Delays will be far reaching. Just ask Chris Niedermayer, who during the fiscal 1996 shutdown was working at the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service, now known as the Farm Service Agency. The agency pays out hundreds of millions of dollars at a time to farmers whose crops have been destroyed by a flood, drought, tornado or other natural disaster.

Angry Letters

When the service came back on line in 1996, workers were met by a backlog of work “that was hard to really recover from,” he said. It took weeks for the agency to send checks out, during which farmers and businesses in disaster areas sent angry letters and vented their frustration in phone calls.

In the end, an increased workload becomes normal. “People are expected to do more and you don’t get anything for it,” Niedermayer said.

Niedermayer watched the latest shutdown as a federal contractor. Now senior knowledge officer at Battle Resource Management Inc., a consulting firm in Washington, he saw what was a profitable year turn into a losing one. Employee bonuses were depleted, and the company lost a few staff members who left for other work.

“As a contractor, you don’t ever really recover from a financial standpoint,” said Niedermayer, whose firm does work for the Homeland Security, Interior and Treasury departments and some intelligence agencies. “It’s devastating.”

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