The military will continue to prosecute wars abroad but its troops will not get paychecks and civilian employees — possibly hundreds of thousands — face being sent home without pay, according to new guidance issued by the Defense Department in preparation for a partial government shutdown.
Deputy Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan sent out a memo with the guidance as Congress faces a looming midnight deadline when current government funding expires. Senate Democrats appear poised to block a stopgap spending bill and trigger the first shutdown since 2013.
“The secretary and I hope that the Congress will pass a CR or an annual appropriations bill for defense activities during Fiscal Year 2018,” Shanahan wrote to the department. “However, prudent management requires that the department be prepared for the possibility of a lapse in appropriations.”
Military operations in Afghanistan, where President Trump has just increased the troop presence, and operations against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria would continue, according to the guidance. Units that are set to deploy to the war zones will also not be affected.
As expected, the military has no plans to shut down outside of war zones either. The memo makes clear that active-duty service members around the world will be required to show up for work as usual if lawmakers cannot reach a deal.
But pay could become a major headache for troops and Defense Department civilians.
“Military personnel will not be paid until such time as Congress makes appropriated funds available to compensate them for this period of service,” Shanahan wrote.
Meanwhile, civilian personnel whose jobs deal with the “safety of human life and the protection of property” will also be required to show up but not get paid during a shutdown. The Defense Department is the largest employer in the U.S. with about 750,000 full-time civilian employees, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report.
“These activities will be ‘excepted’ from the effects of a lapse in appropriations. All other activities would need to be shut down in an orderly and deliberate fashion, including — with few exceptions — the cessation of temporary duty travel,” the memo said.
About 350,000 civilians were briefly furloughed in 2013 during the last shutdown. But Congress later passed legislation to make sure troops and those civilians were paid during the impasse.
Lawmakers have filed bills in the House and Senate that could provide the same protections.
