Government Shutdown Sets FCC Furlough Plan Into Motion

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The U.S. government shutdown is putting the FCC's "Plan for Orderly Shutdown Due to Lapse of Congressional Appropriations" in play TODAY (10/1), as 98% of the Commission's staff is subject to furlough.

The plan, issued last FRIDAY (9/27), has all employees showing up for work TODAY to "conduct orderly shutdown of operations," with each employee not expected to need more than four hours to do it (with "very rare exceptions").  The exceptions include up to six employees paid by a source other than annual appropriations (the Chairwoman and Commissioners and three Inspector General no-year/Universal Service Funds staffers who may be subject to furlough, anyway; up to 16 employees retained "to protect life and property"; up to 8 employees for interference detection, mitigation, and disaster response; two for "critical oversight issues"; one for treaty negotiations; one for national security functions; and four IT workers.

And, yes, it's going to affect the FCC's social pages too, according this posting on the FCC's FACEBOOK page, and this tweet @FCC: "We're sorry, but FCC will not be tweeting or responding to @ replies during the government shutdown."

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