THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 14, 1995 TAG: 9511140095
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
By noon today, your lights will be turned out, your lab emptied and the main gates locked. Try to work at home, with borrowed government equipment, and you could be arrested for a violation of federal law.
Starting today, you're on forced furlough - if you're among the 4,700 government workers or private contractors working at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton.
You'll likely be able to draw one more paycheck. After that, if you're living payday to payday, you could be out of money and out of luck.
``Money is a real issue for the young people out here,'' said Phil Glaude, 53, a Langley engineering technician with 33 years' experience. ``I'm in a good position to weather this storm. A lot of young people are not. They're sincerely worried.''
Langley employees have been instructed to report to work this morning, but their time on the job will likely be cut to no more than three hours. By lunchtime, the Hampton center is expected to be closed. It will reopen only when President Clinton signs into law a bill that authorizes further government spending.
Late Monday, Langley payroll and personnel departments were scrambling to finish furlough paperwork and to prepare checks for distribution to the center's civil servants by Nov. 21.
``People are concerned about their mortgage payments,'' said Langley personnel director Alice Massey. ``This is the most serious shutdown we've had for many a year. The feeling is that we'll be shut down one, maybe two days. Longer than that . . . I don't know.''
For Langley, one of the biggest employers in Hampton Roads, the budget impasse is the latest in a series of money woes. Rumors and talks of cutbacks at the once-flush space agency have given way to the hard reality of leaner federal outlays, sharply sapping morale among Langley employees.
``Most people are frustrated. Others are resigned,'' said Brian Luoto, 40, a Langley project manager who has worked at the Hampton center for 11 years. ``This is the way the government works. Some are angry about all this political showmanship.''
Officials say essential systems such as heating, electrical and plumbing systems will be scrupulously maintained by a skeleton crew of several dozen government workers and contractors.
One group of six NASA researchers will be exempt from the furlough because of crucial work on an experiment in solar panel design now on board the space shuttle Atlantis. The Atlantis and its crew - also exempt - is expected to remain in space about a week. ILLUSTRATION: HUY NGUYEN
The Virginian-Pilot
Joseph Struhar, NASA-Langley comptroller, is watching the countdown
with a feeling of uncertainty. Like the other federal workers,
Struhar is hoping for a quick settlement between the president and
Congress.
AT STAKE NASA
Langley pays:
Every day to its contractors: Roughly 110 payments totaling about
$1.8 million.
Biweekly to its 2,500 full-time and 170 part-time workers: an
average of $6.2 million
Yearly in contracts and grants throughout Hampton Roads: About
$195 million.
Figures supplied by NASA
KEYWORDS: FEDERAL GOVERNMENT BUDGET SHUTDOWN by CNB