Shutdown’s End Kicks Off Long Process of Rebooting US Government

The longest government shutdown in US history is coming to an end, but it could take days — and in some cases a week or more — before normal operations resume.

Payroll systems must be updated to pay out weeks of back wages. Backlogs of grant disbursements, loan applications and customer calls that went unanswered for 43 days — and counting — will now need to be cleared. Delayed environmental permits, workplace inspections and contracting activities have stacked up across federal agencies.

None of the work of re-opening the government can officially launch until the funding bill has moved through Congress and has President Donald Trump’s signature. The House is poised to pass the Senate-approved legislation as soon as late Wednesday, but it could take until Friday — or even the following Monday — for many agencies to resume operations, depending on how fast lawmakers move.

Federal officials caution that some shutdown-related restrictions will linger. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday that the administration aims to start lifting flight curbs within a week after the government reopens, a timeframe that comes just ahead of the busy Thanksgiving week travel holiday.

His forecast for a return-to-normality was backed up by Delta Air Lines Inc.’s chief executive officer, Ed Bastian, who told Bloomberg Television Wednesday that Thanksgiving holiday travel should be “great.”

An American Airlines plane takes off from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA) in Arlington, Virginia.

Photographer: Eric Lee/Bloomberg

While federal employees will receive back pay, agencies warn it could take time to recompute paychecks. A 2019 law requires agencies to pay workers their full salaries for the shutdown period “at the earliest date possible after the lapse in appropriations ends, regardless of scheduled pay dates.”

But after the 2019 shutdown, it took air-traffic controllers about two to two-and-a-half months to be made completely whole, said Nick Daniels, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

Read: How the Shutdown Has Cut Off Key Data Guiding the Fed: QuickTake

Duffy has pledged to move more quickly this time. He said controllers would get 70% of their missed pay within 24 to 48 hours after the government reopens. The rest would come about one week after, he told reporters Tuesday.

Furloughed workers weren’t able to use accrued vacation or sick time during the lapse — but they still earned more of it. The Office of Personnel Management says furlough time counts as “pay status” for all purposes, meaning the government’s long-term liability for unused leave actually grows during a shutdown.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, will return to normal payment cycles after weeks of uncertainty that forced states to delay and ration benefits. Yet even that won’t happen instantly: States say they need as long as a week to update their beneficiary files and load debit cards. And with only two major card vendors, there could be bottlenecks as every state looks to replenish benefits all at once.

Shutdown Hangover

The length of this year’s shutdown hangover will vary by agency and can be difficult to predict. Every department is required to maintain a shutdown contingency plan detailing how to close — and later restart — operations. But most envision relatively short funding lapses, not a six-week stoppage.

Generally, furloughed workers will be told to report the next business day after Trump signs a new funding bill — though some workers could be recalled with as little as four hours’ notice. Agencies say they’ll show leniency for employees who can’t immediately return, allowing them to use accrued leave and comp time. Some even say they’ll allow liberal use of telework, a practice Trump has tried to curtail.

In a mirror image of the shutdown process, returning employees will spend their first hours engaged in internal business tasks: restarting computer systems, clearing out mailrooms and reopening public counters that were idled for more than a month.

The shutdown halted an untold number of unfunded government activities deemed non-essential, from routine data collection to building maintenance.

Economic data releases were canceled or delayed — and, more importantly, no new statistics on prices and jobs were collected, leaving policymakers with a data gap that could distort forecasts for months.

Read: Hassett Says Lost October Data Means ‘Cloudy’ Economic Outlook

The National Park Service kept many parks open but without daily cleaning or maintenance. Federal rule-making at agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency and Securities and Exchange Commission also largely stopped, delaying regulations and enforcement actions.

Some federal employees also picked up another work task while they were away: Accounting for the costs of the shutdown itself. Those can include interest on missed payments to contractors (or lost discounts for paying promptly), unplanned travel expenses to send staff home at the beginning of the shutdown, and loss of revenue from fees and permits.

There’s also the cost to the economy and US households. So far the toll has been steep: Analysts estimate that every week the shutdown dragged on cost the economy anywhere from $10 billion to $15 billion. While back pay and halted federal spending can be reversed, economists say some costs from this record shutdown will never be recouped.

--With assistance from Miranda Davis, Jarrell Dillard and Erik Wasson.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Gregory Korte in Washington at gkorte@bloomberg.net;
Allyson Versprille in Washington at aversprille1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sarah Halzack at shalzack@bloomberg.net

Laura Davison, Bill Faries

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