Heather Curtis
WMAL.com
WASHINGTON (WMAL) – County leaders in the D.C. Metro area are holding their breath as the deadline nears to pass a temporary bill to keep the federal government open.
“When the federal government sneezes, Montgomery County catches a cold,” said Montgomery County Executive Ike Leggett.
Many federal workers and contractors live in Montgomery County, and Leggett said even a short shutdown could have serious ramifications for the county.
The same is true in Fairfax County according to Chair of the county’s board of supervisors Sharon Bulova. In 2013, federal civilian employment made up about 4 percent of all jobs in Fairfax County according to Bulova, and the county lost $150 million in income every day during the 2013 shutdown. The entire National Capital Region lost $217 million a day according to Virginia Rep. Gerry Connolly.
“Federal employees were not prepared to spend money and, in fact, had to retreat actually from doing things that otherwise help to stimulate the economy,” Bulova said.
Bulova said a shutdown could also temporarily halt human services programs run by the federal government, including the supplemental nutrition program Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).
In the past, Bulova said Fairfax County has created reserves to help maintain critical services that were suspended during shutdowns.
“We can act as sort of a bridge while the crisis exists, but again, we’re a local government and we’re not prepared to step in and actually take over services or pay for services that need to be paid for by the federal government,” said Bulova.
Phyllis Randall, chair of the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors, said her county was not hit hard during the last shutdown in 2013, and there was no impact on services for residents.
“We expect that the impact if the government shuts down, and we certainly hope it does not, would be fairly negligible to Loudoun County,” Randall said.
Still, Randall acknowledged Loudoun County has a lot of federal workers, just like other counties in the National Capital Region, who could feel some effects of a shutdown.
The federal government will shut down if Congress does not reach a deal on the budget or agree on a short-term spending extension by Friday night at Midnight.
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