There have been so many ‘impending’ government shutdowns that get resolved at the last minute that I have become immune to the threats when they are just around the corner. This one feels different to me in a variety of ways (see this ABC News article for gloss). A shutdown would start next Wednesday if Congress doesn’t pass a funding bill before then.
If a shutdown happens, it feels like it could last longer than the typical shutdown given the politics involved. And as noted in this Politico article, the OMB sent a memo to federal agencies late yesterday asking agencies to identify programs, projects and activities where discretionary funding will lapse on October 1st and no alternative funding source is available. For those areas, OMB directed agencies to begin drafting RIF plans that would go beyond standard furloughs, permanently eliminating jobs in programs not consistent with President Donald Trump’s priorities.
If the dictates of this OMB memo are followed, that means that the SEC could be significantly leaner when the shutdown ended as it might then be limited to the number of employees merely sufficient to carry out its statutory duties. That is big news as the shutdown’s reduction in force would not just temporarily lay off many employees, it would eliminate their positions entirely. That is a different type of shutdown.
The other difference right now is that federal agencies have not yet posted their “operations plan during a shutdown” guidance like they normally do. These contingency plans are typically made publicly available on the OMB’s site, but as noted in this article, the OMB web page that typically hosts those plans is completely blank. The SEC also hasn’t posted anything related to a contingency plan on its home page.
This blog that I wrote back in March details what the SEC would do in the event of a shutdown under the SEC’s contingency plan for the prior shutdown threat, which included this list of 22 shutdown FAQs. I imagine that would be the same plan that the SEC would employ this time around too, but it’s not clear yet if that is the case…
Authored by
Broc Romanek