The federal sequestration crisis has made its way to Alaska, with military civilian employees in Anchorage already bracing for forced days off that will affect their pay.
Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson held four town hall meetings Thursday to inform civilian employees on how the crisis would affect their jobs.
With lawmakers in Washington, D.C. unable to avert automatic federal budget cuts that took effect March 1, the Department of Defense has laid out its plan to cut budgets by 10 percent across the board. For Alaska military civilian employees, that means furloughs of 22 unpaid days between April and September, which equates to one day off per week.
JBER civilian firefighter Robert Moore, who has worked on base for 29 years, says the furloughs represent a 20 percent cut from yearly salaries. Beyond its immediate impacts on how his fellow civilian firefighters can take care of their families, sequestration will also affect how well they can do their jobs with their military counterparts.
“We see many, many other ways the government can save money without taking it away from the civilian work force,” Moore said. “And it’s just astronomical, the amount of money that's being spent on things that make no sense at all -- and here we are, the federal employees, taking the brunt of it.”
JBER's commander, Col. Brian Duffy, says civilian employees are the backbone of the base’s operation, which is why officials are doing whatever they can to help.
“We are certainly hopeful for what I will call a peaceful resolution, or a proper resolution that might avoid this sequestration,” Duffy said. “Should it be put into effect, the essence of the message we are giving to our employees is we don't expect this to be a ‘do more with less’ scenario; this is a ‘do less with less’ scenario.”
Moore says the furloughs would affect individual civilian firefighters at JBER differently because they work 24-hour shifts, which means their absence would force military firefighters to work more hours.
Contact Corey Allen-Young
