilian contractors do get silly contracts. But its the “executives” of those companies that are bilking government out of money. Prime example is small logistics company I once worked for. A company that pays its employees 60k a year (thats for the upper level classified employees, airfield folks got 40-45k if they were lucky) on a 300 million dollar contract. Only has 90 employees and yet execs and upper level gets bonuses out of this world.
A DoD civilian employee here in Afghanistan told a friend of mine that she get’s 3 twenty-one day leave periods per year. This is a pathetic waste of money. I’ve been here for 273 days and no leave. I say we trim the civilian and contractor fat. This is disgusting and I’m sick of seeing them and hearing them. A lot of them are lazy and appear to do nothing but eat the food and use the facilities that are for us active duty folks.
that “are” here……(sorry missed a word)
FatCircles0311: article above has nothing to do with contracting or contractors, amigo. It concerns what DoD is going with it’s government civilian workforce.
The issue of how DoD (and the rest of the Federal govt) pisses away $$$ hand over fist on questionable contracts is a different issue entirely. Some of that is due to bad contracting; some IMO is due to political stupidity (see fuel, “green”) DoD is forced to support.
FWIW I made ~$800/day in Iraq, seven days a week. Sorta. Good money. High tax bracket. Contractors in Iraq – on a 1 year tour – earned the first $90k/year tax free. I ate-the-HELL-out of the DFAC. Loved it. Best chow I’d had in any chow hall, ever. I never took so much that prevented Soldiers from eating. In fact, NO resources I consumed there made things harder for Soldiers.
Truth is, the furlough has little to do with TRULY saving moeny, and more to do with hurting people.
This was one of the reasons I decided to resign my GS-13 equlivant position and go back to the private sector as a software engineer. For a company that does not do business with DoD (means I’m not a evil contractor 🙂 ). I worked at warfare lab and the combinations of travel bans, PED bans, and the looming sequester did it for me. We were pretty much forced to give more work to the contractors because we ( the Government) were not allowed to do our jobs.
Just curious – does anyone know if union members are included in sequester furloughs in any agencies?
The big issue here folks, is supporting the troops in the field. We still have guys roaming the dirt looking for bad guys- and now they are limiting who can work, and when. And who supports them. We have a ton of civ-types whose sole existance is to support field ops- and now they can’t because of some ‘rule’?
This hurts field troops more than anyone else- this restriction isn’t hurting anyone in flyover country or left/right coasts- this only hurts guys down-range.
DAMN good question, OWB!
Furloughs are not fun but they sure beat being pink-slipped on a Friday afternoon as has happened to so many private sector folks. And not all will be w/o pay for the 11 days. Teachers, teachers aides, and other school folks will be off for five. Foreign workers overseas are exempt, so you’ll be pleased to know that the groundskeepers mowing embassy lawns and tilling the gardens will not suffer. Still, it’s not fun but the notice helps (or should help) people prepare. But many won’t. Instead, we’ll here about missed mortgage payments, shut-off notices for electric, and mac and cheese dinners. Those who are furloughed ought to be thanking a FY note to obama—but they won’t. Next item.
“…we’ll hear about missed mortgage payments, shut-off notices for electric, and mac and cheese dinners. Those who are furloughed ought to be sending a FY note to obama—but they won’t. Next item.”
Yes, dues-paying union members are subject to furloughs. Every non-manager is a part of the AFGE sort-of. Dues are not required for some union protections or ‘services’.
This whole furlough thing isn’t about what some private sector folks have in their lives – the whole problem is the furloughs are NOT because the Gov’t doesn’t have the money. If that were indeed the case, Sure! I get it.
The problem is, this is being done stupidly, and based on sheer political opportunism.
I laud the leaders for cutting the days in half – but I know there’s enough money. Now, that money is different colours, and perhaps exist legal reasons why purple money can’t pay for salaries. I get that.
A couple of points/clarifications about the upcoming DoD furloughs:
1. DoD civilian employees deployed in-theater have a blanket exemption and are not affected.
2. Union employees are NOT exempted. (As an aside: for what it’s worth, only about 1/3 of Federal civilian employees are union members. I think the percentage is substantially lower in DoD, but I’m not sure about that.)
3. Certain categories of DoD civilian employees not paid from normal funding sources (e.g., those paid by FMS funding, NAF employees, etc . . . ) are exempted.
4. Certain emergency response (civilian police/fire/EMT) and healthcare personnel who are DoD civilian employees are exempted (I don’t believe there is a blanket exemption for these categories).
5. Political appointees are not affected (I’m pretty sure they’re paid fixed salary, so there’d be no savings). Not sure about SES/SL/ST personnel.
6. A few other “cats and dogs” are exempted (relatively small number). Only one seems to be a blanket exemption, and it seems to affect <60 persons.
7. Most foreign national direct hires are indeed exempted. In many cases including them would either violate SOFA agreements or save nothing (in some cases, they're actually funded in whole or in part by the host nation).
The furloughs will affect nearly 87% of the DoD civilian workforce (650,000 out of 750,000). And yes, there will be a "ripple effect" and a general lowering of productivity. Hopefully DoD leadership will manage things so that support for those deployed won't suffer too much.
I love the mentality of our decision makers in an attempt to minimize this by saying “at least it’s not 22 days”
I had a supervisor (GS-13 married to another GS-13) tell me, “at least you’ve got your retirement to help ease the pain”
The kicker? Any negative financial impact as a result of the furlough, could also affect your security clearance.
How about we tell John Q public that we need to take 20% of their pay for 3 months?
If you take a look at how another administration handled furloughs, they did it over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday periods if I’m not mistaken. This of course was not possible for the current administration, as the furloughs would have taken place in 2012 and the information would have been out prior to the election. One has to wonder how many voted for these idiots that will now be affected…..
All you guys are talking about GS, but a ton of the people effected are WG folks who make a whole lot less than the GS folks. Now if we did not pay NO-BID Mercs like (KBR) Teti so much money, maybe we would have had more in the budget for regular people.
Hondo I thought you were going to tie all this to the VA. Like the bonus given to that DB was 1 yrs worth of salary for the kind of people we are talking about.
No tie there, CBSenior. DoD doesn’t fund the VA.
The VA was largely exempted from sequestration. It’s programs are generally “mandatory” spending. Most of DoD’s programs are “discretionary” and thus subject to sequestration.
http://www.govexec.com/management/2013/05/furlough-watch-potential-agency-agency-impacts-sequestration/61535/
Funny how the civilian shipyard workers at Portsmouth aren’t subject to the sequester furlough days…damn good union they got going there.
@NHSparky – I’m at NOB. Funny thing is the nuke guys are still talking like they will be getting hit with furlough. How are they not essential?
NHSparky: that one wasn’t union driven. Naval shipyards got a blanket exemption due to the nature of the work and the operational impact of imposing a sequestration-driven furlough.
It’s kinda hard to furlough people overhauling or building a ship 20% of the time for 2 1/2 months and keep ship construction/overhaul schedules on track.
Some of us look at this more simplistically – if a job is not “essential,” then it should be eliminated. There is no excuse for us having anyone on the payroll that is anything other than essential.
StillServing: I think your friend misunderstood some things he/she was told, amigo.
A deployed DoD civilian on a 1-year deployment in-theater gets two leave benefits over and above their normal annual leave. One is R&R leave. That can be up to a max of 21 days.
Any DoD civilian employee serving overseas also gets something called “home leave”. For folks deployed in-theater, that’s 15 days per year. It’s normally taken at the end of a tour of duty.
The only way a DoD civilian would end up taking 3 21 day “leaves” in a single year would be if they’d done back-to-back deployments, and “maxed out” their R&Rs for each tour, and taken their home leave in between the two tours. Depending on their precise R&R schedule, that might occur in a 12-month period.
That’s not the norm, though. Civilian employees deployed in theater don’t automatically get 3 weeks off every 4 months.
http://www.cpms.osd.mil/expeditionary/pdf/BenefitsEntitlementsandAllowancesforDjibouti06132011%282%29.pdf
Well long term this could be a turning point or just the beginning as now the public sector is starting to reap the benefits of a spend thrift big government.
The private sector has been seeing these benefits for years. With a decreased manufacturing industrial base and an increased service industry base and the resulting benefit(sarc) to hourly wages for working Americans across the nation the government has done a really good job of making sure it’s able to insert itself into just about half the population’s lives through indirect and direct assistance, and employment….a few more years of this style of big government with Obamacare thrown in and the Social Security worker/retiree threshold crossover and we’ll be rightly f$cked.
VOV: what you mean “few more years”, Keemosabe?
We’re already screwed, blued, and tattooed bigtime. The only question IMO is whether we’re past the point of possible recovery or not. I tend to think we’re not – yet – but I could be wrong.
Recovery, if possible, is gonna hurt like hell. And choosing not to recover is gonna hurt even worse.