F.B.I. Plans to Close Offices for 10 Days to Cut Costs
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT
Published: September 12, 2013
WASHINGTON — After months of agonizing about how to deal with the effects of government spending cuts, senior F.B.I. officials in Washington have decided how they will reduce the bureau’s spending: they will shut down its headquarters and offices across the country for roughly 10 weekdays over the next year.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s plans mean that on those days, the bureau will have only a skeleton crew on hand, which raises questions about how effectively it can respond to crime.
While the shutdown conjures images of the recent movie “The Purge,” in which the government allows people to commit crimes like murder and rape for 12 hours once a year, F.B.I. officials said they would have plans for agents to return to work if there was a terrorist attack or a crime like a kidnapping.
Senior agency officials in Washington decided the closings were the easiest way to furlough employees, whose compensation accounts for roughly 60 percent of the bureau’s budget, according to people briefed on the plan. It costs the F.B.I. about $16 million a day to pay its employees, and it is far more cost effective to have the entire work force stay home at the same time than to allow employees to choose the days they want off, the people said. Other federal law enforcement agencies are expected to adopt similar furlough plans as cost-cutting measures.
In order to minimize the impact on employees, some of whom live paycheck to paycheck, the F.B.I. furlough days will be spread out, the people said. The dates have not been set, but some of them are likely to occur on days that many employees typically take off anyway. The first may be scheduled for around Thanksgiving and the second around Christmas.
“It will be days on the sides of weekends because it is more cost effective, because there are costs associated with powering up the offices,” a senior F.B.I. official said. “If you have nearly all the work force at home, it will save on power and other charges, so money will be saved there.”
The people briefed on the F.B.I.'s plans spoke on the condition of anonymity because they did not want to be identified discussing plans that had not yet been publicly announced.
Since taking his post a week ago, the new F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, has been vocal about how the spending cuts known as sequestration will affect the bureau. At a news conference in Richmond, Va., on Monday, Mr. Comey said he was surprised by how substantial the cuts would be on operations.
“I’m not sure the effects of sequestration on this great institution that is charged with protecting the American people — that those effects are known well enough yet, and it is something I intend to talk about,” he said.
He added, “I can’t imagine that if we have charged people with protecting their fellow citizens that it makes sense to send them home and tell them you can’t work for two weeks without pay.”
The F.B.I. also has a hiring freeze, has substantially cut training and has no plans to buy new vehicles. According to bureau officials, the F.B.I. will have roughly 2,200 vacant positions by the end of the month because of the hiring freeze. By the same time next year, the bureau is expected to have 3,500 vacant positions. The issue of vehicles is particularly pronounced in field offices in the middle and western parts of the country where agents are forced to travel several hours to cover their territory.
Many of the F.B.I.'s plans have been in response to employee preferences about furloughs. Agents and employees in cities that have high costs of living, like New York, are particularly worried about making ends meet. And there is a concern that many agents and executives may leave for higher-paying jobs in the private sector if the furloughs persist.
Senior officials in Washington said that the cuts could also hurt domestic intelligence gathering, and that agents who are working on complex investigations like financial fraud will fall behind on their work.
“Besides the short-term effect on morale, response time and focus on the mission, this will degrade the capabilities of the bureau in the long term as well,” said Tim Murphy, a former F.B.I. deputy director. “I think the long-term impact is not being considered by those having this budget debate in Congress. Mistakes will be made down the road because of these cuts, and they will be able to be traced back to these cuts.”
