— By Domani Spero
Via the October 7 Daily Press Brief with Deputy Spokesperson Marie Harf:
QUESTION: We have some congressional sources who are telling us that the magic number on the furloughs at State is 343, half of them being – 179 – being from OIG, the Office of Inspector General. Can you confirm those numbers for me?
MS. HARF: Well, I can say that we currently have, I would say, hundreds of employees furloughed. Again, as we’ve said, it’s a small number. We talked about that some are from the Office of the Inspector General; some are from another office as we’ve talked about as well. And I would underscore that every day this goes on longer, we risk having that number go up to the thousands. Thankfully, we’re not there yet. But every day this goes on longer we get closer.
QUESTION: So can give us any —
QUESTION: (Off-mike.)
QUESTION: I’m sorry, just one quick follow-up.
MS. HARF: Mm-hmm.
QUESTION: Can you tell us about any upcoming impacts that might happen, say, later this week or next week if this thing drags on?
MS. HARF: I don’t have a timeline. I think this was where Elise was about to go. I don’t have a timeline for when furloughs might happen. No additional steps to announce at this point. As we’ve said, we’ve sharply curtailed travel, participation in conferences, public participation, and other events. That’s happening – that’s already started happening, was happening last week, but nothing new on top of that to announce at this point.
As of October 7, AFSA is telling members that “Bureaus, with the exception of the OIG, have yet to notify any employees of their excepted/non-excepted status.” It reiterated once more that the Department “intends to provide some notice before any emergency furloughs.”
(o_O)
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