Plan for Orderly Shutdown 
Due to Lapse of Congressional Appropriations


September 2018





















	
	If a potential lapse in appropriations is imminent, the FCC will determine whether and for how long prior year funds are available to continue agency operations during a lapse.  

If prior year funds are available, employees will be notified that the FCC will remain open beyond a lapse and directed to report to work as usual until further notice.

If the prior year funds are unavailable, or such funds are exhausted during the lapse in appropriations, the agency will furlough employees and take other actions in accordance with this plan.

Generally, during such a shutdown all FCC activities will cease other than those immediately necessary for the protection of life or property, performing other excepted activities or those funded through a source other than lapsed appropriations.  Suspended activities include, among many others:  Consumer complaint and inquiry phone lines cannot be answered; consumer protection and local competition enforcement must cease; licensing services, including broadcast, wireless, and wireline, must cease; management of radio spectrum and the creation of new opportunities for competitive technologies and services for the American public must be suspended; and equipment authorizations, including those bringing new electronic devices to American consumers, cannot be provided.

When this shutdown plan is activated, all FCC employees will be instructed to report to work the first business day following a lapse in appropriations if necessary to conduct orderly shutdown of operations.  FCC estimates that the time required for each employee to accomplish an orderly shutdown will be not more than four (4) hours with very rare exceptions detailed below.  During this time, all but full-time, furlough-excepted FCC employees will receive a notice of decision to furlough in the form of a letter attached to an e-mail.  The notice of decision will inform employees to cease regular work activities.  Employees being furloughed also will be provided shutdown instructions advising them to engage only in shutdown activities, which include items such as:

o Securing the work area and locking up materials and files;
o Canceling travel plans and scheduled training;
o Canceling internal and external meetings and informing attendees;
o Canceling FCC sponsored events and notifying participants, and
o Placing out-of-office messages on email and voicemail.

· With very rare exceptions detailed below, FCC estimates orderly shutdown will be completed in approximately four (4) hours – one half-day for planning purposes.

· FCC expects that approximately 1,450 employees will be on-board before the implementation of the plan.

· Four (4) employees will be retained under the plan because their compensation is financed by a resource other than annual appropriations.  These are full-time employees. They are the FCC Chairman and three Commissioners.  

· Up to two hundred (200) employees will be retained under the plan because their salary and expenses are not funded out of annual appropriations that will lapse on September 30 and they will be supporting spectrum auction-related activities.

· Up to 13 employees, not otherwise exempt, will be retained to protect life and property. These are full-time employees, working shifts to cover 24 hour and 18 hour operations. Up to two (2) employees working per shift at each location.  Staff of the FCC Operations Center will handle emergency contacts for agency.  Staff of the High Frequency Direction Finding (HFDF) Center will operate the high frequency antenna system used to protect life and property. One (1) management employee will oversee and coordinate regularly with both operations to help identify and respond to imminent threats to life or property. 

· Up to three (3) employees will be retained to provide oversight or conduct interference detection, mitigation, and disaster response operations wherever they may be needed.  These will be full-time employees strategically located across the country to resolve imminent threats to the safety of life or property.

· Up to eleven (11) employees will be retained for critical oversight/protection of life or property.

· Up to five (5) employees will be retained to perform international and treaty related activity instrumental in the discharge of the President’s constitutional power.  

· Five (5) employees will be retained for critical Information Technology (IT) issues.

· Two (2) employees will be retained, working as needed, to certify Universal Service Fund (USF) disbursements.  

After the plan has been implemented, the 243 employees listed above, or 17% of those on board before the plan was implemented, will have been retained.  The remaining 1,207 employees, or 83% of those on board before the plan was implemented, will have been furloughed and sent home.

In addition to the employees listed above, the following contractors will be retained to protect life or property and support spectrum auction-related activity:

1) 24/7 IT support to monitor system – 69 full-time contractors; 11 contractors working as needed.
2) Headquarters (HQ) Security Guards, eight (8) contractors (8:00 am to 6:00 pm, Mon thru Fri) and five (5) at all other times
3) Field Security Guards, two (2) contractors (Gettysburg, PA and Columbia, MD) (5:30 am to 8:00 pm, Mon thru Fri)
4) Security Patrol Service for Honolulu (drive by twice daily)
5) 69 full-time IT contractors needed to support auction-related activity.
6) 39 Facility services contractors working full-time; 8 contractors working as needed.

Employees otherwise in furlough status, may be called upon to work as necessary during the furlough due to the nature of their responsibilities to perform excepted work on an as needed basis. 

      Resumption of Orderly Operations

      Prior to the shutdown, employees will be instructed to listen to public broadcasts or 
news that a CR or appropriation has been signed.  Employees will be expected to return to work on the next scheduled work day after the furlough has ended.

      Supervisors may approve accrued annual leave, compensable time-off, or credit hours   
      in the event employees have problems returning to work on their next scheduled work 
      day.

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