The White House’s office of management and budget (OMB) is arguing that federal workers who are furloughed amid the ongoing government shutdown are not entitled to back pay.
In a draft memo first obtained by Axios, OMB argued that an amendment to the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act (GEFTA) of 2019 would not guarantee furloughed workers back pay and that said funds must be set aside by Congress.
“The legislation that ends the current lapse in appropriations must include express language appropriating funds for back pay for furloughed employees, or such payments cannot be made,” said Mark Paoletta, OMB’s general counsel, in a draft addressed to White House budget director Russell Vought, the Washington Post reported.
The OMB previously revised a shutdown guidance document on Friday to remove reference to the GEFTA Act, reported Government Executive, a media site reporting on the US executive branch.
Donald Trump previously signed GEFTA into law after the 2019 government shutdown, which lasted for 35 days. While many understood the law to automatically guarantee pay for federal workers, the White House’s OMB is arguing against that interpretation, suggesting that the law only created the conditions for back pay.
Trump and other Republicans have not confirmed if workers would be paid when the government reopens. When asked about the White House’s stance on back payment for federal workers, Trump said “it depends who we’re talking about” during comments in the Oval Office on Tuesday
Trump also added that he planned to announce additional government programs that will be permanently eliminated as the shutdown continues as well as possible layoffs, CNN reported.
House speaker Mike Johnson said that federal workers affected by the shutdown should receive back pay, but noted that “some legal analysts [are] saying that [back payments] may not be appropriate or necessary, in terms of the law requiring that back pay be provided,” the Hill reported.
Several Republicans have said that questions on back pay should put pressure on congressional Democrats to support a continuing resolution to reopen the government.
Meanwhile, Democrats have slammed the reinterpretation of GEFTA as unlawful. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, which is home to thousands of federal workers, said any suggestion of withheld back pay is “more fear mongering from a president who wants a blank check for lawlessness”.
Senator Patty Murray of Washington, a top Democrat on the Senate appropriations committee, called the latest reinterpretation “lawless”. “They’re plotting to try and rob furloughed federal workers of backpay at the end of this shutdown,” said Murray during Senate floor remarks. “This flies in the face of the plain text of the law, which could not be more clear.”
An estimated 750,000 federal workers have been furloughed during the federal government shutdown, now in its seventh day, the Post reported citing congressional bookkeepers.
