Sequestration Furloughs? More Like Sequestration Reduced Business Travel, GAO Reports

Remember those reports of suffering federal workers, starving in
their cold, unheated apartments after being furloughed because
cruel Republicans forced sequestration of funds on Uncle Sugar last
year? OK, that’s a bit over the top, but that’s true, too, of a lot
of reporting on sequestration and “government shutdowns.” And so
are federal agencies’ media-ready “closed for business” signs on
facilities that are actually self-supporting or
privately run. As it turns out, according the Government
Accountability Office (GAO), sequestration involved some annoying
bookkeeping, and some workers were briefly sent home (many
of those sent home for the government shutdown collected
both
back pay and jobless benefits), but forcing $80.5 billion in
savings on federal agencies (the 2014 federal budget is
$3.651 trillion, for comparison) wasn’t exactly a
catastrophe.

Of 23 federal agencies surveyed by the
GAO:

19 agencies reported curtailing hiring; 16 reported rescoping or
delaying contracts or grants for core mission activities; 19
reported reducing employee training; 20 reported reducing employee
travel; and 7 reported furloughing more than 770,000 employees from
1 to 7 days.

Overall, as the report title captures it, “agencies reduced some
services and investments, while taking certain actions to mitigate
effects.” When you’re tallking about business travel, grants, and
new hiring, it’s hard to argue that doom is in the works, when you
think about it.

There was also a fair amount of accounting sleight of hand.

To implement sequestration, most agencies reported using funding
flexibilities to balance mission protection and required
sequestration reductions. These flexibilities included
reprogramming funds within an account, transferring funds between
accounts, and using unobligated balances from prior years.

Of the 770,000 furloughed workers, about 640,500 were civilian
employees of the Department of Defense. Back pay for the sequester,

separate from already approved back pay for the government
shutdown,
is pending.

One other result of sequestration? The Department of Justice
filed 1,600 fewer civil and criminal cases. Given how that
department has thrown its weight around over the years, that
actually may be a net benefit.