Furlough Folly?

The Associated Press reported last night that the Pentagon plans to cut from 22 to 14 the number of unpaid furlough days civilian defense employees would have to take:

According to defense officials, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel made the decision Wednesday, as military service chiefs and defense leaders continued to work through the details, trying to prioritize how they will allocate the more than $10 billion that Congress, in an attempt to take some of the sting out of the across-the-board budget cuts, shifted to operations and maintenance accounts. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter ahead of the public announcement.

While some of the military services initially considered eliminating the furloughs altogether, senior leaders argued that since not all the services could do that, it would be better to treat all civilians across the defense department equally.

However, "it makes little sense" to furlough government employees like air traffic controllers and border patrol agents "while retaining employees who are AWOL, on standby, not performing official duties or sitting idle awaiting security clearances," according to Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Ranking Member Tom Coburn (R-OK).

In a March 27 letter to Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry, Coburn writes:

Employees of government contractors are also being paid to do nothing. Delays in the security clearance process have kept between 10 and 20 percent of all intelligence contractors sitting idle while they await clearance, according to a December 2011 study of the Intelligence and National Security Alliance. This process can take months even for already-cleared workers who are being re-cleared just for moving to a new agency. Under current arrangements, these employees are paid large salaries during the waiting periods, but are not given meaningful work.