State’s Federal Employees Ready for Any Shutdown : Government: Squabble over budget threatens to idle many of the 195,000 workers in California next week. But essential services would continue.

If the federal government shuts down Monday at midnight, a massive ripple effect will strike California, sending thousands of federal employees home from work and freezing myriad public services that help make up the fabric of everyday life.

The mail will go through--because the Postal Service no longer depends on appropriated funds--and Social Security checks will be processed. But national parks and museums will curtail operations and dozens of federal offices throughout the state will be unable to provide normal service.

While 15% of all federal employees work in Washington, California is home to 195,000 such workers, sprinkled through many of the more than 130 federal agencies nationwide.

“This is second time this year we’ve been on the brink,” said Nora M. Manella, the U. S. attorney in Los Angeles. “Everybody’s on notice.” She said senior law enforcement officials will determine which employees are nonessential if the shutdown starts.

Precise figures were not available for individual agencies, but officials in the Office of Personnel Management say that two out of every five federal employees can expect to be furloughed if the White House and Congress cannot resolve their bitter differences over the federal budget.

In California, that means 78,000 workers might be sent home on Tuesday morning. For the Los Angeles/Long Beach area, about 11,600 of the federal work force of nearly 29,000 could be affected.

Of the 3,600 federal employees in Orange County, as many as 2,000 may be temporarily laid off, according to the Office of Personnel Management.

Should the shutdown last for several days, the economic costs could be staggering. The average federal salary in the Los Angeles/Long Beach area is nearly $42,000 a year, easily multiplying into millions of dollars in missing paychecks.

The last government shutdown cost $3.4 million--but it occurred over the three-day Columbus Day weekend in 1990. Included in that figure is $834,000 in compensation to employees who were regularly scheduled to work but were sent home.

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A General Accounting Office report on the 1990 shutdown estimated that the nationwide cost of a hypothetical three-day shutdown during the workweek would range from $245 million to $607 million.

Furlough plans have been worked out in advance by federal agencies. In fact, the plans submitted for Tuesday’s possible shutdown are merely dusted-off versions of those plans readied for the last threatened shutdown several weeks ago.

The plans take into account interpretations by the U.S. attorney general of court rulings and laws that apply when the government runs out of money.

In general, the federal government cannot spend money that has not been appropriated, but allowances are made for retaining essential personnel. Medical care at veterans hospitals, Medicare and federal prisons will operate normally. The armed forces, law enforcement personnel, food inspectors, air traffic controllers and other essential employees will be unaffected. Employees involved in border control and inspections will also remain on the job.

Thousands of other employees, whose jobs are not considered critical to keeping the skeletal federal bureaucracy afloat, will be directed to quit work temporarily.

All federal workers have been told to report for work Monday and Tuesday. If a last-minute deal averts the shutdown, no work stoppage occurs. But managers and supervisors have been directed to send all designated furloughed workers home within three hours, according to a memo from the Office of Management and Budget sent out Thursday.

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In most cases, environmental regulation, enforcement, research and grant programs would cease, along with rural development and farm credit programs. Most field offices would be understaffed.

In California, visitors planning to tour Yosemite and other national parks and monuments after a shutdown could encounter some restrictions in park services.

But a spokeswoman for the Ahwahnee Hotel in Yosemite National Park said that the park would be open to visitors and that the concessions--including hotel and restaurant operations--would be unaffected. She was uncertain how other activities such as camping would fare under the shutdown.

Department of Interior firefighting personnel, Department of Justice criminal prosecutors, and most FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration agents in California will remain on the job, but those federal employees who answer questions, process applications and offer guided tours will suddenly be without a workplace.

John Hoos, spokesman for the FBI’s Los Angeles office, said employees are following the developments closely and awaiting instructions on precisely what to do. “There’s concern. It’s never happened, but we’ve never gone this far either.”

While veterans’ and welfare checks would continue to arrive, new food stamp applications would be rejected beginning next week.

Likewise, Social Security checks will continue, but processing of new Social Security numbers and Supplemental Security Income applications would peter out after about 14 days, federal officials said.

In some cases, federal programs are not dependent on appropriated funds or rely on user fees for revenue. Many of the workers in those programs will be unaffected.

Of the more than 130 federal agencies, 45 have offices in the Los Angeles/Long Beach area, according to the Office of Personnel Management.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has the largest number of workers, 8,500, followed by the Department of Transportation with 4,100, the Department of the Navy with 3,600, the Department of Justice with 2,500 and the Department of Defense with 2,300.