The threat of a federal government shutdown next week could hurt thousands of workers in Hawaii — pushing them off the job without pay indefinitely — and prevent thousands of daily visitors from enjoying the state’s unique national parks.
It’s still not clear what the exact, total impacts on Hawaii would be from the potential abrupt stop to various government services. But figures from U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz’s office indicate the move would leave some 25,000 federal workers across multiple agencies out of work.
The mail would still come, doctors would see Medicare patients — and the majority of the government would remain on the job. But vacationers would be unable to visit the USS Arizona Memorial and Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park. Older residents would face delays processing their applications for Social Security and Medicare benefits, and kids would endure longer waits seeking delinquent child support.
Those and other impacts could hit as early as Tuesday if a bitterly divided Congress fails to approve a temporary spending bill to keep the government running.
With a shutdown, nearly 400,000 of the Pentagon’s 800,000 civilian workforce would be idled, with no guarantee of retroactive pay.
Civilian and even some military defense employees would feel those effects. Workers at Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, the state’s largest industrial employer, were exempted from six furlough days imposed in this fiscal year’s sequestration — but most would be affected by a shutdown.
About 3,100 shipyard employees would be sent home if Congress doesn’t resolve the funding mess, while about 1,300 would remain on the job to ensure safety and protect property, said Ben Toyama, a union representative.
"The employees are very, very concerned," Toyama said Friday. "Our office has been jumping all day long. We’ve been fielding phone calls."
Work on several nuclear-powered submarines would come to a virtual standstill, Toyama added.
Hawaii National Guard spokesman Lt. Col. Chuck Anthony said a shutdown could postpone drills scheduled for Oct. 5-6, affecting about 5,000 soldiers and airmen.
Rescheduling the monthly drills for all the units that take part would be a nightmare, Anthony said.
"The amount of work that has to go into rethinking and replanning things is just ridiculous," he said.
About 1,000 Hawaii National Guard employees would also be out of work, with a few hundred kept on for safety and to protect property, Anthony said.
"As a generalization, I don’t think anybody would be happy knowing that they can’t train and prepare as effectively as they should," Anthony said. "Of course, people would be upset that they can’t do the job that they are supposed to be doing."
The federal technicians who would be out of work are the "backbone" of the full-time force that supports the Hawaii National Guard, Anthony said.
U.S. Army Garrison Hawaii said of its more than 800 appropriated-fund employees, about 300 would be "excepted" — the term the Pentagon uses for employees who will stay on the job for safety, security and emergency reasons.
The other 500 would be furloughed, an official said.
There are about 950 appropriated-fund civilian employees assigned to Navy Region Hawaii, and about 360 of them face furlough, the command said.
At Navy Region Hawaii a shutdown would disrupt the training and travel of military and civilian employees — unless it was connected to an excepted activity, base spokeswoman Agnes Tauyan said.
Commissaries in Hawaii will be open Tuesday and then begin "a systematic closure process to account for unsold products and secure facilities" if there’s a shutdown, according to a Defense Commissary Agency release issued Friday. What that process will be was not made clear.
A shutdown would also close the country’s 401 national parks. Eight are in Hawaii, including the only one in the U.S. where visitors can see a continuously active volcano and another containing the sunken site of the USS Arizona — one of the nation’s most hallowed war memorials.
Those two national parks — Volcanoes, on the Big Island, and the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument on Oahu — draw some 8,850 daily visitors combined, according to park personnel.
"For some it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit the USS Arizona Memorial, so we certainly hope to maintain access," monument spokeswoman Eileen Martinez said Friday. The monument would furlough 35 of its 39 employees if a shutdown occurs, she said.
"I’m sure our visitors to the island would be quite disappointed" if they can’t visit Volcanoes, which in addition to the lava flows offers extensive hiking and camping, park Superintendent Cindy Orlando said.
The park has already decided it won’t issue back-country permits that could be used after Monday, which could possibly leave hikers in the park after a shutdown, Orlando said. The storied 33-room Volcano House lodge, which just reopened in the park this summer after renovations, is also working on alternative arrangements for guests who had reservations after Thursday in case of a shutdown, Orlando added. Volcanoes would see 127 of its employees furloughed and 13 stay on to secure the site and respond in case of emergency.
In addition, shutting down the parks would hit their partners, including concessionaires at Volcanoes and the Pacific Historic Parks who offer interpretive programs, Orlando and Martinez said.
Federal courts, including those in Honolulu, plan to keep operations going for at least 10 business days in the event of a shutdown — roughly through Oct. 15 — using fees and other funds. The courts are still planning in case the shutdown lasts longer than that, but any plan would keep essential court functions, Sue Beitia, clerk of the U.S. District Court in Hawaii, said Friday.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
