Fiscal Cliff Fight Club – Administrative Furlough Edition

The Federal Government’s largest agency- the Department of Defense- just issued specific guidance  planning for the present line-in-the-sand Fiscal Cliff date of March 01, 2013.

Wartime operations, Active Military staffing, and Veterans programs are off-limits.  Most of the Fiscal Cliff ‘War Plan’ will take cuts from other programs and the DoD civilian workforce.   Some likely Fiscal Cliff War Plan tactics affecting civilian employees include:

• Hiring Freeze
• RIF (Reduction in Force)
• VSIP (Voluntary Separation Incentive Program)
• VERA – Voluntary Early Retirement Authority
• Administrative Furloughs of up to ’30 calendar days or 22 discontinuous workdays’.

Once again, for those not fluent in OPM-ese, there are two types of furlough– The ‘Administrative Furlough‘ and the ‘Shutdown (aka Emergency) Furlough‘.  This discussion refers to the ‘Administrative Furlough‘- where DoD employees (and likely other agency employees, for that matter) take a planned furlough for up to one work day per pay period (once per 2 weeks).

There are some rules.  The Agency must give advance notice to affected employees:

• 30 days notification for admin furloughs of less than 22 work days or less
• 60 day notification for ‘extended’ admin furloughs of 22 work days or more (required per 5 CFR part 351)

(…Umm, we’re already inside of 60-days to March 1st… does this mean there can’t/won’t be a planned 22-day furlough?)

For further reading, OPM’s specific guidance for Administrative Furloughs.  (Includes employee furlough notification forms!)

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