Staffers at the Government Accountability Office are bracing for budget cuts and potential field office closures that will be announced next week. Faced with several years of flat and declining budgets, senior officials at the government watchdog agency are putting the final touches on a plan that could cut up to 500 jobs and close up to three of the agency’s 11 field offices, and the plan is expected to be announced sometime next week. The cuts are being driven by a significant reduction in funding for the agency. The House cut 7 percent from the agency’s flat $556.8 million Fiscal Year 2012 budget request earlier this year, and Senate appropriators cut 9 percent, meaning the agency is facing cuts between $45 and $55 million. After several years of budget-tightening, the only place left to cut is personnel, one official told NW&M Monitor. “It’s not clear how the cuts will be balanced,” the official said. “Whether the staff reductions will come entirely from field office closures or if everyone will be asked to share the weight and there will be wide-ranging layoffs across the organization.”
The impact, however, will likely be felt across Congress. The agency has already scaled back its work, declining individual member requests for work and performing only work requested by committees or subcommittees, and because of the cutbacks, the agency could have to further limit what it can do to only reports and studies mandated by statute. “We’re going to have to redo our priority system,” the official said.
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