Coast Guard Will Not Get Final 2018 Paychecks – By Jennifer Shutt (rollcall.com) / Dec 28 2018
Service is funded through Homeland Security, but pay schedule is military, accounting for snafu
The partial government shutdown will likely cause U.S. Coast Guard uniformed personnel to miss their paychecks that otherwise would have gone out Monday, according to Coast Guard spokesman Chad Saylor.
Roughly 42,000 servicemembers, who are typically paid on the first and 15th of each month, will not receive their next paycheck — which would have gone out on Monday, Dec. 31 given the New Year’s Day holiday — due to the ongoing stalemate between Congress and the White House over southern border barriers.
The lack of pay for one of the five branches of the military could put added pressure on lawmakers and the Trump administration to reach an agreement, although the divide over border wall spending appears set to last into the new year.
While the Coast Guard is a branch of the U.S. armed services, it isn’t funded through the annual Defense spending bill, which became law in September. The Coast Guard is funded through by the Department of Homeland Security — one of the nine departments experiencing a partial shutdown after Congress was unable to reach an agreement with the White House to pass a temporary funding extension.
Most of the affected agencies’ civilian employees will get paid Dec. 28, or a few days later, for work performed prior to the start of the shutdown on Dec. 22. That’s because their pay period generally ran from Dec. 9 through Dec. 22.
But since the military pay schedule is different — the pre-shutdown pay period was Dec. 1 through Dec. 15 — Coast Guard members won’t get paid for work they did through Dec. 21. That’s because military pay systems don’t allow for paychecks covering a partial pay period, according to a Q&A posted on the Coast Guard’s website.
If and when there’s a deal to reopen the government that President Donald Trump signs into law, Coast Guard paychecks should be processed within three to five days.
Congress could pass emergency legislation to ensure Coast Guard paychecks go out, but it would need to happen before this weekend. That would likely require both chambers to gavel in briefly and pass legislation by unanimous consent, with Trump’s signature on the other end. All of that happening in the current environment seems like a remote prospect, at best.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/coast-guard-will-not-get-final-2018-paychecks
