Sequestration, federal budget cuts felt locally

According to President Obama and many politicians in Washington, sequestration was never supposed to happen. Dubbed by most politicians and political pundits as “the pill too bitter to swallow,” the automatically triggered spending cuts went into effect March 1. Funding cuts are already affecting millions of Americans, and Western Montana is no exception.  

What is Sequestration?

America spends more money than it earns. 

As of March 11, the national debt was nearly $17 trillion. The debt ceiling is the maximum amount the United States Treasury is legally allowed to borrow to fund the government. In August 2011, the United States was in danger of breaching the debt ceiling and, in essence, being unable to pay about 40 percent of the bills. In response, President Obama signed the Budget Control Act into law, raising the debt ceiling and allowing the government to function as it had. However, before the bill made its way through the legislature, Republicans demanded the legislation include spending cuts to lower the deficit. 

When the Budget Control Act was finalized and signed into law, it included $1.2 trillion in spending cuts. The bill failed to specify where these cuts would come from in the federal budget.

The Congress Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, also hailed as the “super committee,” was tasked with finding the $1.2 trillion in savings. 

They failed. 

The BCA was prepared for such a failure. If Congress could not come up with a long-term budget solution, the law allowed for a date in the future (March 1, 2013) when a sequester would go into affect. Sequestration is a set of automatic, across-the-board spending cuts equally divided between domestic and defense-related spending. Spanning nine years, the budget cuts end in 2021. About $85 billion worth of spending cuts will affect the 2013 fiscal year. 

The sequester was designed to be a crushing blow. In an effort to force Congress to work together to reduce the deficit, the spending cuts put forth in the sequester were designed to be so undesirable Congress would have no choice but to work together. 

Again, they failed, and the effects are being felt around the nation. 

CNN reports that the military will see as much as $550 billion in cuts to national security and military operations. Healthcare, education, law enforcement, disaster relief, unemployment benefits, nonprofit organization funds, scientific research, national parks, job training programs and many more domestic areas will see massive funding cuts. 

And most in the Mission Valley will taste just how bitter the sequester pill was. 

Fly-overs

The Kalispell Chamber of Commerce indefinitely postponed the Mountain Madness Air Show last week after U.S. Air Force budget cuts grounded the majority of their attractions. 

“The military demonstration teams are what we really view as the anchors of the show,” said Kalispell Chamber of Commerce President Joe Unterreiner. “They are the foundation that allows a lot of those components to happen. If you have those, you have the option for static displays (pilots who fly in and park their jets for display), and they’re really the foundation on which the rest of the show is built.”

A military spokesman at Malstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls confirmed the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds had been grounded by a stop-work order. No civilian air show flights will be held until at least Sept. 30, meaning the Mission Valley won’t get a repeat of last year’s July 4 flyovers.

Unterreiner said this year’s Mountain Madness Air Show would have been the sixth event since the 1980s. The show usually boasts nearly 30,000 visitors, most of them from four to five hours away. 

“It’s a really busy time of the year for the Flathead, so there would be a lot of visitors, but one of the things we’ve found is that a lot of people and their friends and family plan trips around that weekend,” Unterreiner said. “We get a lot of visitors. It’s absolutely a great thing, so it’s a disappointment to have them cancel.”

Unterreiner was also concerned about the impact funding cuts would have on Glacier National Park. 

“We’ll wait and see how things play out,” he said. “Obviously, Glacier National Park is a huge federal asset in our area and the opening of the Sun Road is a top priority for us. It remains to be seen how other impacts may play out here.”

Glacier National Park

According to Glacier National Park public affairs officer Denise Germann, the park will see an immediate 5-percent reduction in funds during 2013. This equates to roughly $680,000.

“We’re looking at the options of impacts that it may have and trying to determine where we will implement the cuts,” Germann said. “That can mean anything from limiting trail openings to facilities, campgrounds, visitor centers and may have an impact on our seasonal workers.”

Germann said the park employs anywhere from 350 to 370 seasonal workers in the summer. The funding cuts may mean these employees get to the park earlier, leave the park later or simply are not hired.

Going-To-The-Sun Road offers some of the most breathtaking views of Glacier. However, the 50-mile route is more than 75 years old and has been under construction for some time. Continued construction may be affected by spending cuts. 

“It’s a domino effect,” Germann said. “Because everything we do or don’t do impacts everything else we do or don’t do. I would anticipate visitors will see impacts this summer. To what level or where, we have not determined yet.”

Germann said the sequestration will limit the park’s ability to provide its usual services and facilities. This includes anything related to the park’s interpretive education programs, law enforcement, maintenance, research, resource protection — “I mean, it’s quite broad,” she said. “At Glacier, we serve almost 2 million visitors per year, and those services vary from providing a campsite to a ranger-led hike, to emergency services and search and rescue, to access to facilities and roads, educational tours, presentations for school groups, (and) the list goes on.”

Germann said the park has already cut travel expenses out of the budget to save money, and with the exception of park employees required to travel in order to maintain required certification levels — like EMS personnel — no one is traveling. 

“We focus on visitor services, so this is very challenging to our work force,” Germann said. 

Yellowstone National Park

The home of Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park, like Glacier, will be forced to to operate with less funds this year — considerably less. 

“It’s not about being scared,” said park spokesman Al Nash. “We have been tasked with operating for the remainder of this fiscal year with $1.75 million less than we had planned for and expected to have available to serve visitors and protect the park.”

Nash said decreased hours will be the first thing visitors will notice. The park’s interior will open to automobile traffic one to two weeks later than originally scheduled. 

“Beyond that, we currently have some permanent positions that are vacant and we expect additional positions to become vacant over the course of the year to retirement or transfer. Those positions will remain open,” Nash said. 

And, similar to Glacier, Yellowstone may have fewer summer seasonal employees, less available hours for those employees, and will be forced to cut back on training and travel.

National Bison Range

According to National Bison Range outdoor recreation planner Pat Jaimeson, the range is not in bad shape, thanks to planning ahead for these funding cuts while designing the new budget. 

“Sequestration is telling us we will have less money,” Jaimeson said. “At the end of March, we will be told if we have any money at all (when the budget is decided)."

The National Bison Range has operated under a continuing resolution for several years, meaning the range simply operated under the previous year’s budget restrictions. If a new budget is not decided upon before the end of March, the range may have to shut down. 

“That’s how politics works, but we’re doing OK,” Jaimeson said. “Some things are tight and we’re looking at (reducing the) summer-seasonal help, but at this point we’re not worried too much because we haven’t been over-staffed and we’ve been working on our budget with that cut in mind.

“At this point, we’re planning to be kind of normal.”

Kicking Horse Job Corps

According to the United States Department of Labor, “The Job Corps is a free education and training program that helps young people learn a career, earn a high school diploma or GED, and find and keep a good job. For eligible young people at least 16 years of age that qualify as low income, Job Corps provides the all-around skills needed to succeed in a career and in life.”

The Kicking Horse Job Corps is a federally funded institution run by the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes. According to CSKT Economic Development Coordinator Joseph Dupuis, Kicking Horse is forward-funded, meaning the fiscal year runs July 1 to June 30 and it is not directly affected by the sequester yet. 

“After July 1, then sequestration would affect the resources available to the program nationally on that program year basis,” Dupuis explained. “We haven’t received any instructions and we don’t know what that is currently.”

Kicking Horse has been operating under an unrelated stop-work order since the end of January. 

“The reason (Kicking Horse is under a stop-work order) is that Job Corps nationally is overobligated in comparison to the appropriations from Congress, so they need to get their spending or obligations down to the appropriation level or below. They cannot spend more than Congress appropriates for them.”

Dupuis stressed that the Kicking Horse Job Corps is actually under budget for fiscal year 2013 and the stop work order came as a result of problems at the national level, not Kicking Horse. 

“The major part of the stop-work order suspended enrollment to all centers in the country in January 2013,” Dupuis explained. “That will stay in place either until they get their costs or obligations below the appropriations level or until June 30. The effect of (the stop-work order) is that because we are an open-entry open-exit program, we get new kids every week, and kids graduate every week. So, since January, week by week our student population numbers will decrease.”

Dupuis said this process is expected to reduce costs for both personnel and other budget line items. 

“We’re looking at furloughing staff, depending on how many students go out,” he said. “We have to keep our staff numbers in proportion to (student numbers) from now until they lift the stop-work order or until June 30. 

If the stop-work order is not lifted and Kicking Horse is subjected to the sequestration as written June 30, projections indicate the Corps would need to furlough half of the center’s 79 employees and limit student capacity by half. So far, no staff have been furloughed as the center was operating with unfilled positions. 

“Depending on what student populations are, I suspect we will need to start furloughing people within the next two weeks,” Dupuis said. “We have not had to make compromises in the facility or programs offered yet, but the whole question will be entirely dependent on how many students we have and what trades they are taking. The whole reduction will be based on the number of students we have left and how we’re going to economize putting classes together.”

Dupuis said he is concerned because the center has the potential to lose a number of staff between now and June 30. And, if student numbers begin to increase, the center will have lost staff with hard-to-replace training and experience. 

“It’s a difficult time for staff, especially those who end up in a situation where their positions are not going to be sentient until we know what’s going on with the funding,” Dupuis said. 

Flathead Reservation schools

Several schools on the Flathead Indian Reservation receive some form of aid from the federal government. Impact aid is among them, and may soon be cut short. 

In most school districts, the majority of funding for public schools comes from property taxes levied against those who live within the district’s borders. If a school district is located in an area with few homes and large tracts of land set aside by the federal government, i.e. military bases, national parks or Indian reservations, impact aid makes up the difference that would have been paid out to these school districts through property taxes had the federal government not repurposed the land. 

Sequestration will take a large chunk away from impact aid, affecting nearly every school district on the Flathead Indian Reservation. 

Arlee Superintendent of Schools George Linthicum said as far as he knows, this year’s payment is still approximately 70 percent of the proposed yearly funding allotment. 

“But, as far as whether or not we get the remainder, I guess that remains to be seen,” Linthicum said. 

Linthicum said schools were told in summer 2012 to expect only 70 percent of their projected funding amount for the year. 

“Only now are the politicians sitting down and examining what exactly the result will be,” he said. “From our vantage point, all that we can predict or presume is that unless a clear remedy of the sequestration effect happens in the coming months, we will have to prepare next year’s budget looking at a lesser amount.”

Linthicum said he had no estimate for the coming reduction in aid. 

“Quite honestly, as far as the information we get, even though there was a lot of talk and threats, (politicians) didn’t really have a clear picture of what the actual effect was going to be. We just know that any impact aid, along with any federal funding we get including Title 1, unless the president and Congress get things together in the coming months, will be impacted in some form or another.”

Linthicum added that school officials in Arlee are taking a conservative view with regards to budget planning and expected funding cuts. 

“In general conversation, we’re just looking at dealing with the worst-case scenario and celebrating if we get anything above that,” he said. “We’re neither panicking nor profitizing. 

“Bottom line: We’re probably doing things like all the other school districts — taking a look at every program, giving them priority rankings, and, if money is short, deciding how we are going to respond to it.”

Ronan Superintendent of Schools Andy Holmlund spent the majority of last week at the National Association of Federally Impacted Schools conference in Washington, D.C., talking with other similarly impacted school district representatives. 

“The way the law sits today, and all of this is probably going to change within two months based on what Congress chooses to do, but under the current law impact aid itself will get a 5.1-percent cut for the fiscal year,” Holmlund said. “If you do the math, you’re looking at huge cuts to the federal government’s support of schools. Congress is going to have to determine if those are reasonable levels for cuts, and the president will sign off on what will come to pass.”

While Holmlund has not calculated the actual dollar amount reduction in funding for this fiscal year, he did say he’s been working on reducing sequestration’s effects for the past three years and does not believe this year’s cuts will be large. 

“For some districts, this is very significant,” Holmlund explained. “The amount of impact aid dollars are 50 to 60 percent of (some school districts’) operational budgets. For some districts, this could close schools.”

All seven Indian Reservations in Montana had representatives at the meetings, so Holmlund was able to hear about these potential impacts and how they vary across the state firsthand. 

“I know that services will be reduced and children will be left out. That’s not acceptable,” he said. “Politicans all say they support education. It’s a universal platform, and if sequestration goes forward as enacted, I would challenge anyone to say that politicians are putting children first.”

As Holmlund understands it, Congress is still divided along party lines. He hopes they can find middle ground to move things forward “so children have the opportunity to live out their dreams. 

“An uneducated population is going to make it very difficult for the United States to stay competitive economically. If (Washington politicians) can’t add that up, we’re headed the wrong way as a country,” he explained.

The Ronan-Pablo School District is in a position to continue to deliver services at its normal level, but if sequestration continues as enacted, “In three years, we’re in trouble,” Holmlund said.