From: HeraldNet/Washington Post
WASHINGTON — The impact of sequestration budgetary limits imposed last year may never be fully known, a new study says, but one effect on federal employees is clear: it cost nearly 800,000 of them upward of $1.4 billion total in lost salary.
A Government Accountability Office report examined the effect inside and outside the government of the more than $80 billion in reductions imposed last spring to meet budgetary targets.
Agencies were able to soften the impact by moving money within or between certain accounts and by spending funds carried forward from prior years, but sequestration still “reduced or delayed some public services and disrupted some operations,” the report said. “For example, sequestration reduced the size and number of grants, vouchers, and other forms of assistance provided to states and localities, nonprofits, and other partner entities that assist in carrying out federal missions.”
For the public, sequestration affected beneficiaries of emergency unemployment compensation benefits, children’s nutrition programs, low-income housing vouchers, Head Start school readiness programs, as well as biomedical, emerging technology and cybersecurity research, the report said.
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