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Show HAFB furlough may be avoided By GARY R. BLODGETT OGDEN Congressman James V. Hansen (R-Utah) announced last week that "all is not lost" regarding re-garding the threat of Hill AFB civilian civi-lian employees being placed on a two weeks' furlough beginning in April. "What most people do not understand is that there are funds available to keep Hill AFB civilian employees and civilians at other military installations around the country on the job," said Rep. Hansen at a special news conference confer-ence held in his Ogden office. "But the money can't be used because the maintenance and operation oper-ation fund from which the money is appropriated has dried up and the existing federal law will not allow for transfer of funds from one agency agen-cy to another." He said a new (amended) law will have to be passed by Congress in order to "free up" the available money by allowing funds to be transferred from another account into the operation and maintenance (O&M) fund for distribution as salaries for civilian employees. "I don't think there is a chance of Congress passing such a bill as an outright bill going through the routine channels of Congress, but there are other ways of doing it and with the (Congressional) support that I have I believe that it can be done within the next six weeks," he said. If not, nearly 12,000 civilians at Hill AFB and hundreds of thousands at other military installations instal-lations will be placed on "mandatory "man-datory furlough without pay" for up to two weeks. "I'm doing my best to see that this doesn't happen," said Rep. Hansen. "It's not fair that these people suffer for a terrible mistake made by Congress." "I'll give it to you straight," he told a small gathering of local news media, "Congress made the mistake mis-take that created this situation and Congress should correct that mistake mis-take before all of these people go w through unnecessary suffering." He explained that until a few years ago it was possible for commanders com-manders of military installations to borrow from one fund to replenish another with certain stipulations "but now their hands are tied." "Congress made a big mistake when it passed the Aspen Amendment Amend-ment restricting the transfer of funds," the congressman said. "Now it's time for Congress to correct cor-rect that mistake and change the Aspen Amendment." He said that to do so would make available up to $4 billion sufficient suffi-cient to keep the civilians working without a hardship on them and would prevent this country from being put in a precarious situation defensewise. "Civilians are the backbone of our defense and to furlough great numbers of these people at one time could be a detriment to the federal government and a threat to our national security," Rep. Hansen Han-sen explained. "It could mean fewer ships at sea and planes in the air with such a dramatic cutback of personnel at one time not to mention the hardships that each civilian worker and his or her family would be put through with such a mandatory reduction re-duction of the federal workplace." He praised the civilian workforce work-force by saying that "they accepted their jobs in good faith and probably at less salary than they could have made in private industry and it's just not right to place them on furlough unless it is absolutely necessary." Rep. Hansen said he has "more than a dozen" supporters of his bill both Republicans and Democrats Demo-crats who will try every way possible to get the bill passed by Congress before April. "I'll attach it to every bill that comes along and one way or another we will beat this thing," he stressed, noting that he is also putting put-ting pressure on top White House and Department of Defense officials offi-cials in an attempt to head off the proposed furloughs and layoffs. |