OGDEN — As the threat of a federal government shutdown looms, there are some jittery Internal Revenue Service workers.

“People are worried. How are they going to pay the rent?” said Robert Lawrence, president of the local union that represents some of the 7,000 or so Ogden-area IRS employees, Local 67 of the National Treasury Employees Union, or NTEU. He still holds out hope that U.S. lawmakers will reach a compromise on the thorny spending issues at play, but many other workers “think a shutdown is imminent.”

The IRS is the biggest employer in Weber County, with several offices scattered around the Ogden area, thus the potential impact could be notable if lawmakers can’t reach a deal to keep the federal government funded. A federal government shutdown from Dec. 22, 2018, to Jan. 25, 2019, caused financial problems for many in the Ogden area — impacted workers didn’t get pay until the 35-day shutdown ended — as well as a spike in stress and anxiety levels.

Some IRS workers earn in the $14-$16-an-hour range, Lawrence said, thus they may not have savings built up to make ends meet if a shutdown occurs and they’re forced to temporarily make a go of it without a paycheck. “They’re on edge. They’re stressing out at a very difficult time,” he said.

But the area impact wouldn’t be limited to Weber County. Those who are stationed at and work at Hill Air Force Base in neighboring Davis County would also be severely impacted by a shutdown. Military service members would still be required to work, but they wouldn’t get pay until the shutdown, if one occurs, is resolved.

In fact, some 6.2% of workers in the 1st Congressional District, which includes Weber County and northern Davis County, are federal employees, according to a Sept. 22 Congressional Research Service study. That concentration, the largest of Utah’s four congressional districts, represents an estimated 27,653 workers, also the highest figure by far of the four districts.

Hill AFB Director of Public Affairs Thomas Mullican said in a statement that the base is preparing for the possibility of a shutdown.

“We are now preparing our airmen and their families, our operations and our programs to weather the uncertainty we face from the potential shutdown,” he said. “A shutdown is a significantly disruptive event for our airmen and their families, our operations and our investment programs and a distraction from our focus on the nation’s defense.”

Nonessential operations would be curtailed, and the Hill Aerospace Museum on base grounds would shut its doors. “However, we will continue select operations critical to our airmen’s safety, protection of property, ongoing operations and national defense,” Mullican said.

A “limited number” of civilian airmen would keep working, receiving paychecks, while others would be furloughed. All uniformed airmen and some other civilian employees would have to work without pay, though they’d get paychecks for the shutdown period once it is resolved, same as IRS and other furloughed workers.

“Delayed payments will create financial hardships for our airmen and civilian personnel. This has the potential to significantly impact the economic impact the base has on the local economy if a resolution is not reached in time for normal mid-month pay to be issued,” Mullican said.

According to Lawrence, the IRS, part of the U.S. Department of Treasury, employs some 7,500 people in the Ogden area. As of 2021, the Utah Department of Workforce Services put the number of Department of Treasury workers in Weber County at 5,000 to 6,999, the No. 1 employer.

Doreen Greenwald, president of the national NTEU union, said the pay scale of Ogden-area IRS workers typically lags behind IRS employees elsewhere in the country, potentially compounding the impact of a shutdown.

“They’re usually on the low-end of the scale,” she said. Most federal employees, she went on, “live paycheck to paycheck.”

Nationwide, the IRS employs around 89,000 workers, with around 30,000 of the total likely to remain on the job if a shutdown occurs. “It’s a very serious time. They have to make decisions,” Greenwald said.

WIC, NATIONAL PARKS

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said in a statement Thursday that the state has a plan to keep the Utah Women, Infants and Children Program, or WIC, operating if there’s a shutdown. The program provides nutrition services.

The state also has a plan to keep Utah’s five national parks open. “Our tourism economy is also of vital importance and we’ve communicated to (U.S.) Interior Secretary (Deb) Haaland our plan to keep Utah’s national parks open if she is willing to work with us, and our expectation that any state dollars spent will be restored to the people of Utah,” Cox said.

U.S. Sen. Mike Lee also reached out to Haaland about Utah getting federal reimbursement for any money spent to keep the national parks in the state operating during a shutdown. “This reimbursement is essential to alleviate the financial burden placed on our state during these challenging times,” he said in a letter to Haaland.

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