No furloughs (yet) for security agency, contractor

While week-old automatic budget cuts have hit hundreds of civilian defense and aviation workers in Nevada with imminent furloughs, effects from the sequester law that President Barack Obama signed March 1 remained to be seen Friday for the agency and prime contractor that run the Nevada National Security Site.

In a letter Tuesday, Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel B. Poneman told Gov. Brian Sandoval that DOE contractors “may be forced to furlough 370 workers in Nevada” beginning April 1 because of funding reductions that are estimated to be $32 million through the end of the federal fiscal year Sept. 30.

Most of those workers are employed by the prime contractor, National Security Technologies LLC, at the site, formerly known as the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Nevada Field Office in North Las Vegas.

But a spokesman for National Security Technologies said the company on Friday wasn’t planning any across-the-board furloughs or reductions in force.

“We are looking at some other cost-cutting measures. Nothing final has been decided,” company spokesman Dante Pistone wrote in an email.

“A lot depends on what happens with the CR,” his email reads, referring to the “continuing resolution.”

Pistone said his response was based on more recent information from company officials than the “preliminary analysis” of furlough and funding reduction numbers in the letter from Poneman, who serves as DOE’s chief operating officer.

The company, also known as NSTec, has 1,983 employees in Nevada and holds a $550 million contract this year with the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Nevada Field Office.

Agency spokesman Darwin Morgan said 118 federal employees work at the security site and the Nevada Field Office, combined.

“So far, there have not been any furlough notices issued to any of our NNSA and DOE employees,” Morgan said.

Meanwhile, furlough notices were sent Tuesday to more than 220 Federal Aviation Administration employees in the Las Vegas Valley. They are among 47,000 nationwide who were given 15 days to respond and let supervisors know the 11 days — one per pay period — they will take off without pay from April 7 through Sept. 30.

Officials for the Air Force and the Army also have said nearly 2,000 of their civilian workers in Nevada can expect furlough notices for 20 percent pay cuts.

Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.