THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 21, 1996 TAG: 9603210358
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HAMPTON LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
Long promised and long anticipated, NASA's nationwide belt-tightening is beginning to pinch locally. Even as agency administrator Daniel S. Goldin announced on Tuesday a lean 1997 budget, a Peninsula company was making plans to reduce work hours and lay off employees.
Mason & Hanger Services will have to absorb part of an unexpected, and immediate, $5.7 million reduction to NASA Langley Research Center's operational budget. Some 157 of Mason & Hanger's 261 Langley workers will have their work hours cut; 28 will be laid off.
``The budget for the center will be decreasing,'' said Langley director Paul F. Holloway. ``It is a downward slope. There will be less work and less money for contractors each year.''
Over the next five years, Holloway said, Langley's full-time contractor work force will be pared from its current level of about 2,000 to just over 900. By the year 2000, 2,300 civil servants will work at the research facility, 200 fewer than the present number.
Several Langley aeronautical research facilities and laboratories will likely be shut. In recent months, two of the center's more than 40 wind tunnels have been mothballed, for an eventual annual savings of $850,000.
``We'll close more wind tunnels,'' Holloway said. ``But we won't be eliminating programs. What that means is we'll just have to do a much better job of prioritizing.''
Future cutbacks will likely prove painful for firms that provide clerical, administrative, janitorial and assorted professional services to Langley. Although some contract workers may be moved to part-time employment, others will lose their jobs outright.
Outstanding job performance is no protection against layoffs. So warns Geoff Egge, a Mason & Hanger contract manager, who says Langley personnel gave ``high ratings and accolades'' to the work of his company. Mason & Hanger staff work as security guards, sort and distribute mail, and provide an array of administrative and clerical services.
The firm's $300,000 share of Langley's multimillion dollar operational reduction ``is a significant cut,'' Egge said. ``It hurts our folks. It's very difficult. We've done a great deal to do things better, at lower cost.''
On the face of it, Langley is a winner in NASA's expected $13.8 billion 1997 allocation. Although Langley's 1995 outlay of $606 million has slipped to $584 million in 1996, it should rebound slightly in 1997 to nearly $590 million, according to NASA headquarters estimates.
Langley has also become NASA's ``lead center'' for aeronautics research, and so may receive a bit more money over the next several years, particularly for experiments related to high-speed flight. Aerospace companies are collaborating on a project to build a cost-effective, supersonic airliner, based in part on research done at the Hampton facility.
``We're in a stronger position now than we were this time last year,'' Holloway said. ``We have stability. It would be a stretch to say we're out of the wilderness yet when we don't have a budget. But I think we're over the big hump.''
NASA has yet to have a 1996 budget signed into law. By Friday, if Congress and the president can't agree on a continuing funding resolution, parts of the government, including NASA, will shut down once more.
``We've been funded a week at a time. That is certainly unprecedented, at least since I've been working for the government,'' Holloway said. ``There continues to be uncertainty. We can't give anybody any guarantees.
``Working for the federal government was supposed to be the top job security in the country. That's gone. You can't count on anything. I can't tell you if I'll be in on Monday.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color file photo
Paul F. Holloway, NASA Langley Director
by CNB