“We’re in a position to sustain it for multiple months, but not in perpetuity,” Jemal said in a phone interview. “There would be a lot of very substantial ripple effects to many owners throughout the country that would be affected by the lack of payment.”
A GSA spokeswoman, Amanda Osborn, referred questions about rental payments to the agency’s shutdown web page, which says the agency “is aware of concerns from the Lessor community regarding GSA’s ability to make timely rent payments,” and “is diligently exploring all available options.”
City Buses
In Tennessee, the Chattanooga Area Regional Transportation Authority may have to reduce bus service if the shutdown lasts long enough, said Lisa Maragnano, the agency’s executive director.
Federal funding accounted for about 16 percent of the agency’s roughly $22 million annual budget in its 2017 fiscal year, she said. The City of Chattanooga is willing to advance funding for transit budgeted through June 30, roughly $450,000 per month, but that won’t fully cover the shortfall in federal financing.
“It will get us through February maybe, maybe some of March,” she said. “But again, it’s just the unknown. I can’t sit here and tell you definitively that that will cover everything that we need because I don’t know how long this is going to go on for.”
The problem for cities like Chattanooga stems from the shuttering of the Federal Transit Administration, which helps finance both major projects and some operating expenses, especially at smaller agencies. The FTA workers responsible for releasing funds aren’t on the job and public transportation advocates say systems nationwide are already in the early stages of a cash crunch.
“It’s not just the federal employees that will be affected now,” Maragnano said. “It’s going to be all their constituents and folks who rely on transit to get to work and to their medical appointments.”
Court Cases
Another worry is the federal court system. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts announced that its goal is “sustaining paid operations through Jan. 18.’’ At that point, the courts will run on an “essential work’’ basis.
Individual courts would be responsible for deciding what that means.
Some have already suspended civil cases involving the federal government, in part because so many government lawyers have been furloughed.