Shutdown Impacted Local Agencies

After 35 days of being furloughed workers, members of the community who serve the public in government-funded agencies such as the National Weather Service, FBI, Bureau of Land Management, USDA Farm Service Agency and Fish, Wildlife Services are all back to work as of Jan. 28 and the agencies are fully operational. During a press conference on Jan. 25, President Trump announced he has approved legislation to open the government until Feb. 15, allowing all federal government employees the ability to receive back pay and perform their job duties while also allowing negotiations to continue regarding establishing a budget.

During the longest recorded government shutdown in history, employees at the National Weather Service were all considered essential employees, minus the administrative assistant. They were required to show up for their scheduled shift, and be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the public and their partners. They issued watches and warnings, as necessary, and made sure to notify the public about any and all winter weather that occurred. However, these employees do more than just forecast the weather and notify the public during their day-to-day operations. They have to go through training to issue watches and warnings, they have to attend conferences in order to exchange ideas and improve how they pass along the weather message. They have to provide maintenance to equipment provided to co-op observers that take different measurements to ensure accurate data and improve already existing processes to make their jobs easier in predicting the weather.

However, during the 35 days the government was shut down, employees were unable to perform any of the "extras" that was required of their job. "When the shutdown continued to go on, we were notified one of our employees would not be able to travel to be able to attend radar school, which would allow him to issue watches and warnings during severe weather season," said Vice Steward of the local NWS Employees Organization Brian Burleson. "Now we are not sure when or if he will be able to attend as this training is only offered once a year. Without this training, overtime will have to be issued in order to have that extra body keep an eye on what's going on and let the public know what to expect." As the weather is so unpredictable during the spring and summer months, without having everyone on the same page training-wise, it would be hard for these meteorologists to perform at their best.

Another project on hold was providing preventive maintenance to co-op observation equipment, which provides information such as temperature and rain in various parts of Northeast Montana. "I normally would clean the sensor and level the rain gauges to ensure accurate data is being reported back to us. I am unable to do that during a shutdown. If we noticed inaccurate readings are being collected, the data is not reliable, and therefore hinders our ability to be accurate when recording," said Burleson.

Other effects included one employee not being able to attend the American Meteorological Society conference, where meteorologists from the public and private sector as well as students within the field are able to bounce ideas off of each other, exchange best practices and improve processes. It's also unclear when or if another employee will be able to attend training to become an incident meteorologist (IMET), where he would be able to be called out during wildfire events and provide weather updates on site to assist in the containment of the fire. "It's always nice to be able to have an extra body to assist in these types of situations," stated Burleson.

Before the government was reopened, Burleson stated, "We are serving the public the best that we can, while also having to worry about how we are going to pay bills. It's really weighing on everyone in the office." The morale of the office was certainly low during the shutdown, but members of the community assisted in lifting their spirits by providing food to those on shift on given days and supported them.

The story isn't very different with the USDA Farm Service Agency. The agency was closed on Dec. 31, a little later than most government agencies as they had extra funding to last them through a few more days. The agency reopened for a short time on Jan. 17, 18 and 22, to assist producers with specific services. The Glasgow office was not fully staffed, as only the essential employees were able to assist producers with processing payments made on or before Dec. 31, expiring financing statements and opened mail to see if there was anything time sensitive that needed to be taken care of.

While the staff at the FSA office was furloughed, producers were not able to obtain necessary information to help plan their spring harvest season as certain reports were unavailable. The deadline to apply for the Market Facilitation Program, which assists farmers with losses occurring due to trade disputes came and went. Farmers and producers were not able to get assistance with obtaining new loans, or filing out the paperwork necessary to get them

The National Weather Service's mission is to protect life and property, each and every day. They certainly filled this mission, even when there was so much uncertainty in the employees' lives. USDA Farm Service Agency workers were not able to report to work, which resulted in area producers not being able to utilize the services necessary, which will impact spring harvest.

The Glasgow Courier did reach out to the local USDA Farm Service agency for comment and was referred to the communications office in D.C.