The Defense Department announced today that DoD civilian employees will in fact be furloughed likely starting July 8. But rather than the 22 days originally expected, most year-round employees will only be subject to 11 days – and nine-month employees such as teachers at DoD Education Activity (DoDEA) schools will only be furloughed five days.
For military families that means all commissaries will be closed one day a week and all 15,000 civilian employees – over half of them military family members -- will go unpaid on that day for 11 weeks. And DoDEA schools will be out five days between the first day of school and Nov. 1.
DoDEA officials have not yet decided when those five days will be taken or if they will be made up at the end of the school year, said officials with the Office of the Secretary of Defense. DoDEA officials announced in early April that schools will close completely on furlough days.
Commissary officials announced early this spring a plan to shutter Mondays as a result of the furloughs. If the commissary is already closed on Mondays, officials said, the store will also be closed on the next normal business day – likely Tuesday.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the decision to furlough civilians was made to avoid reducing training.
“Since deeper cuts to training and maintenance could leave our nation and our military exposed in the event of an unforeseen crisis, we have been forced to consider placing the majority of our civilian employees on administrative furlough,” he said in a statement.
For more on the wide-ranging impacts of the furlough, read this story on Military.com.
