THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 6, 1996 TAG: 9601060276
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
A daunting backlog of everything from headstones for veterans' graves to unprocessed loans and benefit claims will be waiting for federal employees when they return Monday.
Work has been piling up since Dec. 16, when legislation funding nine Cabinet departments and dozens of other agencies ran out, leaving 480,000 employees working without pay and an additional 280,000 civil servants on furlough.
To put the backlog in perspective, government lost more than 11 million employee hours per week while the workers were absent.
``There's just going to be an overwhelming amount of catchup that's got to be done,'' said Janice Lachance, spokeswoman for the Office of Personnel Management.
Some of the workers who will return will find that there's no work for them to do. Congress' plan for those workers is to bring them back to the office but fund only some of the programs they administer.
Since the shutdown started, mail has gone unopened, economic data have been left unanalyzed and a striking variety of other work has piled up.
For example, the Veterans Affairs Department has 60,000 headstones to erect at 114 cemeteries across the country.
``We have been burying our veterans, but we have a backlog of headstones,'' said Kathy Jurado, assistant secretary for public affairs.
Also, about 1,100 veterans' home loan applications have gone unprocessed every day of the shutdown and 409,000 compensation claims are pending, she said.
National parks were to reopen and Park Service employees were expected to return to work to assess winter damage. And there was cleaning up to do at urban parks, including those around national monuments and the White House where trash cans were overflowing.
Officials elsewhere said it would take weeks to work through the backlog - and longer in programs that Congress decides against funding.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics said that even though workers will be back, key economic figures cannot be released under limitations on spending proposed in the back-to-work legislation.
While the Federal Parent Locator Service will be able to start on 250,000 outstanding requests for leads on the whereabouts of deadbeat parents, there were no funds to clean up Superfund sites.
KEYWORDS: BUDGET LAYOFF FEDERAL EMPLOYEES by CNB