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Tag: federal shutdown

  • Skeleton Crews Lots of Uncertainty: Welcome to the Post-DOGE Government Shutdown

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    This isn’t the Trump administration’s first rendezvous with a federal shutdown, but it is the first time that the government has shut down with a significantly leaner federal workforce, courtesy of the scalpel (and chainsaw) work by the Department of Government Efficiency. 

    And this time around, federal contractors are feeling the pains of working with a smaller government post-DOGE. 

    “There’s a lack of clarity and more murkiness on contract status and I think part of that is the dust is still settling post-DOGE,” says RJ Blake, the CEO and founder of Blake Willson Group, an Arlington, Virginia-based accounting firm that works with the federal government.  “In addition to lack of bandwidth, operating skeleton crews in procurement shops creates a perfect storm [of uncertainty.]”

    Blake estimates that about half of his contracts are essential and therefore won’t be impacted by the shutdown. But the other half, he says, might be. He’s not sure. Neither are the contracting officers he’s working with. 

    If a government contract is considered essential, contractors can continue working on it at all times, including during a shutdown. That’s not the case for all contracts, some of which might be considered nonessential and face financial consequences, particularly the dreaded stop work order, which freezes activity until further notice.  

    “A lot of contract officers are saying: ‘Hey, I don’t know. I’ll let you know when I know,’” Blake says, adding, “and we’re talking up as late as yesterday. It’s hour-by-hour, and that’s been a lot more apparent than in the past.”

    Perhaps that’s not surprising considering the mass consolidation efforts undertaken by the Trump administration this year, which slashed billions of dollar worth of federal contracts and is aiming to cut 300,000 civil servants from the workforce by year-end. To make matters worse, those efforts could continue. President Trump threatened to cut the federal workforce even more in the event of a shutdown, going a step further past a furlough. That said, permanent cuts have yet to be announced. 

    The government last shut down near the start of Trump’s first term, closing up shop for 35 days, starting in December 2018 and bleeding into the new year. That also happens to be the longest federal shutdown in U.S. history.

    A shutdown is frustrating for everyone, but the nonpolitical players take the biggest hits. Hundreds of thousands of federal workers who are furloughed, along with those who must continue working, but forgo their pay until the government re-opens. 

    And then there are the contractors that work with the government. Rachel Klein, the owner of the Santa Clarita, California-based Fire Starter Studios/Solaris Media, says that she spent two years working to obtain a General Services Administration [GSA] certification that allows her business to side-step the bidding process in federal procurements and deal with the government more directly which in theory should boost opportunities for the business.

    It took her about two years and cost her roughly $10,000. The company had just gotten their pricing list up and was ready to go, she says, but now that the government has shut down, it’s a slap in the face. 

    “I’m a Democrat, and my business partner of 20 years is a Republican, and the two of us have been just fine at opposite ends of the aisle,” Klein says. “But neither one of us think that fiscally responsible policies are happening right now when it comes to small businesses because we just want to sell stuff, make stuff, and do stuff.”

    The economic impacts of a shutdown largely are dependent on the duration of one. But make no mistake, even a truncated shutdown packs a punch. New data from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), an Alexandria, Virginia-based human resources trade association, shows that a shutdown lasting up to three days could negatively impact the day-to-day for 25 percent of companies, with growing concerns that they could fall short of financial targets. If a shutdown timeframe lengthens to a week, 49 percent of respondents say they might veer off course from the year’s financial goals. 

    What’s particularly unique to this shutdown is the blatant politicization, according to Deniece Peterson, vice president of federal market analysis at Deltek, a Herndon, Virginia-based software and information solutions firm. She points to banners sprawled out on federal webpages assigning blame to Democrats for the government shuttering. 

    A banner on the Small Business Administration’s webpage reads: “Senate Democrats voted to block a clean federal funding bill (H.R. 5371), leading to a government shutdown that is preventing the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) from serving America’s 36 million small businesses.” 

    The message goes on to claim that for every day the government remains closed, it’s the Democrats that are responsible for preventing 320 small businesses from accessing SBA aid each day. Republicans control all three chambers of the government, but Democratic lawmakers are holding out votes to approve federal funding in an attempt to wrestle back money to keep healthcare premiums low and reverse cuts to Medicaid.

    Peterson says she hasn’t seen this kind of hyperpolitical rift before.

    “It’s very challenging for everyone involved, but especially for contractors who have to rely on government workers that may or may not still be there, may or may not be furloughed, and may or may not have the experience and confidence to make decisions,” Peterson says.

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    Melissa Angell

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  • Will federal government shutdown affect Charlotte? What local leaders are saying

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    The federal government shut down early Wednesday, and the impact to local institutions and organizations will be varied, with several expecting minimal impact for now.

    The federal government shut down after lawmakers failed to reach an agreement on a funding bill in time for the midnight deadline. Congressional Democrats want three provisions to be added to the short-term funding extension in order to gain their support, including maintaining a program that lowers health insurance premiums as part of the Affordable Care Act. Meanwhile, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has chosen not to bring the chamber back into session.

    A shutdown means 140,000 federal workers in North Carolina will not receive paychecks while it drags on, the Raleigh News and Observer reported. Gov. Josh Stein also announced 200 state workers paid with federal funds have been furloughed.

    “I am immensely frustrated with this federal dysfunction, and I urge the federal government to find a resolution for this shutdown and restore the necessary funding,” Stein said in a letter to employees, obtained by McClatchy.

    Federally funded programs and services in North Carolina could also be affected. The extent of the impact in Mecklenburg County isn’t immediately clear.

    “The county will continue communication with our consultants and state and federal agencies to determine the potential impact of a federal government shutdown,” a Mecklenburg County representative told The Charlotte Observer. “We will provide updates as we receive additional information and guidance.”

    Mecklenburg County is responsible for, among other things, the social services and health departments. Those two departments have duties that include administering Medicaid and federal food assistance programs as well as the Women, Infants and Children Program that provides nutrition and breastfeeding support.

    The city of Charlotte expects “minimal” impacts in the short-term, including no immediate impact to Charlotte Douglas International Airport operations, a spokesperson for the city told The Observer.

    A spokesperson for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools said Thursday that CMS is not aware of any immediate impact of the shutdown on the district. CMS expects $117.3 million in federal funding in fiscal year 2025-26, a large portion of which comes from Title I funds, which are for schools with a high proportion of low-income students. Around 10% of the district’s approximately 19,000 employees are paid with federal Title I funding.

    It’s already seen its fair share of federal funding uncertainty. The district saw $6 million in canceled grants in February and thought it may lose as much at $12.5 million additional dollars before the Trump administration walked back its plan to withhold billions in already-allocated education funding in July.

    UNC Charlotte does not anticipate any immediate impact on day-to-day operations, the school’s Deputy Chief Communications Officer Christy Jackson told The Observer Wednesday evening.

    “The university’s core functions, including classes, research already under way and student services, will continue as planned,” Jackson said. “While certain federal activities, such as new research grant awards, may be delayed, current awards and student financial aid programs are expected to continue without any disruptions.”

    A representative for Davidson College said it doesn’t anticipate “significant operational impacts from the current shutdown.” A representative from Central Piedmont Community College said the school has “nothing to report” in terms of immediate impacts but that CPCC is “monitoring closely.”

    Many local nonprofits are already seeing tighter budgets due to federal funding cuts earlier this year.

    Around 1.42 million North Carolinians were on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program last year, also known as food stamps. The program allows low-income people to supplement their food budgets. In 2019, the federal government shut down for 35 days, and while SNAP funding continued in the beginning, recipients were warned as the month continued that funds were depleting rapidly.

    With more demand at local food banks and more NC residents in the SNAP program than in 2019, Tina Postel, CEO of Nourish Up, a Mecklenburg County network of emergency food pantries, warned her organization may be more strained under the shutdown.

    “Any disruption in funding during a period when we are already experiencing unprecedented demand could have catastrophic consequences,” said Postel. “We are bracing for impact and need our community now more than ever before.”

    The Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy has been affected by recent funding cuts but does not believe it will be “affected directly” or “at least not right away” by the federal shutdown, its Chief Philanthropy Officer Kelly Lynn told the Observer. Federal courts aren’t expected to immediately be affected either.

    This story was originally published October 1, 2025 at 11:25 AM.

    Related Stories from Charlotte Observer

    Rebecca Noel

    The Charlotte Observer

    Rebecca Noel reports on education for The Charlotte Observer. She’s a native of Houston, Texas, and graduated from Rice University. She later received a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri. When she’s not reporting, she enjoys reading, running and frequenting coffee shops around Charlotte.

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  • Government Shutdown: SBA to Furlough 23 Percent of Staff. Here’s What Services Will End

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    The Small Business Administration plans to furlough roughly 23 percent of its workforce if the government shuts down–and more than a dozen core agency services will halt if funding lapses. 

    Out of its 6,201-person workforce, 4,745 agency workers will be retained in the event of a shutdown, according to the agency’s funding lapse plan. As of Tuesday, the odds of a federal shutdown climbed as negotiations on Capitol Hill among top lawmakers stalled.

    The SBA’s capital access office, field operations, and general counsel are among those that are most impacted in terms of head count.

    Core loan program services including the agency’s flagship 7(a) loan program will halt, meaning that the agency will neither approve new loans nor service existing ones. The same can be said for the agency’s 504 loan program and its microloan program. 

    That said, the agency will continue to disperse direct loans under its disaster aid program. 

    SBA staffers will also be on tap to help with loan forgiveness and repayment options for pandemic-era programs, including the Covid-19 Economic Injury Disaster loan program, plus the Paycheck Protection Program.

    And the agency will continue to dole out awards for the Small Business Innovation Research program and the Small Business Technology Transfer program, which help fledgling startups with R&D efforts to encourage innovation. 

    Businesses owned by Native Americans will continue to receive aid from the agency as well. 

    Procurement support for women-owned small business contracting and service-disabled veteran-owned small business contracting will get put on ice. No new applications will be processed. 

    But the agency will retain some staffers to assist with small business set-aside programs for federal contractors that will continue to work throughout a shutdown. The agency’s HUBZone program, which helps entrepreneurs in “historically underutilized business zones” with federal procurement, will continue to accept and process new applications. 

    The SBA will also pause all support for the 8(a) Business Development program, the secondary market loan program, and the Small Business Investment Company program.

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    Melissa Angell

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  • From Mass Firings to the Fed—Why This Government Shutdown Could Be Different

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    A federal shutdown is looming over Washington once again—and this one could get ugly if lawmakers fail to ink yet another eleventh-hour deal to keep the government funded.

    President Donald Trump met with top lawmakers on Monday, but deliberations between Democrats and Republicans failed to reach much progress that’d alleviate shutdown concerns. If they don’t reach a deal, a shutdown will kick in Wednesday after the clock strikes midnight.

    Much of the debate falls on healthcare, specifically expiring funds established under the Affordable Care Act that will cause insurance premiums to soar, in addition to reversing cuts to Medicaid. Democratic lawmakers want to extend funding to keep health care costs lower, while Republican lawmakers are seeking to cut medical funding to help pay for tax cuts instead.

    Trump acknowledged the possibility of a shutdown in an interview with NBC. He also directed federal agencies to provide a list of permanent staff cuts in the event of the government does shut down. This strays from the usual furloughs that transpire when the government shuts down.

    But it’s not entirely offbeat for an administration that plans to cut more than 300,000 federal jobs by the end of the year. The workforce restructuring plan was largely outlined by the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which is seen as a blueprint for many of the administration’s policies including the mass-consolidation of the federal government.

    “The Democrats response to Trump’s threat [is …] we’re not taking that seriously because you’ve been doing this all along,” says Thom Hartmann, a political commentator and host of The Thom Hartmann program, a radio show. “And anybody that you’re going to fire as a result of this threat is probably somebody you’re going to fire anyway once you get around to it.”

    The economic impacts of a shutdown largely depend on how long one transpires. In usual shutdowns, federal employees are furloughed, but they receive back pay—for that reason, the economic impact is relatively muted, according to Wafa Hakim Orman, an economist and professor at the University of Alabama Huntsville’s College of Business.

    “There was a lot of inconvenience to people who couldn’t access any federal services during the shutdown, but past that inconvenience, it wasn’t a major lasting economic impact of any kind,” Hakim Orman says. But Hakim Orman explains the potential for permanent layoffs may have more lasting consequences, depending on size.

    The shutdown may also impact the publication of a much anticipated jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics set to be published on Friday, as most federal services that are considered non-essential get put on ice. In August, Trump fired the previous BLS commissioner accusing them of producing a “rigged” report to make the administration look bad.

    The jobs report is one key indicator that the Federal Reserve—which stays open during a shutdown since it operates independently—turns to when orchestrating monetary policy. If the shutdown stretches out more than two weeks, the reports delay could complicate the upcoming Fed meeting which starts on Oct. 28, says George Mateyo, Chief Investment Officer at Key Private Bank. Mateyo adds a delay in the jobs report could push the Federal Reserve to pause rather that cut interest rates in October.

    “That said, there are other data points that the Fed considers in its interest rate policy decisions,” Mateyo adds. “If they suggest a significantly weaker outlook for employment, the Fed may be inclined to move forward with its cutting cycle.”

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    Melissa Angell

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  • Spending deal averts a possible federal shutdown

    Spending deal averts a possible federal shutdown

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    Congressional leaders announced an agreement Sunday on a short-term spending bill that will fund federal agencies for about three months, averting a possible partial government shutdown when the new budget year begins Oct. 1 and pushing final decisions until after the November election.Lawmakers have struggled to get to this point as the current budget year winds to a close at month’s end. At the urging of the most conservative members of his conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had linked temporary funding with a mandate that would have compelled states to require proof of citizenship when people register to vote.Video above: House Speaker Mike Johnson vows new planBut Johnson could not get all Republicans on board even as the party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, insisted on that package. Trump said Republican lawmakers should not support a stop-gap measure without the voting requirement, but the bill went down to defeat anyway, with 14 Republicans opposing it.Bipartisan negotiations began in earnest shortly after that, with leadership agreeing to extend funding into mid-December. That gives the current Congress the ability to fashion a full-year spending bill after the Nov. 5 election, rather than push that responsibility to the next Congress and president.In a letter to Republican colleagues, Johnson said the budget measure would be “very narrow, bare-bones” and include “only the extensions that are absolutely necessary.”“While this is not the solution any of us prefer, it is the most prudent path forward under the present circumstances,” Johnson wrote. “As history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice.”Rep. Tom Cole, the House Appropriations Committee chairman, had said on Friday that talks were going well.“So far, nothing has come up that we can’t deal with,” said Cole, R-Okla. “Most people don’t want a government shutdown, and they don’t want that to interfere with the election. So nobody is like, ‘I’ve got to have this, or we’re walking.’ It’s just not that way.”Johnson’s earlier effort had no chance in the Democratic-controlled Senate and was opposed by the White House, but it did give the speaker a chance to show Trump and conservatives within his conference that he fought for their request.The final result — government funding effectively on autopilot — was what many had predicted. With the election just weeks away, few lawmakers in either party had any appetite for the brinksmanship that often leads to a shutdown.Now, a bipartisan majority is expected to push the short-term measure over the finish line.The agreement on the short-term measure does not mean getting to a final spending bill will be easy in December. The election results could also influence the political calculations if one party fares much better than the other, potentially pushing the fight into early next year.Temporary spending bills generally fund agencies at current levels, but some additional money was included to bolster the Secret Service, replenish a disaster relief fund and aid with the presidential transition, among other things.The Secret Service funding also comes with a string attached, with lawmakers making it contingent on the Department of Homeland Security providing certain information to a House task force and Senate committee investigating the assassination attempts made against Trump.In a recent letter, the Secret Service told lawmakers that a funding shortfall was not the reason for lapses in Trump’s security when a gunman climbed onto an unsecured roof on July 13 at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and opened fire. But acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. said this week that the agency had “immediate needs” and that he’s talking to Congress.

    WASHINGTON —

    Congressional leaders announced an agreement Sunday on a short-term spending bill that will fund federal agencies for about three months, averting a possible partial government shutdown when the new budget year begins Oct. 1 and pushing final decisions until after the November election.

    Lawmakers have struggled to get to this point as the current budget year winds to a close at month’s end. At the urging of the most conservative members of his conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had linked temporary funding with a mandate that would have compelled states to require proof of citizenship when people register to vote.

    Video above: House Speaker Mike Johnson vows new plan

    But Johnson could not get all Republicans on board even as the party’s presidential nominee, Donald Trump, insisted on that package. Trump said Republican lawmakers should not support a stop-gap measure without the voting requirement, but the bill went down to defeat anyway, with 14 Republicans opposing it.

    Bipartisan negotiations began in earnest shortly after that, with leadership agreeing to extend funding into mid-December. That gives the current Congress the ability to fashion a full-year spending bill after the Nov. 5 election, rather than push that responsibility to the next Congress and president.

    In a letter to Republican colleagues, Johnson said the budget measure would be “very narrow, bare-bones” and include “only the extensions that are absolutely necessary.”

    “While this is not the solution any of us prefer, it is the most prudent path forward under the present circumstances,” Johnson wrote. “As history has taught and current polling affirms, shutting the government down less than 40 days from a fateful election would be an act of political malpractice.”

    Rep. Tom Cole, the House Appropriations Committee chairman, had said on Friday that talks were going well.

    “So far, nothing has come up that we can’t deal with,” said Cole, R-Okla. “Most people don’t want a government shutdown, and they don’t want that to interfere with the election. So nobody is like, ‘I’ve got to have this, or we’re walking.’ It’s just not that way.”

    Johnson’s earlier effort had no chance in the Democratic-controlled Senate and was opposed by the White House, but it did give the speaker a chance to show Trump and conservatives within his conference that he fought for their request.

    The final result — government funding effectively on autopilot — was what many had predicted. With the election just weeks away, few lawmakers in either party had any appetite for the brinksmanship that often leads to a shutdown.

    Now, a bipartisan majority is expected to push the short-term measure over the finish line.

    The agreement on the short-term measure does not mean getting to a final spending bill will be easy in December. The election results could also influence the political calculations if one party fares much better than the other, potentially pushing the fight into early next year.

    Temporary spending bills generally fund agencies at current levels, but some additional money was included to bolster the Secret Service, replenish a disaster relief fund and aid with the presidential transition, among other things.

    The Secret Service funding also comes with a string attached, with lawmakers making it contingent on the Department of Homeland Security providing certain information to a House task force and Senate committee investigating the assassination attempts made against Trump.

    In a recent letter, the Secret Service told lawmakers that a funding shortfall was not the reason for lapses in Trump’s security when a gunman climbed onto an unsecured roof on July 13 at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and opened fire. But acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. said this week that the agency had “immediate needs” and that he’s talking to Congress.

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