U.S. government might shut down. What could that mean for SLO County?
Congress appears on track to activate a U.S. government shutdown, which could cause paycheck delays for some workers in San Luis Obispo County and hiccups for anyone accessing federal services.
Congress must pass 12 funding packages to allocate all of its discretionary money by midnight on Sept. 30, according to the nonprofit public policy organization Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
If Congress misses the deadline, agencies funded by discretionary spending must shut down.
That means only essential services and programs funded by mandatory spending can continue operating, according to Cal Poly political science professor Michael Latner.
“It really just shuts down the capacity of the federal government to actually do its duties for citizens,” Latner said.
As of Tuesday, Congress had not passed any of the 12 required funding packages, according to its website.
According to U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal, who represents Santa Barbara County and parts of San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties, more than 180,000 federal workers in California would go without paychecks during the shutdown.
Funding for child care, food assistance and housing programs would also be in jeopardy, he said.
“I am committed to preventing this avoidable crisis here in Washington, and I will be working to get Congress to do its most important and fundamental job keeping the lights on, keeping our government open,” Carbajal said in a statement on Monday.
Could Congress avoid a government shutdown?
Congress can delay the Oct. 1 deadline with a so-called “continuing resolution,” which is a bill that temporarily maintains current spending levels, according to the Pew Research Center.
Continuing resolutions can include conditions, such as temporarily reducing funding for a certain program.
If the Democratic and Republican parties can’t agree on the conditions of a continuing resolution, the government will shut down.
As of Tuesday, Congress had not passed a continuing resolution.
According to Latner, government shutdowns tend to reflect poorly on the majority party of the U.S. House of Representatives “because they are in charge of the purse,” he said.
Right now, that’s the Republican Party.
“Congress is already sort of in the bottom of the bucket in terms of approval ratings by the public, but there’s no question that this kind of dysfunctionality will not bode well for Congress,” Latner said.
What services are impacted by a shutdown?
In 2018, Congress failed to pass five of the 12 funding packages by the deadline, triggering a partial government shutdown, according to the Pew Research Center.
The shutdown lasted more than a month — from Dec. 22, 2018, to Jan. 25, 2019 — and about 800,000 of the federal government’s 2.1 million employees were furloughed during that time, the Pew Research Center said.
If the government shuts down again, some SLO County residents working for the federal government could be temporarily furloughed or work without pay, according to Latner.
During the 2018 shutdown, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security wasn’t being funded — so the U.S. Coast Guard worked without pay, including members stationed in Morro Bay, the Tribune previously reported.
When the shutdown lifted, the government gave Coast Guard service members their outstanding pay.
Essential government services will continue during a shutdown, but could experience delays.
Federal spending for programs including Social Security, Medicare and Veterans Affairs are “mandated by the statutes governing those programs,” so program participants would still receive their regularly scheduled payments, the Pew Research Center said.
However, a government shutdown could limit staffing at those offices, which would cause service delays and difficulty filing a claim, according to Latner.
San Luis Obispo County government offices would remain open during a shutdown, according to SLO County assistant administrative officer Rebecca Campbell.
Only about 10% of SLO County’s budget is federal funding, so the county could fill funding gaps until the shutdown ends, Campbell said.
The county’s main concern is “system-wide impacts,” she said.
For example, if the county needs to call a federal office, but the office isn’t staffed due to furloughs, “We may have to delay for answers,” she said.
