DoD to send notices of layoffs this week

[unhappycamper]

DoD to send notices of layoffs this week
By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Dec 10, 2007 22:08:18 EST

Hundreds of thousands of government and contract employees of the Army and Marine Corps will begin learning this week whether they could be laid off in early 2008 because Congress has failed to pass a war spending bill for the new fiscal year, the Defense Department says.

That’s because DoD is paying for the war out of the services’ baseline budget operations and maintenance accounts, which also cover a large portion of base operations and civilian employee salaries.

The notices — “It’s an informational letter, not a furlough notice” — will be sent to Army and Marine Corps installations and labor unions Tuesday night, said a defense official who asked not to be named. Potentially affected individuals will be notified beginning Wednesday.

In a Dec. 7 letter to Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England said that Army O&M accounts would be depleted by about mid-February and Marine Corps accounts by about mid-March. Those time frames are when about 100,000 civilian employees who are paid from those accounts would be “subject to furlough,” he said.

While the layoffs in each service could be separated by a month, this week’s letters are going out to workers in both services, according to Army Lt. Col. Les Melnyk, a Pentagon spokesman.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/12/military_dod_layoffs_071210w/